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Portland Press Herald, Maine


MAINE'S GUN LAWS COULDN'T STOP 2 DEADLY SHOOTINGS THIS YEAR. ARE MORE LAWS THE
ANSWER?

John Terhune, Portland Press Herald, Maine
Sun, September 3, 2023 at 12:31 PM EDT·17 min read
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Sep. 3—Joseph Eaton, a convicted felon, was prohibited by federal and state law
from possessing firearms. But those bans did not stop him, fresh out of prison,
from staying at a home where firearms were present, grabbing his mother's
handgun from her bag, and — by his admission — killing his parents and two close
family friends.

Marcel LaGrange's violent behavior and emotional instability repeatedly put him
behind bars — first at Long Creek Youth Development Center, where he told
corrections staff he planned to kill innocent people, and then at the Cumberland
County jail. But no state or federal law prevented him from possessing a
firearm, and his wasn't taken away until he allegedly killed a Westbrook couple,
seemingly at random, in a parking lot in front of their two children.

In Maine, these cases have been used by people on both sides of the gun control
debate to argue that gun laws don't work or that more gun laws are required. And
the public discourse has grown more heated.

Because the state is one of the few with high rates of firearm ownership but low
rates of homicide, it has rarely been forced to reconcile its hunting culture
and libertarian streak with the violence that regularly shakes other parts of
the country.



But as incidents of gun violence have grown here, it's no longer easy to sit on
the sidelines and watch the national debate over how to prevent them.

In Maine, the question is not really about how Eaton and LaGrange got guns —
because few restrictions or safeguards exist to stand in their way. It's whether
the state might ever enact stricter gun laws and how much difference that would
make in keeping guns out of the wrong hands.

Cumberland County District Attorney Jackie Sartoris, who called for tougher gun
laws after Eaton's April shooting sprees in Bowdoin and Yarmouth, is not so
optimistic. The state, she said, has a surplus of guns and a shortage of
political will to close firearm loopholes.

"It's uncomfortable in Maine to talk about guns," Sartoris said. "Maine has a
kind of bipartisan support for the Second Amendment in its most extreme form."

Efforts to reform the state's gun laws, which are some of the weakest in the
country, have repeatedly come up short. Strong Democratic majorities in both
chambers of the legislature this year once again failed to pass widely popular
gun control measures, including universal background checks.

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, has opposed proposals like limits to high-capacity
magazines, while most of Maine's congressional delegation continues to balk at
supporting an assault weapons ban.

Maine has about 20 gun homicides annually, but increasing numbers of suicides
have driven up the rate of gun deaths in recent years, from 7.8 deaths per
100,000 residents in 2005 to 12.6 in 2021, according to data from the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. And police and prosecutors have noted the
increasing presence of guns at crime scenes since the onset of the pandemic.
Sartoris warns more violence is likely.

"Part of the Maine tradition of hunting is around guns," Sartoris said. "Well,
these are not guns that are being used for hunting anything but people."

LOOPHOLES

To pro-gun rights advocates, Eaton's shooting sprees are a prime example of the
folly of gun control measures. If laws actually did anything to prevent
dangerous people from getting their hands on weapons, they say, then the state
and federal statutes barring felons from possessing firearms should have stopped
Eaton. Instead, he easily got hold of his mother's pistol and eight more
unsecured guns he found in the Bowdoin home of his family friends, according to
court documents.

Justin Davis, the state director of the National Rifle Association, said
expanding gun control measures is unnecessary and would unfairly burden
law-abiding gun owners. The state could more effectively prevent shootings, he
said, by imposing longer sentences on people convicted of violent crimes so they
are not free to re-offend.

"Enforce the laws already on our books, equip law enforcement with the resources
they need, and ensure that criminals face justice," Davis said in an email. "The
true adversaries are criminals exploiting these lax policies, not responsible
gun owners."

But enforcing existing gun laws is easier said than done.

Margaret Groban, a faculty member at the Maine School of Law and a former
prosecutor, conceded that no law could keep a felon from stealing a weapon. But
she said loopholes in Maine's gun laws would have made it easy for Eaton to get
a gun without resorting to theft or the black market.

Buying a gun from a licensed dealer requires a background check in Maine, but
there's no such requirement in a private sale. While private sellers are still
technically liable if they sell to barred buyers, nothing would stop such a sale
from going through unless the seller voluntarily chose to go to a licensed
dealer and request a background check on the buyer.

The Eaton case prompted numerous gun proposals in the Maine Legislature last
session. But a bill that would have required background checks for private sales
passed in the House and then failed to make it through the Senate.

Online marketplaces like Uncle Henry's make it easy to find individuals looking
to sell or swap guns. As of Aug. 24, the website listed nearly 200 shotguns,
handguns, and rifles available within 25 miles of Bowdoin. It's also legal in
Maine for someone to loan a firearm to a friend, for an indefinite period, with
no background check.

It's highly unlikely police will ever find out that a prohibited person bought a
gun in a private sale, Groban said, unless a third party reports it — or the
buyer uses it to commit a crime.

"The authorities don't know everyone who's prohibited," she said. "They don't
walk around with a sign on their head saying, 'I'm a prohibited person.'"

Convicted felons also can easily get around firearm restrictions by going online
to purchase parts for ghost guns — which don't have serial numbers — said
Sartoris, the district attorney. While some states have restricted the practice,
it's legal and easy to buy metal or polymer gun forms known as frames or
receivers, which are advertised as being 80% finished. In a matter of minutes,
buyers can add other legally purchased parts to construct fully functioning,
untraceable guns.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has attempted to create
a new rule to require frames to have serial numbers and buyers to get background
checks. But a Texas judge vacated the rule — and even though the Supreme Court
last month ruled the ATF can temporarily implement its new policy while the
litigation moves through the court system, some ghost gun manufacturers are
continuing to advertise and sell their untraceable products.

Because no federal or state database tracks gun ownership and federal funds for
gun research have been limited for years, it's impossible to know exactly how
many firearms there are in Maine, said Kelly Drane, research director at the
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a nonprofit focused on promoting
gun safety.

A 2020 study by the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that
45% of Maine households owned at least one gun between 2007 and 2016, well above
the national average of 32%. Combined with other data from the 2015 National
Firearm Survey that suggests the average firearm owner in the U.S. has just
under five weapons, that figure suggests there could be well over a million guns
in the state — perhaps one for each of its nearly 1.4 million residents.

The sheer number of guns in Maine means it is difficult to keep weapons out of
the hands of anyone committed to getting one, particularly when firearm
ownership is so normalized that people are often comfortable keeping unsecured
weapons around prohibited friends and family members, Groban said.

But she said legislators should still work to close loopholes by instituting
such policies as universal background checks and waiting periods.

"It's true that criminals will get guns," she said. "But can't we make it more
difficult? If they have to go through four steps instead of one to get a gun,
doesn't that make us safer?"

RED FLAGS

Marcel LaGrange's court records indicate that he displayed violent and unstable
tendencies long before he was charged with murder in the fatal shootings of two
people in a Westbrook parking lot in June.

After he lost his job at Goodwill for shoplifting in 2018, a corrections officer
said, the teenager told staff at Long Creek Youth Correctional Center that he
wanted "revenge" on his former co-workers.

"I just can't wait to see the look on their faces when they see a bunch of
(expletive) kids die and a bunch of other innocent people," he said, according
to court records. "People that weren't even involved will get killed."

LaGrange never carried out his threat but spent the next several years in and
out of the justice system. Twice in 2020, court records show, he was asked to
leave his home for displaying violent behavior: Once, he tried to set the door
of his room on fire after getting into an argument about his dry skin; on
another occasion, he assaulted his grandmother while she was driving.

In the year before the Westbrook shooting, he regularly posted selfies of
himself with a handgun on Facebook, sometimes accompanied by violent song
lyrics.

Maine State Police and the Office of the Maine Attorney General have refused to
answer questions about how LaGrange got the gun they believe he used to commit
the shootings. But Groban said he was probably able to purchase the weapon
legally.

Because prosecutors agreed to drop the felony arson charge against LaGrange if
he pleaded guilty to lesser charges for the attempt to set his room on fire, he
was not barred from owning a gun, a state police spokesperson confirmed. While
certain types of domestic violence convictions can result in gun bans,
grandson-on-grandmother assaults probably wouldn't apply, Groban said.

And so even though LaGrange had bipolar disorder and autism, court records say,
and a history of violent threats and actions, LaGrange could legally have passed
a background check and bought a weapon from a licensed dealer.

Could other state laws have prevented him from getting a gun? Groban suggested
that Maine's "yellow flag" law, intended to keep weapons out of the hands of
unstable individuals, could have helped if it had been written with more
powerful language — language the Legislature considered in 2019 before facing
bipartisan opposition.

The law that passed in 2019 allows police to seek a court order to temporarily
confiscate firearms and other weapons from people deemed a danger to themselves
or others. After a slow ramp-up period, police departments around the state have
used the law 67 times through the end of July, including 39 times in 2023,
according to recent data from the attorney general's office.

But even though police are increasingly using the statute, its weaknesses
continue to limit its effectiveness, Groban said. In states with stronger "red
flag" laws, worried family members or friends can directly petition a court to
try to get firearms confiscated. But in Maine, they must first go through
police, a step Groban said some people are reluctant to take for fear they will
get loved ones in trouble.

And while a 24/7 mental health hotline has made it easier for police to get the
psychiatric evaluations Maine's yellow flag law requires before firearms can be
confiscated, the process can still be time-consuming and onerous, especially for
short-staffed departments. While some departments, including the state police,
the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, and Lewiston police, have used the law
several times, others haven't used it at all. Through the end of July, Portland
and Bangor had yet to use it. South Portland had used it once.

Would someone in LaGrange's life have been more likely to sound the alarm if
Maine's Legislature had passed a law that did not require notifying police? Some
research has shown that red flag laws can reduce gun violence — particularly
suicides, which account for more than 85% of Maine's gun deaths, according to
Department of Health and Human Services data.

But Warren Eller, a researcher and associate professor at the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice, said red flag laws are designed to keep guns away from
people who are temporarily dangerous because of mental health episodes or other
factors, not people with longstanding violent tendencies. While it's easy in
hindsight to say that someone like LaGrange shouldn't be able to access a
firearm, he said, it's hard to actually strip away gun rights in this country —
and thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment,
that's unlikely to change.

THE MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGE

The right to bear arms has never been absolute in the United States, which does
not allow citizens to own certain types of weapons or carry firearms in some
places such as schools. But in 2008, a narrow majority on the Supreme Court
overturned a statute in Washington, D.C., that prevented most residents from
owning handguns. The case cemented individual gun ownership as a constitutional
right, which is difficult to limit due to our legal system and American cultural
norms, Eller said.

Nationwide, nearly 90% of gun owners and non-gun owners say they favor placing
limits on the rights of people with mental illnesses to buy firearms, according
to 2021 data from the Pew Research Center. But according to Eller, actually
addressing the role of mental health in gun violence would require giving up
some privacy rights — a sacrifice that few are willing to make.

Most people diagnosed with mental illnesses never commit violent crimes, Eller
said. So efforts to strip them of their gun rights before they commit serious
crimes are both legally precarious and unappetizing to politicians. Because so
many people consider gun ownership a core part of American culture, limiting gun
rights for people with mental illnesses also can further stigmatize an already
marginalized group, he said.

And while law enforcement agencies have the technology to closely monitor people
for signs that they might be dangerous to themselves or others, he said,
Americans generally aren't comfortable handing over their privacy rights to
police.

"There's a ton of surveillance that we could be doing — that we do for
international-type law enforcement," Eller said. "We just don't use those kinds
of tools against American citizens."

Other states have tried to close loopholes by enacting measures such as red flag
laws, universal background checks, and mandatory waiting periods. Eller said
there is limited data about how well those tools work, but he said some states,
including New York, have seen promising reductions in gun crime by focusing on
slowing the flow of illicit firearms into the state.

Laws that require buyers to obtain a license or permit to own a firearm have
been particularly effective, said Drane, of the Giffords Law Center. She pointed
to a 2020 study that compared Connecticut, which enacted its licensing law in
1995, to Missouri, which in 2007 repealed a similar law. Researchers found the
combination of permitting requirements and universal background checks resulted
in a nearly 28% decrease in gun homicides in Connecticut, while the removal of
Missouri's law led to spikes in gun homicides (47%) and suicides (23.5%).

In general, Drane said, states with stronger gun laws have lower rates of gun
violence. Those states tend to lean Democratic — 12 of the 13 states with the
highest rates of gun death voted for Donald Trump in 2020, while the nine states
with the fewest gun deaths went to Joe Biden.

But while powerful Democratic majorities in both chambers of the State House
pushed through other progressive reforms expanding abortion rights, access to
gender-affirming care, and paid family leave last session, gun reform stalled
once again.

A SLOW ROAD

Just one gun safety law made it to Gov. Janet Mills' desk for her signature this
year: L.D. 22 makes it a state crime to transfer or sell a firearm to a
prohibited person. But like the corresponding federal law that was already in
place, the new Maine law does not mandate the background checks that would alert
police if a prohibited person procured a weapon through a private sale or swap.

Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cumberland, who sponsored the legislation, said the new law
would improve local law enforcement's ability to enforce bans and could set the
stage for more reform.

"Every piece of legislation that becomes law does some real good," she said. "It
helps build a framework for even more protective legislation."

But for now, more protective legislation remains elusive.

Another bill, L.D. 168, which would have implemented universal background checks
except for sales between family members, drew support at an April public hearing
from multiple pediatricians, educators, parents, and some law enforcement.

"This bill and others like it may not be a panacea, but it will likely keep at
least some people from acquiring a firearm who should not have one," Cumberland
County Sheriff Kevin Joyce wrote in his testimony supporting the bill. "I will
always defend the constitutional rights of good people and good citizens to own
firearms, but I cannot in good conscience defend why we aren't more careful on
who we allow to have guns."

Survey data from the Maine Gun Safety Coalition suggests that 70% of Mainers
support closing the private sale loophole. Yet about half of the more than 80
people who submitted testimony to the public hearing on L.D. 168 said they
opposed the measure. They cited several reasons: the perceived inability of gun
laws to stop criminals from getting weapons, concerns that the measure would
lead to more gun restrictions and Maine's low homicide rate.

The bill narrowly passed the House but died in the Senate after a 21-13 vote in
which nine Democrats joined a unified Republican contingent opposing it.

Though few people are killed by others with guns or any other weapons in Maine,
suicide remains one of the leading causes of death for older teenagers and
adults. According to DHHS data, more than half of the 277 Mainers who died by
their hand in 2021 used a firearm.

Mandatory waiting periods could significantly cut that number by keeping
"uniquely deadly" weapons out of the hands of distressed people who are
temporarily suicidal, said Drane, the researcher from Giffords.

Though there's a common misconception that people who are suicidal will always
find a way to follow through with their plans, a prominent 2002 study published
in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that around 90% of people who survive
a suicide attempt don't go on to die by suicide — and surviving an attempt is
far more likely when guns are not involved, Drane said.

An effort to institute a 72-hour waiting period failed to get through either
chamber of the Legislature.

Several other bills introduced this session would have strengthened gun
ownership rights, including one proposal that would have made it legal to fire
guns in self-defense near schools. Only one bill expanding gun rights became
law: a statute that makes it legal under state law for cannabis users to possess
guns. (Federal law still prohibits this).

Despite the defeats, Carney said she remains hopeful that lawmakers are getting
closer to passing stronger gun reform measures.

"You kind of have to be an optimist to be in the Legislature," she said. "I do
feel that we're making progress."

But Sartoris warned that the state remains vulnerable despite its low homicide
rate. The ease of gun purchase here also has effects elsewhere. The Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives has designated Maine as a "source
state" because so many guns purchased here end up at crime scenes in states with
stricter gun laws. Often these guns are exchanged for drugs, which contributes
to the state's fentanyl crisis, Sartoris said.

And while Maine has so far mostly avoided high-profile mass shootings, that
likely comes down to luck, Sartoris and Drane both said. Until Maine makes it
more difficult for prohibited people, teenagers, and those who are mentally ill
to get guns, that luck could change at any time.

"I think it's just a matter of time before a kid with access to firearms embarks
on a school shooting," Sartoris said. "There is nothing in Maine law that does
the job we need of protecting us."

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