Jan. 13—Maine’s utilization of its unique yellow flag law spiked in the final months of 2024 as police agencies sought to remove weapons from people who pose a danger.
Though authorities used it rarely before the mass shooting in Lewiston in October 2023, they invoked the law about 30 times per month throughout most of 2024. But usage jumped to between 47 and 59 times per month in the final quarter of 2024, according to data provided by the Office of the Maine Attorney General.
The Maine law is the only one of its kind in the nation; most states with similar laws have a more streamlined version known as a red flag law. It is most often invoked to temporarily remove weapons from someone who is suicidal, although some cases involve homicidal threats.
York County Sheriff William King said that as law enforcement better learns how to use the yellow flag law and officers gain more experience employing it, the process has become more streamlined.
King said user-friendly forms, families becoming more knowledgeable about the law, training led by the Sanford Police Department, and a guideline sent to police departments by Spurwink — a mental health services nonprofit that assists police on the yellow flag cases — are helping to make the process less burdensome for officers.
“People are getting used to it. Spurwink put out a step-by-step process that’s awesome for us, and very clear about what to do and when to do it,” King said. “It’s becoming easier for us to implement the law.”
Even with a more streamlined approach, it does still take several hours of officers’ time to deal with each yellow flag case, King said.
“Is the juice worth the squeeze? I think it is,” King said.
The York County Sheriff’s Office is but one example of police using the law more often in recent months. The sheriff’s office only invoked the law once prior to the Lewiston shootings that left 18 people dead. It has now used the law 21 times, including 12 since July.
Ben Strick, vice president of adult behavioral health at Spurwink and head of the telehealth program that conducts mental health evaluations for law enforcement agencies invoking the law, said there’s no way to know exactly why the yellow flag law is being used more, other than more police departments are working with it.
“There doesn’t appear to be a pattern of days or months or anything we’ve been able to identify other than a steady increase in utilization,” Strick said.
The law requires police to take subjects into protective custody, receive an evaluation by a mental health professional to confirm they pose a threat to themselves or others, and secure a hearing before a judge to obtain an order to temporarily take away someone’s firearms.
Tweaks to the law passed in 2024 have also helped, King said, such as extending the amount of time police are allowed to arrange and have a hearing before a judge from 14 days to 30.
Strick said the severity of the types of situations that have triggered the use of the yellow flag law has not lessened, despite greater utilization. The words “suicide” or “suicidal” were used more than 300 times in the short explanations attached to each of the 630 times the law has been invoked from 2020 to Jan. 2, 2025, the most recent data available. The narratives released publicly by the attorney general’s office do not include identifying information to protect privacy.
In one case, on Dec. 29, 2024, Houlton police reported that a “71-year-old man believes there are demons in apartment he must shoot; tenants of apartment building evacuated after police found a grenade in his apartment.”
On Christmas Eve, in Waldoboro, police reported a “39-year-old man armed with handgun and threatening to kill family and himself” had discharged gun in the house and “also in possession of AR-15.”
Strick said it’s impossible to know what would have happened had the system not intervened in the hundreds of yellow flag cases since the Lewiston shootings, but “anecdotally, this is saving lives.”
“It’s certainly a tool that is preventing suicides, homicides and deadly force incidents,” Strick said. Research on the topic is limited, but a study of red flag law data in California, Maryland, Connecticut and Washington shows that one suicide is prevented for every 17 to 23 times a red flag law is used to remove weapons, according to an August 2024 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
At the same time, Maine’s yellow flag law is being used more frequently, and gun reform advocates are aiming to put a referendum on the fall ballot this year or next that if approved, would create a red flag law in Maine.
The red flag law would give families a more streamlined tool to remove a relative’s weapons, gun reform advocates say. The Maine Gun Safety Coalition has reported that it’s collected more than 60,000 of the roughly 75,000 signatures it is attempting to gather to get the question on the ballot. The group needs to collect 67,682 registered voter signatures to do so.
Twenty-one states have a red flag law, which does not require a mental health screening and can be initiated by a family member as well as by police. Under red flag laws, family members or police can petition a court to determine whether someone’s weapons should be temporarily removed because they pose a danger to themselves or others.
Margaret Groban, a board member of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, said she’s glad that law enforcement is using the yellow flag law, but that “it’s asking too much of them and too much of the system overall.”
“I give a lot of credit to law enforcement jumping through all these hoops to make the yellow flag laws work,” Groban said. “But they don’t need to be doing that.”
But Gov. Janet Mills has said she supports the current yellow flag system. Maine’s gun rights groups have also opposed red flag law proposals, arguing that yellow flag laws do more to protect due process rights for gun owners.
King, the York County sheriff, said he still has to ponder about whether a red flag law would be an improvement, but his initial response is that the yellow flag law is working. He said he likes how people get an immediate mental health assessment, and hopefully a longer-term connection to treatment.
“We are preventing tragedies and enhancing public safety,” King said. “What I would like to see is data on following up with all the people who had the weapons restriction (temporary weapons removal). Did they or could they have acquired a firearm while under the restriction? I would like us to verify that we are being effective.”
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