When Gov. Janet Mills delivered her State of the State address, she recited the names of every person killed in the Lewiston mass shooting. She also proposed new and stronger laws that could help prevent a future tragedy. But she left the dais with one glaring omission: She failed to propose any prohibitions on the military-style assault weapons that the perpetrator used to devastate our state.

How soon we forget.

In the aftermath of the shooting, lawmakers at both the state and federal level vowed to do whatever it takes to keep Mainers safe. Rep. Jared Golden, a Marine Corps combat veteran, publicly flipped his position and offered his support for assault weapons prohibitions. Then, Sen. Angus King joined colleagues from New Mexico and Arizona to propose an innovative new federal assault weapons prohibition bill.

It’s been discussed around the state capital that Maine might introduce such a bill this session, as New Mexico lawmakers did. In New Mexico, the governor moved boldly to make the prohibition of gas-operated semi-automatic weapons a priority, after a mass shooting in her state that killed three people and injured six others last year.

I’d hoped to see the same response from Gov. Mills.

Quite frankly, like many other Mainers, I have been deeply affected by the Lewiston shooting. As an Army cavalry scout and sniper, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. That includes the 2nd Amendment. Despite the fact my time in uniform is over, I still take my former oath seriously and value the founding documents.

But the rights granted by the 2nd Amendment are not unlimited. And it has become clear that states like Maine can and must take action to prohibit military-style assault firearms that are designed to be maximally efficient at the task for which they were designed, namely taking human life.

Under current law, civilians cannot own or possess many different military-style weapons, such as fully automatic machine guns, armed drones and shoulder-fired rockets. Yet, we hear very little from the gun lobby about these prohibition being in violation of the 2nd Amendment. But for some reason, gun rights advocates argue that the AR-15, no less a weapon of war, is deserving of special protection and is appropriate for civilian use.

Meanwhile, the AR-15 platform and other high-powered assault rifles like it, are, unsurprisingly, the weapons of choice for dangerous people who wish to commit mass shootings at our bowling alleys and bars, and potentially at our schools, churches and shopping centers. As a father of an elementary school student, I would sleep easier knowing that these weapons of war were banned in the state of Maine.

Gas-operated semi-automatics rifles like the AR-15 are a poor choice for hunting and unreasonably awkward and dangerous for home defense. In fact, these weapons have only one purpose: suppressing and killing the enemy in combat. I know because I was trained to use them in the Army.

Ask around. Talk to your neighbors. Find a veteran and ask them how they compare the threat level on streets of Maine to a combat zone where they may have used an M-4 assault rifle. Find a hunter and ask them if they want a 5.56mm round tumbling through the body of their prey, bouncing off bones, and eviscerating organs and muscle, destroying otherwise good meat. (The round yaws through human flesh the same way it does through a buck.) Ask a police officer who is executing a search warrant if they want to be greeted with the muzzle of the same rifle that Marines used to clear enemy compounds in Fallujah.

What you will quickly realize is that, in Maine more than most other states, we value our ability to possess and use firearms for practical purposes. At the same time, we are reasonable people who don’t let ideologies split us. We certainly don’t let politics get in the way of keeping our children safe.

That means that most military veterans will be supportive of the governor if she leads an effort to prohibit gas-operated semi-automatic assault weapons in the state. Reach out to her and to your state legislators and let them know that we must proceed with a ban on gas-operated semi-automatic assault firearms, and we must pass it.

For all those who oppose such measures and claim that these weapons of war are necessary for hunting, let me offer some advice. If you can’t kill a coyote with a bolt-action rifle in .243 Winchester or 6mm Creedmoor, you might need to look into some marksmanship classes.

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