A decent start.

That’s how the state-level gun safety legislation unveiled last week was broadly received, even by those who have long advocated for bigger, harder limits on the supply and sale of guns and other measures that seek to prevent gun violence.

“They represent meaningful progress without trampling on anybody’s rights,” Gov. Janet Mills said of her proposals, “and they will better protect public safety.”

While welcoming what has been put forward so far, this editorial board is firmly in the camp left wanting more. On several occasions over the past 12 months – and with appropriate urgency after the devastation caused by the mass shooting in Lewiston in October – we have called for more onerous and sweeping proposals than featured in the latest bill.

The hard truth that prevails, however, is that when it comes to the contentious subject of gun control, some progress is better than no progress. No progress is what we have had to tolerate and live under – with horrifying consequences – for too long.

This bill, L.D. 2224, undertakes to:

• Update the state’s yellow flag law so that it applies more efficiently.
• Expand background checks to advertised private firearm sales (not applicable to transfers of guns between family and friends).
• Create a program at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention dedicated to injury and violence prevention, gathering information to assist policymaking that reduces gun suicides and homicides.
• Set up a network of “crisis receiving clinics” across Maine – the first, in Lewiston, to be open 24 hours.

By our read, here’s what we’re missing:

• A red flag law, a higher standard in operation in 21 states, allowing families to directly petition the courts to remove a gun from somebody dangerous.
• A limit on concealed carry without a permit.
• A ban on assault weapons.
• A ban on “modification devices” like bump stocks, a proposal for which failed last year.
• Universal background checks.

Gov. Mills was applauded in some quarters last week for taking an approach that wasn’t “extreme.” The total horror of Lewiston was assumed by some to have the potential to spur an “extreme” legislative response.

We’re going to repeat ourselves: In the face of sustained gun violence and needless bloodshed, statutory limits on gun procurement and ownership are not extreme.

Background checks on private sales, to give an example of a specific measure up for consideration, was rejected by the Legislature last June. Every Senate Republican and nine Democrats voted it down.

In the aftermath of the vote, we wrote: “More than 100,000 background checks are performed every year in Maine by licensed sellers. Adding the few thousand private sales that occur every year isn’t a lot to ask when considering the tragedy that could be avoided.”

This latest attempt at background checks is weaker than last year’s (a bill already arguably asking the bare minimum) by exempting transfers between friends and family, something that had been a sticking point for the National Rifle Association and paperwork-fearing groups like it.

Hopefully with this concession, and the memory of Lewiston still fresh in the mind, the 20 state senators who voted it down – listed below – will find themselves in a position to vote the other way this time around.

Joe Baldacci (D-Penobscot)
Rick Bennett (R-Oxford)
Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin)
Chip Curry (D-Waldo)
Brad Farrin (R-Somerset)
Stacey Guerin (R-Penobscot)
Matt Harrington (R-York)
Craig Hickman (D-Kennebec)
Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook)
David LaFountain (D-Kennebec)
Jim Libby (R-Cumberland)
Peter Lyford (R-Penobscot)
Marianne Moore (R-Washington)
Tim Nangle (D-Cumberland)
Matt Pouliot (R-Kennebec)
Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln)
Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook)
Jeff Timberlake (R-Androscoggin)
Mike Tipping (D-Penobscot)
Eloise Vitelli (D-Sagadahoc)

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