On average, 145 Mainers die by gun suicide every year. Gun suicide is effective almost 100% of the time. Very often, family members or close friends are aware that their loved one might be suicidal but are powerless to remove their loved one’s gun(s) or prevent them from purchasing one.
To keep guns out of the hands of potentially suicidal Mainers, the state needs to adopt the evidence-based extreme risk laws, which are helping to save lives in 21 other states. Also known as a red flag law, it allows family members or close friends of a loved one they feel is at risk of committing gun suicide to submit an extreme risk protection application to the civil court in their district. A judge will review the application swiftly and, if they agree, temporarily order the at-risk person to give up their guns to the police. This also applies if family or close friends believe that the at-risk loved one might harm someone else with a gun.
If Maine had extreme risk laws, Robert Card’s family and/or his close friends could have submitted an ERPA and the judge would have ordered the police to remove Mr. Card’s guns, thus preventing him from using his guns to harm others and himself. Please write or call Gov. Mills’ office and our state legislators, urging them to enact a red flag law in Maine.
Marc Kaplan, D.O.
Kennebunk
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