When Maine voters approved a red flag gun law this fall, the change marked more than a shift in firearms policy. For mental health professionals, it signals a move away from a framework that explicitly tied firearm removal to psychiatric evaluation and toward one focused solely on dangerousness.
Under Maine’s former “yellow flag” law, law enforcement was required to take an individual into protective custody and secure a mental health evaluation before a judge could order firearms removed. The new red flag law creates a parallel process, allowing family or household members, or law enforcement, to petition a court directly without requiring c...
