For all the sound and fury surrounding Question 1 on Tuesday’s ballot, Question 2 seems like a forgotten sibling about whom there’s been spoken nary a word.
That silence is odder still when you consider that while polls show the first question on voter ID to be a virtual tie as of the third week of October, more than one-in-five respondents appear undecided on whether Maine needs a “Red Flag” law allowing authorities a freer hand in seizing guns from citizens.
Do 22 percent of Mainers really not know how they’ll vote on Q2, or would they really just rather not tell pollsters from New Hampshire?
[RELATED: Mainers Narrowly Split Over November Referendum Questions: Pine Tree State Poll]
The ugly truth of the matter is the only people in Maine who want a Red Flag law live in high net worth households in an hour’s radius from Cape Elizabeth, stretching perhaps as far north as Freeport.
Last month, the Red Flag boosters tried with no particular resonance to link the measure to the tragic Lewiston shooting two years ago, suggesting in friendly media that had such a provision been in place killer Robert Card would have been thwarted. But the unfortunate facts of that case tell a different story – one that does not explain how a Red instead of Yellow law would have saved any lives.
Even common-sense Democrats (an oxymoron?) know it’s wrong. Governor Janet Mills was one of the driving forces behind the Yellow Flag law that allows law enforcement to confiscate firearms from the mentally ill, BUT only after obtaining certification from a health professional that the target truly is in no state of mind to be owning a gun.
And while she has publicly endorsed a “No” vote on Q1, she more quietly opposes Q2.
Maine Wire Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson has joked on social media that if Q2 passes, he will call a “Red Flag” in on U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner. Robinson’s point was not so much that Platner is a looney tune, but that anyone can abuse Red Flag provisions to settle scores or indulge grudges.
While Platner, like Mills, has been vocal in calling his supporters to get out and vote down Q1, he’s said nothing that I’ve heard to suggest he supports Q2. A firearms enthusiast, it would be truly strange if he did.
So unappealing is the prospect of the kind of Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) that a Red Flag would usher in, the measure’s proponents on the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee, who hail from – you guessed it, Cape Elizabeth and Freeport – tried to avoid holding a hearing on the enabling legislation.
Wow!
Anyone who knows Maine might safely bet that inside the 22 percent of “undecided” voters on the question live a healthy share of folks who fully intend to vote No, but may be concerned their views on the question are “politically incorrect” given the undue influence Portland types have long projected.
The unspoken danger is that those turned out by the No on Q1 campaign will, when faced with the option of banning guns and blinded by ignorance because the provision has been shrouded in virtual silence, lustily tick the box. Maybe people are smarter than I fear, but there, I said it.
In Maine’s mock election conducted in schools throughout the state, nearly 80 percent of students voted Yes on Q2. That’s a data point anyway.
The most authoritative voices on this question to date have come law enforcement. Maine’s largest police union counsels a No on Q2 which, they argue, would be unnecessarily dangerous to enforce.
Michael Bloomberg’s minions, who cluster around Portland, likely have a trick or two up their sleeves. They certainly do not want for resources. Similar measures have failed at the ballot box in Maine before, but Second Amendment supporters should not be over-confident. Backing out the 22 percent undecided, the No campaign enjoys only a two percent margin of success.
If you don’t play by Cape Elizabeth rules (money talks), or even if you live in the Greater Portland area and understand why Red Flag laws are wrong for Maine, it would be wise to get out and vote on Tuesday. Because a Wednesday morning surprise would be – for generations of responsible gun owners in the state – unwelcome indeed.
