Throughout her five years as governor, Janet Mills has preferred caution to boldness. Her approach has yielded results.

As she pointed out in last week’s State of the State address, Maine has experienced the highest economic growth in New England since she took office in 2019, and has solid population increases for the first time since the early 1980s.

New England has been a slow-growing region for years, but as the lowest-income state among the six, Maine’s recent record is impressive. Mills has been judicious in distributing billions of dollars in federal aid that have flowed since the pandemic, boosting the economy at least short-term.

There are times when boldness is required, however, and that’s where Mills’s State of the State proposals fall short.

What was on everyone’s mind as she spoke, even more than recovery from devastating storms over the past two months, was Lewiston.

Eighteen people were massacred and 13 maimed in the worst mass shooting in the state’s history. It was something many believed would never happen here.

So the question — as we ponder the failures of law enforcement and the military to disarm Robert Card despite months of warning signs — is how to ensure, as much as we possibly can, that there will never be another horrific day like Oct. 25, 2023.

And by that standard, Mills’s proposals are inadequate.

The problem dates to 2019, when legislators were debating what kind of law was needed to prevent attacks by disturbed people like Robert Card. Nineteen states, including all of New England except Maine and New Hampshire, have “red flag” laws.

These laws rely on family members and mental health professionals to sound the first warnings, with an expedited process for removing guns temporarily through an ex parte hearing — not a full adversarial proceeding — before a judge.

Mills, recently attorney general and then the newly elected governor, opposed the “red flag” bill and instead proposed a unique “yellow flag” law relying wholly on law enforcement officers.

What she’s proposing now is an amendment that would allow police to take a potentially dangerous person into custody before a court appearance, which she says would fill the gap that allowed Robert Card to keep his guns.

With all due respect, it’s not enough.

If we review the known facts of the case — even before an investigating commission completes its work — it’s clear Card’s family knew about the dangers long before any calls to Maine police, as did his superiors in the Army Reserve who sent him for two weeks of psychiatric treatment.

One of the most heartbreaking revelations was that Card’s longtime Army friend tried repeatedly to get police to act but was ignored, seemingly because of his own difficulties with the law and substances.

Clearly, we are expecting too much of our police officers and perhaps our military officers too.

They are not specifically trained in mental health issues or evaluations, and none of them can possibly know as much as friends and families observing behavior daily. Mental health professionals do have such training, and are a lot more likely to detect warning signs.

Red flag laws are especially valuable in preventing suicide attempts, the largest cause of gun deaths.

Nor do concerns that red flag laws unduly burden gun owners stand up to scrutiny.

It’s true that gun removal can be rapid — as it already is in domestic violence cases — but it’s temporary. The owner can petition for immediate return by showing he or she is not dangerous.

The yellow flag law, by contrast, locks up the person and not the gun. That seems a far more serious intrusion on personal liberty, regardless of gun advocates’ claims.

If Lewiston showed anything at all, it is that in these circumstances Maine is not unique, but all too typical of states with laws that don’t adequately protect the public.

It now falls to the Legislature to respond, and no one has yet stepped forward. The red flag proposal was a better, more effective bill in 2019, and it’s essential now.

Lawmakers must try to balance the rights of individuals against the whole community’s interests. Here, the right to live safely, free of fear in schoolrooms and state buildings, in bars and bowling allies, must take precedence over gun owners’ wishes.

There are plenty of other relevant issues, highlighted by Congressman Jared Golden’s conversion from support of assault weapon ownership to opposition. That’s unlikely to pass this session, given that Mills offered no plan.

Before the Legislature leaves town in April, however, there should be a red flag law on the books.

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