Anne Jordan, a former Maine public safety commissioner, served as executive director of the Lewiston Commission, an independent body tasked by Gov. Janet Mills to determine the facts leading up to the October 2023 mass shootings in Lewiston.

On Nov. 8, 2023, Gov. Janet Mills sent a letter to the Lewiston Commission with instructions to investigate the facts and report out “the full and unvarnished facts of what happened” on a horrible October evening two weeks prior. A horrific night that left 18 people dead, 13 more wounded by gunfire and an entire state traumatized.

I served as the executive director of the Lewiston Commission. The commission conducted an independent investigation and found the facts — facts that led me to a resounding, inescapable conclusion over the course of nine months, thousands of pages of reports and records and hundreds of hours of videos, testimony and interviews: we need a better law.

This November, we must vote “Yes” on Question 2.

Question 2 would create an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) law in Maine, filling a dangerous and deadly gap in Maine’s current law. As learned through the investigation, there were multiple warnings about the would-be shooter. His family contacted law enforcement for help, but law enforcement failed to make contact and our current law gave the family no tools to take action themselves.

As included in the report, multiple law enforcement agencies called the law inefficient, cumbersome and unduly restrictive.

A true ERPO law could have changed that. Under Question 2, either families or law enforcement can go directly to a court and ask a judge to temporarily prevent someone, who a court deems dangerous, from possessing firearms. Question 2 does not repeal the current law. Instead, it empowers families with a second tool. Often, families know best.

The Lewiston Commission’s task was clear: the report was not meant to make policy recommendations. But everything I learned as director of the commission points to Maine’s law, an outlier in the nation, being too ineffective to prevent a horrible tragedy like this from happening again.

I don’t just come to this conclusion as the director of the Lewiston Commission. I’m also voting “Yes” as a Maine attorney of 41 years, a former prosecutor and the former state commissioner of public safety, where I oversaw the Maine State Police.

I have spent my career working  to improve public safety. Question 2 will make our communities safer by adding to our existing law, not taking away from it. Under Question 2, it will also be safer and more efficient for law enforcement to intervene and remove deadly weapons from dangerous situations, rather than our current law, which requires them to take someone who may be dangerous and armed into custody and force them to undergo a mental health evaluation. 

Don’t buy into scare tactics from opponents that removing this forced evaluation somehow undermines Mainers’ due process rights. “Due process” means someone has their day in court and is given the full opportunity to present their side of the case to a judge.

Question 2 was drafted with due process protections that already exist in Maine law and have been upheld by the Maine Supreme Court, including in our state’s protection from domestic abuse law. Anyone seeking an ERPO has to present sworn evidence in court, and trying to misuse the law is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail and a $5,000 fine.

As for the governor, I’m disappointed she’s chosen to side with the gun lobby. Madame Governor, with all due respect, you asked the commission to investigate “the complete facts and circumstances — including any failures or omissions” that led to the tragedy in Lewiston.

Maine’s law was an experiment, an attempt to blaze our own trail instead of passing a law that has been proven safe and effective in 21 other states. Tragically, the experiment failed. It’s time to accept that and acknowledge we can implement an additional tool for Maine families and law enforcement.

By empowering family members to go directly to a court when a loved one is in crisis, we can provide more tools to intervene before a crisis becomes another tragedy. Question 2 gives families another tool to prevent suicides, another mass shooting or other gun deaths and help someone in crisis get the help they need.

This Election Day will be nearly two years to the day that the Lewiston Commission received that letter saying follow the facts and pursue the truth, because Mainers deserve nothing less.

I took that charge seriously, and still do. This November, I’ll be voting “Yes” on Question 2 to see that task through. Our kids, grandkids, families and neighbors deserve a safer, better law.