Rooks: Congressman Jaren Golden confronts Maine Gov. Janet Mills on gun laws

After Maine Gov. Janet Mills in her State of the State address presented her response to the Lewiston massacre last Oct. 25, the response from her fellow Democrats in the Legislature was respectful silence.

Some commentators noted that her proposals did not match her eloquent words about a horrific, previously unthinkable explosion of violence, with a gunman killing 18 people at two locations in a matter of minutes. But the Democratic caucus – many of whom support stronger gun safety measures opposed by the governor – didn’t respond.

Not so 2^nd District Congressman Jared Golden. In a rare disagreement between two high-profile Democrats, Golden said last week he opposed the governor’s legislation.

Mills proposed a slightly enhanced “yellow flag” law that relies entirely on law enforcement to disarm dangerous gun owners, along with expanded background checks, neither likely to prevent a rampage like Robert Card’s.

The governor’s principal spokesman professed incomprehension saying, “The Congressman does not appear to understand the proposal.” That seems unlikely.

Golden’s focus lies elsewhere, on the armaments that destroyed so many lives before anyone was able to flee. In an epiphany he revealed a day after the mass shootings, he reversed his previous opposition to a federal assault weapons ban about what had just happened in his own town.

The precise contours of Golden’s position aren’t known, but likely resemble the ban in effect from 1994-2004. It reduced fatalities an estimated 70%, but a Republican Congress refused to renew it.

Since the ban expired, high-powered, military-style weaponry has proliferated. Golden said he wants to reduce the “lethality” of weapons, an approach similar to that of Sen. Angus King, though King doesn’t favor a ban.

The context Mills is comfortable with, as opposed to “the conversation I’m having with myself,” as Golden put it, points up the polarities of a trend that has dramatically worsened public safety.

Back in the day, gun control advocates – as they called themselves – focused on the difference between rifles, used widely for hunting, and handguns involved in most street killings and armed robberies.

The distinction seems almost quaint now, when the prospect of sudden, inevitable death in schoolyards and classrooms, synagogues and churches, concert venues and bowling alleys, has become a familiar – though entirely unnecessary – part of American life.

Lewiston was a wake-up call, one that has not yet been heeded.

With no federal legislation seemingly possible, 10 states have banned assault weapons. One of them was Connecticut, where a 2012 massacre in a second grade classroom prompted a far stronger response than Maine’s.

Another 21 states have adopted “red flag” laws that would have been more effective in disarming Card that the yellow flag law that in this instance failed. Warning signs are easier to detect, much earlier, if family members and health professionals can petition a court.

While Mills is correct in arguing that legislation shouldn’t focus on just one crime, however devastating, if it couldn’t prevent that crime how can it be sufficient?

For many Mainers, Lewiston permanently changed things. We’ve long been a state with a low crime rate despite high rates of gun ownership, a status quo that has now expired.

When homicides were mostly domestic, and any discharge of firearms in a public place was rare, it was possible to imagine it couldn’t happen here. Now it not only can, it has.

It doesn’t really matter that many AR rifles are in circulation and their owners fancy them for target practice or hunting. Maximum firepower is not a reasonable standard to balance gun owners’ rights with public safety.

Do we want a future where we respond to schoolkids’ fears with more “active shooter” drills and arming their teachers?

Or do we want to contain violence and its “lethality”– as Iraq War veteran Golden bluntly put it – by “reducing the body count”?

No one imagines any law can prevent all such shootings, but saving some of the hundreds, even thousands of lives lost nationwide is surely worth trying.

Golden represented Lewiston for two terms in the Legislature before being elected to Congress in 2018, and is a maverick who thinks for himself. That may have given him clarity on an issue other lawmakers hesitate to confront.

Now that he’s spoken out, it’s possible legislators will feel empowered to do the same.

In most sessions the budget is the most important debate, but not this time.

Will we see an adequate response to a nightmare come true? For as the proverb has it, “If not now, when?”

Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter since 1984. His new book, “Calm Command: U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller in His Times, 1888-1910,” is available in bookstores and at www.melvillefuller.com. He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Rooks: Congressman Golden confronts Maine Gov. Mills on gun laws