Yellow Flag Law | The Zelman Partisans

Regarding the mass shooting in Maine, I received this in an email.

A bit more on SFC Robert Card: Army spox says that after his medical evaluation in July — done after unit leadership observed him ‘behaving erratically’ — the Army directed he “should not have a weapon, handle ammunition, and not participate in live fire activity.”

Another person commented:

Well that fits the narrative well. More “ammo” to justify red flag laws.

Not really. In fact, some folks will probably hope this goes away, because they won’t want to draw attention to the massive series of failures on the part of law enforcement.

Maine has a “yellow flag law,” instead of the left’s preferred no-due process “red flag” laws.

The law differs from red flag laws in that it requires police first to get a medical practitioner to evaluate the person and find them to be a threat before police can petition a judge to order the person’s firearms to be seized.

A formal evaluation by a medical professional and a hearing. How ’bout that? What the left doesn’t like about this is that only the police can request this, and that hearing.

In the case of the Lewiston killer, the police had every reason and opportunity to invoke the yellow flag law.

In May, in a written statement, the perp’s ex-wife informed the police that he was mentally unstable, a danger to others, and that he possessed several firearms.

Other family members contacted the police to inform them that he was unstable and dangerous. Law enforcement attempted several “wellness checks,” sometimes reaching, somethimes not. At one point, the sheriff reportedly told a responding deputy to blow it off; because the sheriff knew of the killer-to-be, and figured he’d just get over it as he had other times.

In July, he was involuntarily committed, making him a prohibited person. Reportedly, New York law enforcement was involved.

In September, the National Guard informed Maine law enforcement that he was nuts and dangerous. For once, they did something: they issued a statewide alert on him.

And cancelled it a few days later. About a week later, he started his killing spree.

At no point did Maine law enforcement decide that this guy, whom they knew to be 1) crazy, 2) dangerous, and 3) armed, should be “yellow flag” and taken into custody for evaluation and seizing his firearms. Now add in that, with the National Guard’s alert, they should alos have known that he was a prohibited person. And took no action.

All the Baker Acts, red flag laws, and yellow flag laws in the world won’t help if the authorities refuse to use them. In Card’s case, I suspect that he was part of the good ol’ boy network; as a firearms trainer, he may have even trained the sheriff’s deputies. So the sheriff didn’t want to cause the guy legal problems; after all, it was as if he’d killed anyone. Yet. He’ll get over it. Again. Right?.

So they didn’t, and he didn’t. And poeple died because of it.

Now that the active incident is over, some reporting is stabilizing. The good less bad news is that the initial reports of 20, and then 22, dead and 50 injured have been scaled back to 18 dead and 13 wounded. Perhaps the initial “injured” claims included folks hurt as they scrambled for cover, but not shot.

The weapon used has shifted from “AR-15” to .308 “battle rifle” or “sniper rifle.” In fact, it now appears to have been a recently purchased Ruger SFAR, which is an AR-pattern rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO/.308 Win. It is semiautomatic only, so it certainly isn’t a select-fire battle rifle. But some reasonably knowlegeable people do apply the “battle rifle” label to military semi-autos in full-power rifle chamberings, so I may let that one slide.

The “recently purchased” aspect brings us to a fuzzy point of confusion. Was the shooter a prohibited person or not? And if he was, how was he able to lawfully purchased the weapon?

Early reports mentioned that he had threatened to “shoot up” the military base at Saco, Maine, and that he had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks. Since then, Maine law enforcement have stated that the shooter had been taken in for a mental health evaluation that did not rise to the level of involuntary commitment. So it might appear that he was not a prohibited person (though it’s fair to wonder why the authorities failed to invoke Maine’s yellow flag law).

But was that Saco-area threat what got him the the two week “committal”? Other reports said his military commander had him committed, and that appears to have happened near West Point in New York, during a training exercise.

Are Maine authorities talking about the Maine or New York incident as the “non-committal” hold? Or were there two separate incidents of the shooter-to-be being involuntarily held?

It matters, because what the Maine police seem to be describing would not make him a prohibited person, while a two week committal in New York, by order of command, certainly would.

Updated, October 30, 12:20PM: This seems pretty clear.

Card, who killed 18 people and wounded an additional 13 at a bar and a bowling alley on Oct. 25, attempted to buy a silencer on Aug. 5, but was unable to complete the purchase after admitting on a federal form that he had previously been committed to a mental institution, according to ABC. The Army committed Card to a psychiatric care facility for several weeks in July after he reported hearing voices, behaved “erratically” and threatened the base where he was stationed at the time. (RELATED: Maine Mass Shooting Suspect Robert Card Found Dead, Police Confirm)

“He came in and filled out the form, he checked off a box that incriminated himself saying that he was in an institution,” Rick LaChapelle, who owns the Coastal Defense Firearms store where Card tried to purchase the silencer, told ABC News. “Our staff was fantastic, let him finish filling out the form, and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Card, we cannot give you this… at this point in time, we cannot release this silencer to you because of the answers that you’ve given us.’”

Yes, the Army had involuntarily committed him.