The annual Firearm Fatalities and Hospitalizations report shows that suicides make up 92 percent of gun-related deaths in Maine, with 87 percent of those deaths being men.
The report also finds Maine’s suicide rate is higher than the national average.
The numbers were submitted by the state Department of Health and Human Services and the state Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report includes data under the extreme risk protection order (also known as “yellow flag”).
Its most recent figures are from 2024, and do not include any activity under the “red flag law’, which was approved by voters.
The red flag law allows family members to ask a judge to seize guns from someone deemed a danger to themselves or others. The yellow flag law only allows law enforcement to seek the removal of guns from the same people.
The Maine Gun Safety Coalition says the report is evidence that Maine’s “yellow flag” law does not go far enough to reduce suicide.
“This is why we worked so hard to pass an Extreme Risk Protection Order law last November,” said Maine Gun Safety Coalition Executive Director Nacole Palmer. “Our new law is better suited to help prevent suicides, by empowering family members to go directly to a court instead of having their loved one – who is already in crisis – taken into custody.’
The Gun Owners of Maine issued a statement against the red flag law.
“Red Flag laws do absolutely nothing to help the individual who is in crisis. It removes “dangerous weapons”, but leaves the individual without assistance, without resources, and potentially even more dangerous than they were at the start.”
