In 2025, Maine voters enacted an extreme risk protection order law through ballot initiative. This law, effective January of 2026, allows law enforcement officers and family or household members to file a petition demonstrating to a judge that an individual poses a significant risk to themselves or others. If the judge determines that risk exists, they can issue an order to temporarily remove firearms from that individual.

Maine also has a secondary “yellow flag” protection order process, which allows guns to be removed from people in crisis after they have already been taken into protective custody and been subject to formal medical evaluation. This, contrary to the more comprehensive “red flag” law, is a more cumbersome process, usable only by law enforcement and not by family or household members, that limits the ability to use the yellow flag law in emergency situations.¹