The Sun Journal published a story about legislative candidates’ ideas for youth gun violence. Joe Charpentier also published individual articles with each candidate’s full responses, which I applaud – though the paywall makes it tough for people to access, which is why I am sharing my full response here. The link to both articles are at the bottom.
From your understanding, what is the biggest obstacle in curbing youth gun violence? What legislative changes would you work on to better remedy the issue?
The greatest obstacle is that we are working in silos. We have law enforcement responding after violence occurs, schools and youth organizations working to prevent it, families trying to navigate multiple systems, and a juvenile justice system with too few intervention options. But we do not yet have a coordinated strategy that connects reliable data, prevention, intervention, accountability, and long-term support.
Access to firearms is also part of the problem. I support strengthening Maine’s safe-storage laws while expanding access to gun locks, secure-storage devices, and temporary firearm storage for families who need them. I would also support measures that help law enforcement identify where firearms used in youth violence are coming from and prevent them from reaching young people.
The Legislature should also support evidence-based community violence intervention. Lewiston already has trusted organizations and people who know our young people and neighborhoods. The state can help communities coordinate existing resources and build intervention teams that identify those at greatest risk, interrupt conflicts before they become shootings, connect young people and families to available services, and remain involved long enough to produce lasting results.
How does law enforcement need to change? The juvenile justice system?
Law enforcement cannot solve youth gun violence alone, but it has an essential role. We need focused enforcement directed toward the small number of individuals driving serious violence, not broad enforcement that treats every young person or entire neighborhoods as threats. Police should share de-identified data about incidents, repeat involvement, firearm sources, locations, and patterns so the public and community partners understand what is happening and can help respond.
We also need consistent neighborhood presence and stronger relationships outside moments of crisis. Officers working alongside schools, street-outreach workers, service providers, families, and trusted community organizations will be more effective than officers arriving only after shots have been fired.
Law enforcement cannot solve youth gun violence alone, but it has an essential role. We need focused enforcement directed toward the small number of individuals driving serious violence, not broad enforcement that treats every young person or entire neighborhoods as threats. Police should share de-identified data about incidents, repeat involvement, firearm sources, locations, and patterns so the public and community partners understand what is happening and can help respond.
The juvenile justice system must combine clear accountability with intervention and rehabilitation. When a young person is found incompetent to proceed, that cannot mean simply returning them to the community without treatment, supervision, and a safety plan that protects against an immediate return to the same behavior. We need appropriate community-based options, while recognizing that confinement may be necessary when a young person presents a serious and continuing threat to public safety.
How can municipal governments help, and what can the Legislature do to make their involvement easier?
Municipal government is where coordination should happen. The city can bring together law enforcement, schools, families, youth-serving organizations, businesses, healthcare providers, and young people themselves. It can share information, identify gaps, coordinate outreach, and report publicly on whether the strategy is working.
Lewiston has begun increasing its neighborhood presence and has announced a new Community Engagement and Accountability initiative. Those actions should become part of a sustained, transparent strategy with measurable outcomes—not simply a temporary response to the latest shooting.
The Legislature can support that work by improving state and local data-sharing, strengthening the services available through the juvenile justice system, and helping municipalities coordinate evidence-based responses.
Where does the state succeed and where does it fail?
Maine has made meaningful progress. We expanded background checks to firearm sales at gun shows and those resulting from public advertisements, established a 72-hour waiting period, and adopted an extreme-risk protection order law. The Legislature also enacted requirements addressing unserialized and undetectable firearms, which take effect in 2027. Maine now requires annual public reporting on firearm fatalities and hospitalizations. Those are important public-safety improvements.
Where Maine falls short is implementation and coordination. We do not consistently connect firearm policy, juvenile justice, behavioral health, schools, local government, and community intervention into one strategy. Community-based services remain unevenly available, particularly outside the largest population centers. Municipalities and community organizations are often expected to build programs one grant at a time, without the stable funding necessary to hire trusted staff and sustain relationships.
We also need stronger prevention. It is not enough to impose consequences after a young person has obtained a firearm and someone has been hurt. Safe storage, lost-and-stolen firearm reporting, tracing firearm sources, early intervention, and credible community outreach can help prevent that point from being reached.
What are your general thoughts on youth gun violence and how it affects the community?
As a mom, I know how deeply this affects families. It breaks the sense of safety and hope you have for your own family, and it breaks your heart for every parent whose child is involved.
Youth gun violence also harms far more people than those directly involved in an incident. It changes whether families let children play outside, whether residents walk through their neighborhoods, whether customers visit local businesses, and whether people feel safe in parks and other shared spaces. It places enormous strain on families, witnesses, first responders, schools, service providers, and neighborhoods.
It also feeds fear and assumptions about whole groups of young people. We must resist the temptation to see “those kids” and instead see “our kids.” That does not mean excusing violent conduct. It means combining accountability with love, intervention, opportunity, and a much greater presence in young people’s lives.
After the recent shootings, we heard repeatedly that law enforcement and city government cannot solve this alone. They are right. But “we cannot do it alone” cannot be where the conversation ends. It must be where leadership begins. Government has a responsibility to provide reliable information, coordinate the work, bring resources, and act with urgency. The rest of us have a responsibility to be part of the solution.