Lessons Learned from Lewiston

I can barely see my only neighbor's house and even that is hard to do when the trees still have their leaves. Zero crime rate out here but I carry all day, every day. There are animals crossing my property that could hurt me, random strangers do break down and show up at least a few times a year. It has been years, but we did have a crackhead attempt to steal from us. He also made threats when he got out of prison but that also ended badly for him.

A long way to say I agree with your meme, no firearm does anyone any good if it is not available when needed and the operator doesn't know how to use it.

Additionally, no place is safe in a country without borders, massive drug abuse and limited law enforcement. I am not a fan of red or yellow laws, cops have enough to do without being underpaid social workers. A mentally ill person could be triggered just by cops arriving and both parties would soon be endangered. Laws alone cannot stop violence, and there doesn't seem to be any national pressure to address violence, mental illness or lack of resources, so violence is here to stay.

The thing is, you shouldn't need to protect yourself from a highly trained reservist with a mental illness that was diagnosed months ago, red flags anyone?

In Maine, we have the "Yellow Flag Law (like the Red Flag Law, but it can only be instigated by Law Enforcement officials, and there is a mandatory court hearing, which includes mandatory evaluation by mental health professionals, that the accused can attend to defend themselves {that pesky 'due process" thing} before any guns are taken away) which could have prevented all of this a month before it happened. Somehow, in spite of the threats against the National Guard post and the involuntary 2 week commitment to a mental institution this past summer, no one got the ball rolling on this already existing law. No law will work if it isn't implemented.

Yup, yellow flag sounds useless to me. Still shouldn't need to,...you know...

The Yellow Flag law is not useless- this was strictly a matter of human failure on the part of law enforcement. They had all the information they needed to know about this guy and they failed to act. And yes, we shouldn't need to have to protect ourselves from people like this, but this is real life. I prefer to have the capacity to defend myself and others, and the Second Amendment ensures this.