- Despite a recent mass shooting, Maine usually has low gun violence rates, according to a researcher.
- Michael Rocque, a sociology professor at Bates College, said many Maine residents use guns to hunt.
Maine has high gun ownership rates and a lack of restrictive gun laws — and, until this week, rarely experienced significant gun violence.
Now, after a shocking mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that has claimed at least 18 lives and injured 13, an associate sociology professor at Bates College, Michael Rocque, told Insider that Maine was just "lucky" that it hadn't had a high-profile mass shooting earlier.
"There was nothing that made us as a state immune to any type of violence like this," said Rocque, who studies mass shootings. "The fact that we hadn't had a mass shooting like this is no reason to not take action on gun violence."
Rocque said that places with high rates of gun violence aren't the only places that have mass shootings — they "typically" happen in smaller towns and places where the residents feel safe, he said.
Though the state has remained safe in terms of rates of gun violence, per Rocque, there is a very high rate of gun ownership and little government regulation, despite some attempts to create it.
Rocque speculated that, historically, the state's low rate of gun violence could be related to several factors.
For one thing, the population is older. In 2022, the average age of Maine residents was 44.7 years old — about six years older than the national average, per NHPR. Older people are rarely the perpetrators of mass shootings, Insider previously reported.
Guns also seem to be primarily used for hunting in the state, as opposed to being used for self-defense or crime, Rocque said.
"Firearm ownership for the purposes of hunting is just a fundamentally different thing than firearm ownership," Rocque said. "Maine actually has a higher rate of suicide than some other states in New England, but a very low rate of gun death overall, and especially in terms of firearms directed at other people. I think that it comes down to the number of guns that are used for hunting."
According to Rocque, the state needs to work immediately on improving its "warning flag" laws, which call attention to gun owners who may pose threats to their community.
Rocque said the state can also push for laws that have been shown to reduce mass shootings, like banning large capacity magazines, which are used in weapons including AR-15s.
"These are steps that we can take right now without infringing on people's rights to potentially make us safer," Rocque said.
The misperception of an "us versus them" mindset can complicate the aftermath of mass shooting situations, according to Rocque.
Instead of focusing on commonalities, people worry about their position as "gun supporters" or "people who want to take away all the guns."
"Historically, culturally, we're a very independent state," Rocque said. "So it sort of just runs counter to having laws that are meant to protect us when maybe we think that we don't need them. Unfortunately, this may be a wake-up call."
At least one political shift already happened — Maine Rep. Jared Golden recently reversed his long-held stance on guns and called for an assault weapons ban after the shooting.
"I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime. The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure," Golden said in a press conference. "I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown."