WASHINGTON – Maine has received a failing grade for 2001 because its gun laws were judged inadequate to protect children from gun violence. This marks the fourth year in a row that the Brady Campaign, a Washington-based lobbyist group focused on preventing gun violence, has given the state an F.

In conjunction with Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence and the Million Mom March of Maine, the Brady Campaign last week rated Maine’s gun laws on seven criteria, ranging from the minimum age at which someone may purchase a gun to communities’ legislative power to change their gun laws.

While some Mainers hope the F grade may compel some state legislators to reconsider current gun laws, others say that despite the state’s uncomfortably high suicide and domestic violence rates, Maine is “an incredibly safe place to live” and the gun laws are fine as they are.

Maine was one of seven states to get an F. The Brady Campaign also awarded five As, five Bs, 11 Cs, and 22 Ds.

“Maine is not a Washington, D.C. Maine is not a New York City,” said state Rep. Edward J. Povich, D-Ellsworth, chairman of the House Criminal Justice Committee. The same gun laws that apply to cities where homicide rates are high should not apply to Maine, where owning a gun is “traditional,” he said. In Povich’s view, it’s the “city folk opposing the country folk.”

The Brady Campaign “is an interest group that looks at figures in an extreme way,” he said.

Cathie Whittenburg, executive director of Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence and the mother of two, doesn’t think of herself as an extremist. “My concerns come from being a mother,” she said. She pointed to Maine’s high teen suicide rate and high domestic homicide rate as reasons enough to “tighten the laws.”

The Brady Campaign based its numbers on statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which show that Maine had 10 firearms-related deaths of children and youths up to 19 years of age in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available. According to the CDC, the rate of firearms-related suicides in Maine that year was 3.89 percent per 100,000 people, and the rate of firearms-related homicide was 2.68 percent.

Massachusetts, in comparison, had lower rates of firearms-related suicides (2.37 percent) and homicide (1.98 percent) than Maine among children and youths up to 19 in 1998. The Brady Campaign gave Massachusetts an “A-.”

George Smith, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a not-for-profit organization based in Augusta, said the suicide rate is a “real issue of concern.” But he added: “The Brady people are looking at a place they know nothing about. … [Maine] is an incredibly safe place to live.”

Smith said that Maine is a hunting state that has the second-highest gun ownership per capita in the country. He also pointed to an award the Children’s Rights Council gave Maine in 2000 that distinguished it as “the best state in the country in which to raise a child.”

Stephen McCausland, public information officer for the Maine State Police, agreed with Smith that Maine has a longstanding hunting tradition that is not taken into consideration by the Brady Campaign’s “harsh” report.

This report is “not indicative of what we’re doing up here,” McCausland said. One of the things the state police are doing to protect children, he said, is providing free gun locks to gun owners who ask for them.

He said Maine’s low rate of homicide is indicative of how safe the state is. According to McCausland, the number of homicides in Maine in 2001 was 19, which was “one of the five lowest in the country.”

Not everyone is convinced, however, that Maine’s low homicide rate justifies the state’s gun laws. “We do have a low homicide rate, but we’re not immune to gun violence,” Whittenburg said.

Whittenburg and Brenda DiDonato, president of the South Chapter Million Mom March, said that the firearms-related suicide rate should justify stricter gun laws.

Whittenburg also said there are “adverse effects” when other states have strict gun laws while Maine does not. She said criminals from Massachusetts will “hop” up to Maine for their guns.

Most advocates of new gun laws say that Maine doesn’t have strict background checks for gun buyers. At gun shows, for example, buyers are not required to go through background checks when purchasing a gun – the basis of another failing grade for Maine in early January awarded by the American Gun Safety Foundation.

According to the Brady Campaign report, Maine received an “F” for having no law that prohibits teens and children from possessing guns; no safety standards for handguns; no laws that give communities the right to regulate guns; and no background checks at gun shows. The state also was chided for handing out concealed weapons permits and received a “D” for having a weak child access prevention law.

Despite the failing grades, Maine legislators are not overwhelmingly concerned about changing the rules. “The Legislature doesn’t agree that private gun ownership is a problem,” Povich said.