Schemengees Bar & Grille in Lewiston, pictured Oct. 26 at dusk, 24 hours into the manhunt for a gunman who killed 18 people and injured 13 others. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Nearly a year after the Lewiston shooting that left 18 people dead, Sen. Susan Collins introduced a bill Monday that would require the U.S. military to utilize state crisis intervention programs, like Maine’s yellow flag law, if a service member poses a serious threat to themselves or others.

Co-sponsored by Sen. Angus King, the bill comes after investigations by the Army Reserve, Army Inspector General and an independent commission found that the Army Reserve and local police failed to disarm the Lewiston gunman after learning about violent threats he made against his unit’s Saco base.

“While the shooter was responsible for his horrific actions, multiple independent investigations revealed that there were numerous missed opportunities to potentially intervene and prevent this tragedy,” Collins, a Republican, said in a statement.

“This bill would facilitate effective communication and coordination between state agencies and military service branches, thereby helping to keep our communities safe and ensuring that service members in crisis get the assistance they need, without infringing upon the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

The bill would require the armed forces to utilize already existing state crisis intervention laws if a service member has made a serious and credible threat of violence or has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Lewiston shooter Robert Card made multiple threats and was hospitalized in the months before last October’s shooting.

The military would be required to provide relevant information to civilian law enforcement and share such information in judicial proceedings.

In Maine, this would mean that the military operating in the state would have to work with local law enforcement to comply with the yellow flag law, which allows police to temporarily restrict access to firearms if a person is determined to be a threat to themselves or others.

“If this bill had been law prior to the shootings and Maine law enforcement had initiated proceedings under the yellow flag law, the Army would have been directed to produce evidence that could have resulted in the shooter losing possession of his personal weapons – the weapons he used to murder 18 people, and at the same time, he could have received additional treatment for his severe mental illness,” Collins said in remarks on the Senate floor.

Collins has filed the bill as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which a spokesperson for the senator said is likely to come up in the post-election session.

The issue is under the jurisdiction of the armed services committee, said Collins’ spokesperson Annie Clark, who added that part of the work ahead will include educating members about the bill.

King, an independent, is a member of the committee and said he is also advocating for the legislation to be included in the defense bill.

“We cannot bring back our friends and family members we lost last October, but we can take steps to fix the cracks in the system that led to the tragedy,” King said in a statement Monday.

The independent commission appointed by Gov. Janet Mills said in its final report in August that law enforcement should have used the yellow flag law to disarm Card long before the mass shooting.

Mills announced her support for Collins’ proposal this month and sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urging the U.S. Department of Defense to “serve as a productive partner in the consideration of this legislation” and to “advocate for it to become law.”

“I thank Senator Collins for her thoughtful work on this legislation and Senator King for co-sponsoring it,” Mills said in a statement Monday. “Providing the military with this authority will equip them with another tool to address potentially dangerous situations among military personnel, and close communication gaps, which will help protect people, prevent violence and save lives.”

The proposal is one of several steps Maine’s congressional delegation has taken in the wake of the shooting, including calling for the army’s inspector general to conduct a review of the events surrounding the shooting.

Clark, Collins’ spokesperson, said the Army already has begun implementing recommendations from the findings of the reviews done by the Army Reserve and army inspector general.

All four members of the delegation have also expressed support for the Blast Overpressure Safety Act, which would help protect members of the military from dangerous exposure to blasts during training. Parts of that legislation have also been included in the larger defense bill.