A bulletin put out by the Maine Information and Analysis Center, a database for law enforcement officials, said Card was a trained firearms instructor and was believed to be in the Army Reserve.
It added that law enforcement said Card “recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME.”
The bulletin said Card was reported to have been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this summer and then released. NBC News has not been able to independently verify the bulletin’s statements about Card’s history. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lewiston-maine-shooting-robert-card-what-know-rcna122262
The Gun Control Act (GCA), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), makes it unlawful for certain categories of persons to ship, transport, receive, or possess firearms or ammunition, to include any person:
who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;
The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.
I don't think this guy would been in either category, but yes.
I think he ought to have been arrested when he threatened to shoot the National Guard facility.
Actually if you're involuntarily committed you already lose your right to firearms (iirc there are steps to regain your rights, but they were not taken here). Red flag laws aren't just bad from a "gun" standpoint, they're bad because "innocent until proven guilty" gets thrown out the window and it becomes "guilty until you can prove you're not crazy," and proving the negative is always a more difficult position. It perverts our whole justice system, and while I have issues with other things doing the same thing (racism for example), adding more is imo not a good idea. I'd rather see them actually enforce the laws we already have which while more stringent than "my roomate seems unstable," also would have prevented this. I mean the guy was commited (making him a prohibited purchaser) and displayed violent ideation to a degree that warrants keeping him for a little while, so they let him out, don't take his current guns, and afaik fail to input his commital to NICs, that's three things that already could and should have been done in this specific case red flag laws withstanding.
Thing is when people talk about restrictions they mean "These people shouldn't have guns, but these people should be allowed to have them." What I'm saying is they should be banned altogether.
Yeah that is a pipe dream, in a country with more guns than people that is bordered on two sides by 2 foreign governments. It just seems unrealistic to say "Just ban all guns" that seems like a massive oversimplification of the problem. We don't have some magical button that just deletes all guns in the borders of the US. Restrictions seem to be a realistic option but one would hope the left gets a bit of a better understanding of firearms since at the moment they mostly make laws about things they have very little understanding of and typically ban things based on how they appear rather than how they operate.
Because its the easiest route at the moment yes but you don't think gun smuggling would be a profitable venture? Seriously part of the reason why the opiate epidemic is so bad is China selling off the supplies for it to the cartels in Mexico, this also isn't to offload the responsibility of this mess on Perdue Pharma. They got the ball rolling and are 100% responsible for starting this mess but you have to be blind not to see how an enemy foreign nation is exploiting the issue and only making it worse to further destabilize a geopolitical rival. Same exact thing applies to Russia and their Interference in the election, they didn't make or start the problem, just took advantage of a fire that has been burning for a while and poured more gasoline into it.
Also again you don't really answer the question of how do you get rid of all those guns. There are 120 guns per 100 people in the US. They aren't going to magically disappear the minute you ban them. You can't just do a full ban, hell I would say half this country wouldn't allow it. So restrictions are the only realistic option.
To be fair, Democrats generally want reasonable restrictions on guns, such as ones that would have prevented this person from owning them and more liberal ones would have supported mental health programs to help this person not reach this point, Republicans want neither.
I’m in favor of mental health checks on an annual basis. Crazy people shouldn’t have access to guns. And you can bipartisan this all you want, the VAST majority of irresponsible gun owners are REPUBLICANS (or whatever center->right bullshit title they choose. LiBeRrRtaRrRiANz
He was in an asylum and reported hearing voices. He’s a trained army vet and a gun instructor. And they let him keep his guns.
Fuck every single Republican.
It's okay. The other voice inside his head is a good guy with a gun.
Hah. Fucking gold.
Also worth mentioning he threatened to shoot up the local National Guard base prior to this shooting.
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!
…
Let's also remember that one of the first things Republicans did in 2017 was remove a check on people with mental health issues from purchasing firearms. Trump Signs Bill Revoking Obama-Era Gun Checks for People With Mental Illnesses (NBC News 27Feb2017)
I don't think this guy would been in either category, but yes.
I think he ought to have been arrested when he threatened to shoot the National Guard facility.
Insane. This was 200% preventable
More and more Democrats are also gun lovers so fuck all gun people, get rid of all the guns and you get rid of the issue.
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Actually if you're involuntarily committed you already lose your right to firearms (iirc there are steps to regain your rights, but they were not taken here). Red flag laws aren't just bad from a "gun" standpoint, they're bad because "innocent until proven guilty" gets thrown out the window and it becomes "guilty until you can prove you're not crazy," and proving the negative is always a more difficult position. It perverts our whole justice system, and while I have issues with other things doing the same thing (racism for example), adding more is imo not a good idea. I'd rather see them actually enforce the laws we already have which while more stringent than "my roomate seems unstable," also would have prevented this. I mean the guy was commited (making him a prohibited purchaser) and displayed violent ideation to a degree that warrants keeping him for a little while, so they let him out, don't take his current guns, and afaik fail to input his commital to NICs, that's three things that already could and should have been done in this specific case red flag laws withstanding.
Gun restrictions aren't enough though, the problem is people in general having access to guns.
If only we could restrict that somehow
Thing is when people talk about restrictions they mean "These people shouldn't have guns, but these people should be allowed to have them." What I'm saying is they should be banned altogether.
Yeah that is a pipe dream, in a country with more guns than people that is bordered on two sides by 2 foreign governments. It just seems unrealistic to say "Just ban all guns" that seems like a massive oversimplification of the problem. We don't have some magical button that just deletes all guns in the borders of the US. Restrictions seem to be a realistic option but one would hope the left gets a bit of a better understanding of firearms since at the moment they mostly make laws about things they have very little understanding of and typically ban things based on how they appear rather than how they operate.
US guns make their way to Canada and Mexico, not the other way around, because it's so hard to get them in these countries.
Because its the easiest route at the moment yes but you don't think gun smuggling would be a profitable venture? Seriously part of the reason why the opiate epidemic is so bad is China selling off the supplies for it to the cartels in Mexico, this also isn't to offload the responsibility of this mess on Perdue Pharma. They got the ball rolling and are 100% responsible for starting this mess but you have to be blind not to see how an enemy foreign nation is exploiting the issue and only making it worse to further destabilize a geopolitical rival. Same exact thing applies to Russia and their Interference in the election, they didn't make or start the problem, just took advantage of a fire that has been burning for a while and poured more gasoline into it.
Also again you don't really answer the question of how do you get rid of all those guns. There are 120 guns per 100 people in the US. They aren't going to magically disappear the minute you ban them. You can't just do a full ban, hell I would say half this country wouldn't allow it. So restrictions are the only realistic option.
That's not how restrictions work.
I don't really buy that. I think it's right-wing astroturfers trying to muddy the waters while gun lobbyists seek to tap into another market.
To be fair, Democrats generally want reasonable restrictions on guns, such as ones that would have prevented this person from owning them and more liberal ones would have supported mental health programs to help this person not reach this point, Republicans want neither.
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I’m in favor of mental health checks on an annual basis. Crazy people shouldn’t have access to guns. And you can bipartisan this all you want, the VAST majority of irresponsible gun owners are REPUBLICANS (or whatever center->right bullshit title they choose. LiBeRrRtaRrRiANz