Terrorism by US Citizen Comes to Lewiston, Maine
Initially reported as 22 dead and maybe 50 wounded by a single white US terrorist in Lewiston, Maine. No reasoning for it. Maybe mental illness. When does reality come to America? Bullet spewing weapons are getting into the hands of people who should never have them. Time to grow up America.
Lewiston is the second most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine and the most central city in Androscoggin County.
Edited: “Robert Card, 40, as a person of interest in the attack. Card was described as a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve and assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine.
Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks in the summer of 2023. It did not provide details about his treatment or condition, but said Card had reported ‘hearing voices and threats to shoot up’ the military base.'” Associated Press News, AP News
Obviously, he still had access.
The Federal welfare system or money for birthing bastards is the root problem. Millions of people born since the LBJ Great Society 1964 who would not have been born except for a Government Check. The beneficiaries are Lawyers, bill board owners, private schools. Democrat politicians, school bus manufactures The Administrative State in DC etc.
Homeless and most mental illness sufferers can be traces to welfare recipients.
It has grown our criminal class 12 times normal 2.3 million in jail–Destroyed public education- produced obese health disaster taxing health care–now we import more people who should never been born to eat at the WELFARE Farce –that destroys all people it serves
William:
You are exactly what this old Marine Sgt. thought he might read in answer to this post. I updated this post with the background of the shooter. He had unneeded fire-power as shown by the picture of him, knew how to shoot, was trained in the Army(?) and a Reservist, taught others how to shoot (firearms instructor), and was hospitalized for hearing voices for hearing voices this last Summer.
Does this white male fit your description now??? He might have been mine or even your neighbor at one time.
@Jackson,
Please post a link showing that Robert Card was (a) illegitimate and (b) a welfare recipient. I see he is a recipient of government checks as a firearms instructor in the Army Researve.
Thank you for your answer. It is obvious Jackson did not include “the rest of the story.”
@Bill,
Jackson is just trolling. His post has nothing to do with the topic.
Well, obviously the current liberal tendencies in this country are pushing some people over the edge.
Hopefully, not too many more of them will go berserk.
America’s rifle: Why so many people love the AR-15
NBC News – from about six years ago
Fred:
That it was known he had issues this year should have been enough to certainly limit his access.
My posts here are not getting through.
I had some fun experiences with M-16s many years ago. A great relief after struggling with its very heavy predecessor the M-14. Just missed getting shot on a firing range at Ft Dix by a fellow trainee who ‘goofed up’.
Goofed up, in full-auto mode.
Fred:
Not blocking any comments.
Qualified shooting 41 of 50 rounds one day before the final day to qualify. Out of the armory M-14, 7.62MM full metal jacket. Shoot 10 in the black at 500 yards with that used weapon. I could part your hair. I would stick with the M-14.
I just posted a reply that did not appear, so I guess it was blocked.
It was said that bullets coming out of an M16 would tumble, so they would do a lot of damage upon impact. Anyway, they reminded me of the Mossberg .22 semi-auto rifle I had at home.
I am reminded of the old quirk about EconView that you could not post anything containing the word ‘Jay’ for some reason.
Maybe it’s like that?
I may have had a ‘profile’ over my vision. I certainly would not have even been able to see a target 500 yds away. I was an ‘expert’ with grenades however.
I remember drill sgts telling us that shooting the dirt in front of the pop-up targets was a good idea, because M16 bullets striking the targets would not necessarily register.
(Almost?) every time these events occur, we hear about how mental health issues should keep assualt weapons out of the hands of ‘troubled people’. It seems like it’s difficult to do that. Or maybe hundreds & hundreds are denied access, and it’s just a few getting them anyway. Go figure.
Eighteen people were killed in shootings at a bowling alley and a bar on Wednesday night in Lewiston, Maine, Governor Janet Mills said in a Thursday morning press conference. Thirteen people were injured.
Las Vegas…
The Las Vegas Mass Shooter Had 13 Rifles Outfitted with Bump Stocks. He Used Them to Fire 1,049 Rounds. Aug 3, 2018
The Trump administration later banned bump stocks. How about that?
Where were the good guys with guns who could have stopped Robert Card?
Fred, I had an experience with a comment yesterday that wasn’t blocked but showed up hours later. I’m sure there was a technical system reason for it, but ‘yeah, that happens sometimes’ feels good enough for me. Forgot I wrote it and saw much later.
Not exactly worried. You may then see a lot of short comments pop up having to do with the Maine shootings.
ERic:
I check in the trash, looking for comments which should not be there. If Joel did not do it and I did not, I restore it.
‘Twasn’t me.
Not a problem.
I’ve been posting here today, or trying to. Maybe it;s just me. Those posts are disappearing ito the ether.
You can thank the Supreme Court for our current struggle with weapons proliferation.
@Jack,
Correct. When Scalia convinced the majority that the obvious link in the 2nd Amendment between bearing arms and membership in a well-regulated militia could be severed, it was all over. Any ammosexual who owned a gun was “bearing arms,” according to the SCOTUS.
Feh.
I am sure Thoughts & Prayers will work this time.
/s
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. . .
Turtles Run:
Thanks for the reminder.
Senator Susan Collins doubles down on her stance against assault weapons bans
Boston Globe – several hours ago
Senator Susan Collins, who voted against expanding the federal assault weapons ban, said she has not changed her stance given the recent shooting in Lewiston.
While she supported the original ban, the proposal to extend it “was based not on legality, and more on how they looked,” she told reporters at a news conference at Lewiston City Hall.
“I did not think that that was appropriate,” she said. “We do have a Second Amendment in our country. And Maine has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the country and has a long heritage of responsible gun ownership and a very low rate of violence.”
She noted that she was a co-author of the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provided funding for red and yellow “flag laws,” and for mental health clinics.
She added that she was the lead Republican sponsor of a bill that would ban bump stocks, which have the ability to turn a semi-automatic into a full- automatic machine gun.
“Certainly there’s always more that can be done,” she said.
(Obviously, if there were more armed citizens, this kind of thing wouldn’t be happening. As long as they could hit what they aim at. We need more weapons trainers, apparently.)
———
Lewiston congressman calls for assault weapons ban
Boston Globe – several hours ago
Representative Jared Golden, who is from Lewiston, said the Wednesday shootings have moved him to change his stance on assault weapons.
In 2022, Golden was one of two Democrats to vote against raising the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. Golden and four other Democrats also joined Republicans in voting against a bill banning assault weapons in 2022.
“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war, like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” he said. “The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure.”
Robert Card, and his troubles, well known in his community
Boston Globe – yesterday, 8pm
(There is no Army rank of ‘first class sergeant’, nor is there a rank of ‘first sergeant’.
The former is someone you might have encountered in the Army – I knew a few, not many – and the latter is a position/title accorded to the senior NCO in a company. Looks like his rank was ‘sergeant first class’ which is a fairly senior NCO rank. First sergeants often have this rank. They usually ‘know their sh*t’ as we used to say. Think Burt Lancaster in ‘From Here to Eternity’.)
Whew. The (alleged!) killer is dead. Meanwhile, Mainers are out buying guns in droves. Maine has pretty lax gun laws, it seems. Go figure.
Maine, a Rare Democratic-Controlled State With Loose Gun Laws
NY Times – Oct 26
The mass shooting that killed at least 18 people on Wednesday occurred in a state with a record of resisting gun restrictions.
(Maine has a Dem guv’nah & legislature these days. But is also noted as the one state in New England with a GOP person in Congress, in the form of Sen Susan Collins. Both Maine senators Collins and Angus King (independent) are on record as opposed to an assault weapons ban.)
NY Times: … Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for tighter restrictions on guns, ranks Maine 25th in the nation in the strictness of its gun laws, with more permissive laws than nearby Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut. In the region, only New Hampshire has a lower ranking than Maine. …
FYI, the above informs you that the states of northern New England all have permissuve gun laws, while the states of southern NE do not. Go figure!
(There’s a lot of hunting done Up Theah. VT also has permissive gun laws, just somewhat less so than its neighbors to the east.)
Stephen King on Mass Shootings: We’re Out of Things to Say
NY Times – yesterday
(Stephen King is, of course, Maine’s pre-eminent writer. This appears to be a Letter to the Editor.)
Maine sheriff says he was tipped off to threats made by Card in September
Boston Globe – just in
Law enforcement across Maine were alerted last month to threats made by Card, a US Army reservist accused of killing 18 people and wounding more than a dozen in Lewiston on Wednesday.
Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, whose jurisdiction includes Card’s home in Bowdoin, told the Globe on Saturday night that the Army Reserve tipped his department in September to the threats, and the sheriff sent an “attempt to locate” alert to every law enforcement agency in the state.
Officials told the Globe those issues arose this summer while Card was training with the Army Reserves. Military commanders phoned the police after he started acting erratically. But he remained in the reserves and returned to live in Bowdoin.
A further bunch of excuses…
Sheriff in Maine alerted other agencies about Robert Card weeks before shooting. Here’s what we know.
Boston Globe – Oct 30
A further article in the Globe this morning says that other police departments in Maine received the alert described above, but ‘they get those all the time’ and apparently don’t do much with them. But, as one police chief said,
“The first thing we’re all going to do is double back, retrace all of our steps: what did we do, did we miss anything? But in my opinion, I don’t see that anybody dropped the ball.”
Of course, the real problem here is not as much lax police work as it it is lax gun laws, and they don’t want to do anything about that, because then it would be difficult to defend yerself against crazy people with assault rifles.