So many opportunities to stop gun violence, so many missed

Friday, March 15, 2024 | 2 a.m.

Nevadans should pay attention to what is happening in Lewiston, Maine. In October, Lewiston joined the tragic fraternity of cities, of which Las Vegas is among the most prominent, that have endured the horror of a mass shooting.

On Oct. 25, 2023, U.S. Army Reservist Robert Card killed 18 people and injured 13 others during two attacks in Lewiston. Seven victims, including 14-year-old Aaron Young and his father, William, were killed during a youth league bowling event at Just-in-Time Recreation. Just 10 minutes later, a second shooting occurred at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, with victims including members of a deaf cornhole league.

As Lewiston’s residents mourn the loss of loved ones and work to heal from both their physical and emotional trauma, an independent commission, established by Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, has conducted hearings designed to expose how siloed cultures of inaction and apathy led to the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history.

The hearings are creating a new standard of transparency and accountability that seeks to expose the systemic failures that led to the shooting while residents demand action to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future.

Prior to the shooting spree, Card was a man battling violent thoughts, engaging in increasingly threatening behavior and showing clear signs of an escalating mental health crisis. Despite these warning signs, he was able to retain access to a large private collection of firearms, including the high-powered rifle he used to carry out the rampage.

In July 2023, Card legally purchased the Ruger SFAR .308 rifle at a gun store in Maine. We would describe his ability to purchase a weapon of war chambered for sniper rounds as a failure in itself, but even if you don’t believe in restricting access to high-powered semiautomatic rifles, the following days certainly proved disturbing.

Just 10 days after buying the rifle, Card began acting erratically on base at Camp Smith. He shoved a fellow reservist and told army personnel he was “hearing voices” and had thoughts about “hurting other soldiers.” He received a “command referral” and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

When asked whether Card’s two-week stay in a psychiatric hospital and repeated threats to “shoot up” the armory where his unit was headquartered would justify limiting his access to firearms, Reserve Staff Sgt. Matthew Noyes told the commission that “responsibility fell on the local law enforcement.”

A deflection and a failure.

Another reservist, 1st Sgt. Kelvin Mote, who is also a Maine police officer, has experience using the state’s “yellow flag” law to remove firearms from a person in crisis. He said military and law enforcement knew what needed to be done to invoke the law, they just didn’t act.

However, Mote also implored legislators to address the weakness of the yellow flag law, which requires so many onerous steps to be taken before a weapon can be removed that it is unnecessarily difficult to invoke, even in times of imminent crisis.

More failures.

Mote said he asked the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a welfare check on Card, but after two attempts, deputies failed to make contact with Card and didn’t conduct any additional follow-ups.

Slight progress was made in August, after another reservist expressed concern that Card was going to “snap and do a mass shooting” — the Army restricted Card’s access to guns while he was on duty.

Questions remain about the Army’s responsibility to alert local law enforcement of the escalating situation. It was another missed opportunity.

Then, it was too late. Card unleashed a hail of gunfire, fled the scene and eventually committed suicide. His body was discovered following a massive 48-hour manhunt.

Months later, tissue samples from Card’s brain showed clear evidence of traumatic brain injury.

In his role as a grenade instructor for the U.S. military, Card was repeatedly exposed to thousands of concussion waves from explosive ordnance — waves that are increasingly understood to cause brain trauma over time.

A 2020 study found significant abnormalities in the brains of service members exposed to repeated explosive blasts, including grenade and explosives instructors. But the Army has been slow to investigate further, let alone implement policy changes. Another tragic failure.

In a statement released by the Concussion Legacy Foundation, Dr. Ann McKee, director of the Boston University CTE Center, said the results of Card’s brain scans “align with our previous studies on the effects of blast injury in humans and experimental models. While I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card’s behavioral changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms.”

As it turns out, there were many factors that played a role in Card’s rampage.

Law enforcement, the Army and Card’s friends and family were all aware of his declining mental health. Many of them spoke out and asked for help — an admirable first step — but none of them took the heroic step of securing Card’s guns. Indeed, neither existing laws nor the legislature meaningfully empower them to do so.

Now the victims of the massacre must cope with a second tragedy — the knowledge that their loved ones might still be alive if someone had just taken that next step.

The Lewiston hearings have revealed the cracks in the system that allowed Robert Card to kill 18 innocent people. These were not unique failures, but the hearings offer a uniquely insightful look into the failures nationwide that allow such things to happen. It’s up to us to seal those cracks, learn from them and never allow them to reopen.

That starts with commonsense restrictions on high-powered weapons of war and high-capacity magazines, robust red-flag laws and increased funding and mental health services for our men and women in uniform — especially those exposed to potential brain-damaging trauma.