Latest Spree Killer

 Here we go again .....

Robert Card - Latest Spree Killer USA

.... at least 18 dead (and possibly more), and an unconfirmed number of injured (but at least 13), as yet again some malcontent decides to grab 15 minutes of infamy, and goes on a killing spree. The state (which is the whitest in the USA), had only had 29 homicides in 2022, so he's likely nearly matched that in a few hours.

This time it was at the Just-In-Time Recreation (formerly the 'Sparetime') bowling alley, and Schemengee's Bar and Grill restaurant, in the little Maine town of Lewiston (pop approx 38,000). Lewiston police immediately named 40 year old Robert Card, as the only person of interest, and said he should be considered "armed and dangerous". Seven people died at the bowling alley, and eight people died at the restaurant; three others died in transit to the hospital ... three of the wounded are in a critical condition, and five were hospitalized but stable.

They, the FBI and the Maine State Police were hunting him as an 'active shooter' when I wrote this post, with both Lewiston and neighbouring Lisbon in 'lockdown' with Shelter-in-place orders. Its speculated that he escaped by boat rather than by car .... but he will be caught eventually, unless he's committed suicide in some isolated part of the backwoods.

Robert Card Killing With
A Semi-Automatic Weapon.

They have particular concerns about more deaths if he remains at large, as Card had been weapon trained by the US military at a National Guard facility in the city of Saco, Maine. He has had mental health issues, and had spent two weeks in a mental health centre in the summer of 2023, after he had started hearing voices and then threatened to commit a shooting at the military base. 

Robert Card - Spree Killing

But yet he still had access to weapons, despite the massive red flags just those two events alone raised .... what does it take for action to take away peoples guns in the US?

Well in the state of Maine, it takes a lot, because the state has a longstanding culture of gun ownership (hunting and sport shooting are popular pastimes), and so doesn’t require permits to carry guns. All recent attempts by gun control advocates to tighten the state’s gun laws have failed:

• Proposals to require background checks for private gun sales and create a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases failed in 2023.
• Proposals that focused on school security and banning bump stocks failed in 2019.
• A proposal to require background checks for gun sales, failed in a 2016 public vote.
• Jared Golden (D-Maine), a Democrat Congressman who had enjoyed an A+ rating from gun rights advocates, has frequently opposed an assault weapon ban (following the shootings he now says he regrets his past opposition to an assault weapon ban).
  

Horrific as this event is .... the US politicians will effectively do nothing about the gun violence problem, and this episode will like all the others before it, be shrugged off and forgotten inside a few weeks .... well, until the next similar event, when more soul searching, and hand wringing will occur ... but no action taken. The US political system, was designed to keep each legislative part in check in the 19th and 20th centuries, when consensus politics could still be achieved, but now in the 21st century, when consensus is virtually impossible between the two parties, the constitution paralyses against changes that really need to be made, even when some oppose them.

Name me one other Western civilised country where this type of event would result in no additional gun controls .... especially over automatic and semi-automatic weapons, which are only designed for killing humans in a military context, and yet are legally sold to the US general public.

My condolences to all the latest victims families .... sadly you are not the first to feel the pain of loss, and you certainly won't be the last. There had already been 564 'mass shootings' reported across the United States this year before this latest incident, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Update: Overnight Robert Card, 40, was found dead near a river in Lisbon Falls, near the town of Lisbon, from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

I expect no changes in the national law to restrict or ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Mass killing sprees are the price many Americans are prepared to pay to own guns.