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Lewiston shooting survivors and family members want action and answers from President Joe Biden. They deserve both these things, from Biden and from a long list of state and federal officials.
Leaders owe them reflection about their past stances. They owe them detailed review and answers about what went wrong, both in terms of system failures and legal shortcomings, that allowed a suspect with demonstrated mental health issues and who reportedly made a shoo ting threat to maintain access to firearms. And they owe them action.
Collectively, as both a state and a nation, this is also what we all owe each other. We must not leave a single rock unturned in the all-important effort to prevent other communities from experiencing what Lewiston has experienced. Investigations announced by both Gov. Janet Mills and the U.S. Army Reserve this week can and must help in this effort.
Many questions remained unanswered, but as more and more details emerge about Robert Card and the Lewiston shooting, it is increasingly clear that various systems were not connected and sharing information as they should be. Across the country, there are too many gaps in communication and law that may allow otherwise preventable tragedies of gun violence to occur.
Many of the laws in play here, and the systems in place to enforce them, are complicated. Some general principles, however, should be fairly simple: If the U.S. military has determined that someone shouldn’t have access to firearms within the service, that person should also then lose access to firearms in civilian life (at least for a period of time, and with proper balance of Second Amendment rights). If a family is raising concern to authorities about a loved one’s mental state and access to guns, authorities need to actually find that person and assess any potential threat. The same is true if a member of law enforcement and fellow reservist is warning that someone could “snap and do a mass shooting.” And in cases like this, there needs to be a clear and strong process to remove firearms from the equation — and that process must be followed diligently.
Federal law already prevents certain individuals, including those “adjudicated as a mental defective” (itself a long-outdated term) or committed to a mental institution, from possessing firearms. The systems in place to enforce those and other prohibitions, however, have too many gaps. Some of these are bureaucratic and administrative hurdles that come with the interplay between a wide range of state and federal systems. Just look at the confusion when Card, a Maine man, in New York with the U.S. Army Reserve, has a mental health incident and how that does or doesn’t get communicated elsewhere.
Some of the enforcement hurdles are also deficiencies in law, like the continued failure to close loopholes in the gun background check system. Ensuring that enforcement systems and agencies are communicating properly can often be an administrative task, but it requires some legislative action as well. The forthcoming reviews must help policymakers better understand the existing gaps, and pinpoint ways to close them.
“There needs to be action and it comes from the top down,” said Ralph Brewer, whose brother Peyton Brewer-Ross was shot and killed while playing cornhole at Schemengees Bar and Grille on Oct. 25. “But they could not get together when a bunch of first and second graders were killed at Sandy Hook. Will they get together for a bunch of folks at a bowling alley and a bar?”
Our honest, if cynical answer based on political realities is maybe not. But now is not the time for cynicism. Now is the time for reflection, collaboration, and action that is driven by both compassion and reason. State and federal leaders must prove our fears misplaced, and do the hard but necessary work to close these gaps and save lives.
