Maine Gunman Disclosed He Had Mental Health Issues, Gun Shop Owner Says

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/us/maine-shooting-gunman.html

Nearly three months before Robert R. Card II fatally shot 18 people in
Lewiston, Maine, a gun shop declined to let him complete his purchase of a
firearm silencer after he disclosed on a form that he had mental health
issues, the shop’s owner said in an interview Sunday.

On Aug. 5, Mr. Card, 40, went to pick up a silencer from Coastal Defense
Firearms in the neighboring town of Auburn, said Rick LaChapelle, the gun
shop owner. Mr. LaChapelle said Mr. Card had bought the silencer — a
device that quiets gun shots that is also known as a suppressor — from
another store, and that store sent it to Coastal Defense Firearms for
pickup.

The purchase attempt is one of the first indications that Mr. Card
acknowledged having mental health issues. ABC News first reported on the
purchase attempt.

Questions over Mr. Card’s mental health and his access to firearms have
been a key issue in the investigation into the mass shooting, during which
Mr. Card killed 18 people and injured 13 others at a bowling alley and a
bar.

During a recent visit to a National Guard training facility outside
Peekskill, N.Y., Mr. Card, an Army reservist, had a run-in with officials
and was later evaluated at a mental health facility, according to a senior
law enforcement official. But the Maine commissioner of public safety,
Michael J. Sauschuck, said on Saturday that he had no information to
suggest that Mr. Card had ever been forcibly committed for mental health
treatment. Mr. Sauschuck did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.

When Mr. Card tried to pick up the gun silencer, he admitted to having
mental health issues on a Form 4473, Mr. LaChapelle said. Form 4473 is a
federal document that must be filled out and signed in order to retrieve
guns and firearm equipment like a silencer, and it is used to determine
whether a someone can complete the purchase.

It is unclear whether he had indicated in the past any mental health
issues on other forms related to his gun purchases. Officials have said
that Mr. Card had legally purchased his weapons. This means that, if he
bought them at a licensed dealer, he had passed background checks that
included evaluating whether he was mentally fit to own a firearm.

In a statement, the F.B.I. said there was no information on Mr. Card in
its background check system that would have prevented him from legally
purchasing a gun.

On the Form 4473 Mr. Card filled out in August, one of the questions was,
“Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever
been committed to a mental institution?” Mr. Card checked the box,
indicating yes, according to Mr. LaChapelle, who is also a city councilor
in Lewiston.

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Under federal law, according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives, there are two criteria that prohibit people with mental health
issues from buying or possessing guns and firearm equipment like a
silencer.

The first is whether a court or other lawful authority has determined one
to be “a mental defective.” Among those determining factors is whether the
person is a danger to themselves or others as a result of mental health
issues.

The second is whether a person has been “committed to a mental
institution,” meaning that person was at one point admitted involuntarily
by a court or other authoritative body because of a mental illness or drug
use. People who willingly go to a mental institution for treatment do not
fall under the definition.

The staff at the gun shop waited until Mr. Card signed the document before
declining to give him the silencer. Mr. Card, in response, was “very
cordial, very polite,” Mr. LaChapelle said.

“He says, ‘Not a problem. OK, let me have my attorney look at it, and I’ll
just come back and get it later on,’” Mr. LaChapelle added. “Then he left
the store and never came back.”

In September, Sheriff Joel Merry of Sagadahoc County sent an alert to all
law enforcement agencies in Maine after learning that Mr. Card had made
threats against the military base he was assigned to, the sheriff said in
an interview on Saturday. It remains unclear whether other police agencies
saw the alert.


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