Nearly three months before the Lewiston, Maine, mass shooting, alleged gunman Robert Card tried to buy a silencer for a rifle at a local firearms store, the owner said.
Nearly three months before the Maine mass shooting, alleged gunman Robert Card tried to buy a silencer for a rifle at a local firearms store, the owner said.Nearly three months before Robert Card would tear through a bar and a bowling alley in rural Maine last week -- killing 18 and injuring 13 -- he tried to buy a silencer for a rifle at a local firearms store, the owner said Saturday.
Had Card succeeded in buying the silencer, LaChapelle, the city council president in Lewiston, Maine, said he believes the rampage might have even been more deadly because people at the two locations would not have heard the rifle fire. The rampage is the worst mass shooting in America this year and is one of the deadliest ever in a nation besieged by an epidemic of gun violence. The shootings also set off a massive regionwide manhunt after Card left Lewiston and drove 10 minutes to Lisbon, where he ditched his car and disappeared. He would be found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days later at the Lisbon recycling plant where he used to work, police said.
On one box of a form required to complete the transfer, which was reviewed by ABC News, Card's answer caught the attention of the store's staff: "have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?" Card marked with an X, indicating "yes." Card was "very cooperative," according to LaChapelle, saying he would sort out the issue with his attorney and that he was "sure" he could "get it clarified and rectified." The silencer was put aside. Card never returned.
Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said investigators had not seen evidence that Card was "forcibly committed" for mental health treatment.
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