(RightWing.org) – Fear and terror struck a city of roughly 37,000 people, Lewiston, Maine, when a gunman believed to be Robert Card went on a shooting rampage at two local establishments, a bar and a bowling alley. It did not take long before Democrats jumped on this tragedy that left America reeling from yet another mass shooting in order to score political points in their efforts to enact ever more strict gun-control legislation. Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had points of his own to make.
It’s Not the Weapon
Although it might seem quite obvious and trite, one of the bullet points typically used by proponents of the Second Amendment right to bear arms is “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Liberals have tried to debunk that idea over the decades, so it’s no surprise that they have been berating Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) for restating the idea in slightly different terminology.
The Left was already primed to hate Johnson who is an unabashed Evangelical Christian who is not afraid to speak openly about his faith, which one intellectual bemoaned from her Ivory Tower as “irrational beliefs,” and “mythology.” So, when the newly elected Speaker sat down for a one-on-one with Fox News personality Sean Hannity and declared that more legislation is not the solution, but that it is a person’s “heart” that leads them to these horrific acts, the stage was set.
Starting things off, Hannity rightly pointed out that the Democrats use almost every tragedy of this type to demand stricter gun laws and asked for Johnson’s response to that premise. The Louisiana Republican replied, “At the end of the day… it’s the human heart, it’s not guns, it’s not the weapons,” instead he framed it as a mental health issue.
Did Card Throw Up Any Red Flags?
Had the current red flag laws been properly handled, this shooting may never have happened in the first place. In mid-July, Card (who holds the rank of first sergeant in the Army Reserve) was “acting erratically” and threatening others in the barracks at the Camp Smith Training Site near Peekskill, New York, and while the New York State Police did take him to a hospital where he spent two weeks for inpatient mental evaluation, it was apparently never reported or put into any kind of background check system.
Clark reportedly made threats against his home reservist base and fellow soldiers located in Sacco near his hometown, but besides the local police in that area and the county sheriff where his hometown is located looking for him and increasing patrols for a few weeks, he was largely ignored. The Sagadanoc County Sheriff claims that he sent an “awareness alert to every law enforcement agency in the state,” but when one considers the final outcome, it becomes apparent that was ineffectual.
In Johnson’s interview, he noted several incidents where people intent on killing innocent bystanders used automobiles to complete the mass murder concocted in their troubled minds. Therefore, it wouldn’t be amiss for one to wonder if the attack that killed and wounded dozens of people could have been averted if more attention had been paid to Card’s obvious mental health conditions.
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