On Wednesday evening, a rifle-toting gunman murdered 18 people and wounded at least 13 more in Lewiston, Maine, when he opened fire at two separate locations—a bowling alley, followed by a bar. A manhunt is still underway for 40-year-old suspect Robert Card, a trained firearms instructor with the U.S. Army Reserve who, just this summer, spent two weeks in a mental hospital after reporting that he was hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base.
While the other late-night talk show hosts stuck to poking fun at new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took his rebuke of the Louisiana congressman to a whole other level.
“Now, we know the arguments,” Colbert said of the do-nothing response politicians generally have to tragedies such as this. “Some people are going to say this is a mental health issue. Others are going to say it’s a gun issue. But there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
I’m no gun expert or psychologist, but I am fairly certain mentally stable people don’t go round shooting up public places.
I am fairly certain the same could be said for someone experiencing a mental health crisis without access to firearms.
Exactly, you’re mentally stable until you’re not. And lot’s of things can trigger a crisis.
He was such a nice guy, who would have thought!
Just checked and it looks like people without guns are even less likely to do it
Most mass shooters are actually right wing nutjobs.
Take this one, he was part of a right-wing militia.
While he did have a metal issue, he also had access to far too many guns, and then continued access after threatening to go on a mass shooting. All because he was part of a “militia”.
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He’s full of shit there was nothing saying he was involved with any militia other than the national guard.
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An interview with a neighbor said it was a militia, in addition to his military status.
The entire family is apparently part of the Maine Militia movement. The Card family home is referred to as a “compound”.
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Hearsay
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Definitely one way of trying to . One question though, who’s going to pay for all that?
The mental health services are not going to be free and the gun owners certainly won’t be cool with paying it. The government definitely won’t pay for it…See, this is why I say I have no faith that the problem won’t be solved any time soon, if ever.
Too many hard and expensive choices to make that will prove massively unpopular with large parts of either side of the argument.
The gun lobby could pay for it! They’ve got 16 million a year to spare!
Too expensive! Says residents of the only developed nation where this is a regular occurance
Why would they go against their own self interests?
The Maine shooter received urgent mental healthcare. Then he killed 20 people with a legally purchased firearm.
If you genuinely believe that “universal healthcare with no waiting times, for free, to every man, woman and child in America, including people who don’t want help, that instantly cures them of complex mental health problems far beyond our current medical science and so completely they will never relapse for even a minute, all so we can indiscriminately sell them guns” is a reasonable position, by all means start building that system.
You can have your guns back when you’re done.
Are there any checks and balances so that mentally unstable people can’t get guns?
They don’t, but for some reason half the country wants tk keep selling those people weapons.
I hear calls for things like Red Flag Laws from conservatives pretty often, actually.
Where’s the legislation? Dems would sign on in a heartbeat.
There isn’t any because Republicans focus on tax cuts for billionaires first. Everything else is just posturing.
Think about it. What federal legislation have Republicans proposed and passed since Bush? Tax cuts for billionaires. At least Bush mixed it up with some giveaways to the defense industry.
I don’t know about other places, but here in Indiana we have a statewide Red Flag law. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think of Indiana as much of a blue state.
Mentally stable people don’t own guns
If guns were not so prevalent… then this mentally unstable person wouldn’t be able to kill so many people in such a short amount of time. Even the fucking police ignored his hearing voices and mental clinic appointment.