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.
“He came in and filled out the form, he checked off a box that incriminated himself saying that he was in an institution,” Rick LaChapelle, owner of Coastal Defense Firearms, said. “Our staff was fantastic, let him finish filling out the form, and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Card, we cannot give you this… at this point in time, we cannot release this silencer to you because of the answers that you’ve given us.”
LaChapelle added “we did what we were supposed to do and hopefully saved a lot of lives by the proper, just following the proper procedures.”
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.