People should stop blaming 40 yr. old Robert Card's FAMILY for not taking his guns away. [View all]

[pnwmom]

Card isn't a child. He's a single adult, whose only son (a recent high school graduate) has been living with an ex-wife Card divorced in 2007.

The "family" quoted in the articles consisted of a brother and a sister-in-law who HAD repeatedly reached out to the Army with their concerns about his mental health. It wasn't his brother's job to break into Card's home and remove his weapons.

The Army sent him for two weeks of mental health treatment this summer, because of their own observations of his behavior -- and they notified law enforcement.

So the FAMILY had done their part. It was the AUTHORITIES who fell down on the job.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/maine-mass-shooting-suspect/story?id=104342351

Card was previously married. His ex-wife filed for the divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, which was granted in 2007 with shared custody of the couple's minor child, court documents show. The divorce order was amended in 2013 to include shared parental rights and responsibilities of the child, whose primary residence was with his mother, the documents show.

SNIP

A U.S. Defense Department official confirmed to ABC News that Card was "behaving erratically" while deployed over the summer with his Army Reserve Unit to Camp Smith Training Center in upstate New York to support summer training for West Point cadets.

Leaders of the Army Reserve's 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment informed garrison staff at the training site about his behavior on July 17, the defense official said.

"Out of concern for his safety, the unit requested that law enforcement be contacted," the official said.