LEWISTON, Maine– The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears a series of mass shootings and other gun violence in the United States could numb Americans to the bloodshed, promoting apathy in finding solutions instead of communities would be moved to action. .
Director Steve Dettelbach’s comments to The Associated Press came after he met last week with relatives of some of the 18 people killed at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston, Maine, in October by a U.S. Army reservist who later committed suicide committed.
He said people should not accept that gun violence is a prevalent part of American life.
“It seems to me that things that we used to regard as momentous, life-changing, shocking events that you could think about and talk about for months or years to come are now happening with an apparent frequency that makes it the case that we kind of think, “That’s exactly the one that happened this week,” he said. “If we start to accept that a little, it will be a huge hurdle in tackling the problem.”
Dettelbach, whose office is responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws, met for nearly two hours at Central Maine Community College with relatives of the dead and survivors of the Lewiston shooting. An AP reporter was also present, along with law enforcement officials.
Some expressed frustration over missed warning signs and questioned why the shooter was able to obtain the gun he used. Dettelbach told his audience that they can be a powerful catalyst for change.
“I’m sorry that we have to be in a place where these terrible tragedies have to happen for people to pay attention, but they have to pay attention,” Dettelbach said. ‘I can walk around and talk, but your voices “They are very important and powerful voices. So if you choose to use them, you have to understand that it makes a difference. It really makes a difference.”
Those who met with Dettelbach included members of Maine’s tight-knit community of deaf and hard of hearing people, who lost four people in the Oct. 25 shooting at a bowling alley and bar.
Megan Vozzella, whose husband, Stephen, was killed, told Dettelbach through an ASL interpreter that the shooting underscores the need for law enforcement to improve communication with members of the deaf community. She said they felt left out after the shooting.
“Nothing we do right now will bring back my husband and the other victims,” Vozzella said in an interview after the meeting. “It hurts my heart to talk about this and so I learn more about this every day. My only hope is that this can improve for the future.”
There are questions about why neither local police nor the military intervened to take weapons away from the gunman, Robert Card, despite his deteriorating mental health. In a police bodycam video released to the media this month, Card told New York troops before his hospitalization last summer that fellow soldiers were worried about him because he was “going to do something.”
Dettelbach declined to comment in the AP interview on the details of Card’s case, which an independent commission in Maine is investigating. But he said it’s clear the nation needs to make it harder for people “who everyone agrees shouldn’t have firearms, who the law says they don’t have a right to own firearms, to get them, because it It’s too easy to get them now.”
Dettelbach’s conversation with the victims was part of a tour of New England that also included meetings with law enforcement and others to discuss ways to address gun violence. Dettelbach, who has expressed support for universal background checks and banning so-called assault weapons, said he regularly meets people affected by gun violence.
“Each of these shootings is a tragedy that takes lives and changes other lives forever. And that’s whether it makes the news or not, whether it’s a child’s suicide or a ride through the city, whether it’s a massacre at a parade, spray bullets on the subway, whether it’s a man murders his family, murders. police” or a student with a gun “shooting up their school,” he said Wednesday during a speech at Dartmouth College.
“I want to remind you that it is our patriotic duty as Americans to respond, to think of these people, to stand with them and to see this hard news as a call to action.”
