After Lewiston Massacre, Confidence in Public Safety Cracked Not Shattered.

Glaring warnings about the Maine killer and his shooter fantasy, large cache of weapons and psychosis were known and bandied about law enforcement circles without effect - and then after 18 people were killed and 13 critically injured it took 48 hours for 350 law enforcement officers to find a dead body in the back of a trailer across the street from where he worked.

You might ask how dare anyone in an ivory tower criticize at a time like this. Fair enough. I can’t know the pain, anguish and horror of confronting the handiwork of evil. There are so many heroes who deserve gratitude and so many broken families whose wounds to the heart are permanent. I am so deeply sorry for the community and awed by the outpouring of love and support at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul last night.

I don’t know what it’s like to be the victim of a mass shooting but I know enough to believe it’s plausible there was a complete breakdown in the system and it’s equally plausible nobody will take responsibility for failing to do their job. The cost in lives and community zeitgeist is unfathomable and in dollars too high for the finished product that enables deranged men intent to commit murder.

The public is obviously not safe from mass shootings. The public safety system is broken. The laws are broken. It doesn’t have to be this way.

During the fraught manhunt the Androscoggin River was searched by divers for the killer. The river used to be so polluted it was lifeless brown toxic foam until the Clean Water Act was passed in large part thanks to Maine’s very own Edward Muskie.

And this week both Maine senators voted to bar funding for the VA to report the mental incompetence of a veteran to the National Criminal Background Check System in the name of "gun rights." Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., where Sandy Hook is, said it "gives gun rights back to every single seriously mentally ill veteran who has been judged to be mentally incompetent, even those who are actively suicidal."

Laws can make a difference and we need to change the laws about what it means to be a responsible gun owner under the Second Amendment. And we should reasonably expect the existing laws to be enforced.

After the last victim of Lewiston’s horrific but oh-so-predicable mass shooting is put to rest and the injured are healed we will mourn deeply and contemplate the tragedy. The senseless loss of life and joy is bad enough - but in the Lewiston case, the loss of public confidence in our public safety system is worth conversation before the next tragedy captures our minds.