SELF-PRAISE

Gun Shop: We Refused to Sell Silencer to Maine Shooter

The owner of Coastal Defense Firearms says that probably saved lives.

The owner of a Maine gun shop is taking credit for saving lives in the Lewiston massacre by refusing to sell shooter Robert Card a silencer three months earlier. Card indicated on paperwork that he had been institutionalized—a reference to his two-week stint in psychiatric care for hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base. “We did what we were supposed to do and hopefully saved a lot of lives by the proper, just following the proper procedures,” Rick LaChapelle, owner of Coastal Defense Firearms, told ABC News, theorizing that if Card did have a silencer he could have gotten off more shots before people had a chance to flee.