SUSAN SHARON, HOST, INTERVIEW: Hey, Arthur.

ARTHUR BARNARD: Hi there.

HOST, INTERVIEW: You got your coffee?

ARTHUR BARNARD: I did …

HOST, INTERVIEW: Is this OK?

ARTHUR BARNARD: It is.

HOST: On a sunny, September afternoon, I meet Arthur Barnard outside what used to be a Lewiston pool hall where he and his oldest son liked to hang out.

“Little Artie” was 6’5″ and 280 pounds. He loved pool and he was good at it. His dad started teaching him to play when he was ten.

[light piano music]

HOST: Depending on how he’s feeling, Arthur usually stops by at least a couple of times a month and sits in his car in the parking lot.

As trucks rattle up and down the street, Arthur holds a photograph of his son in his lap and talks to him.

He tells “Little Artie” how his kids are doing, how proud he is of him and how he wishes things could have turned out differently.

ARTHUR BARNARD: I was proud of the way he treated his kids. He was fair. He was firm … He kept things fun at the same time. I was proud of the man that he was.

HOST: Arthur and I have spoken several times over the past year. But this is our first time meeting here, the place he last saw his son alive.

[ominous instrumental music]

HOST: On Oct. 25, 2023, a gunman walked into a bowling alley across town and opened fire, killing eight people. Then he drove to Schemengees Bar & Grille. He left his car running and went inside. In 78 seconds, he fired 36 rounds. Artie was playing pool at a table near the door. He and nine others were killed.

Arthur was also playing pool at Schemengees that night, but he left minutes before the shooter, Robert Card, arrived. Card was a part-time soldier whose friends and family had warned authorities about his erratic and threatening behavior. The Army Reserve ordered him to a psychiatric hospital, where he spent 19 days and where his doctors raised concerns about his access to guns. A local sheriff’s office was alerted that Card might carry out a mass shooting, but did not attempt to use Maine’s “yellow flag” law to try to seize his weapons.

ARTHUR BARNARD: I feel that a mental health provider should be able to make a phone call and say, ‘This person is unsafe. We need to remove any firearms.’ The problem is, nobody knows who owns what for firearms.

HOST: There’s strong disagreement about the effectiveness of gun registries. But, for Arthur, they just just make common sense.

ARTHUR BARNARD: This is the deadliest thing in our commun— in our lives. In this country. You have to register a canoe, or our dogs, if you put a motor on a canoe. But the one thing that kills more children and people in this country? You don’t have to keep any track of.

[instrumental music]

HOST: Arthur’s life is busy. He’s got more than 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Several live with him in his small home. He also works full-time as a cook. And ever since the Lewiston shooting, he’s taken on another role — as a gun control advocate.

ARTHUR BARNARD, RALLY: “This is not about taking guns, OK? This is about doing the right thing and finding the right politicians who are willing to do the right thing more than they are afraid of losing their jobs!”

HOST: That’s Arthur speaking at a rally for gun control legislation at the Maine State House in Augusta just a few months after Artie was killed. Lawmakers passed several gun safety measures in 2024: expanded background checks, a 72-hour waiting period for certain purchases and a ban on bump stocks, which convert a semiautomatic weapon into the equivalent of a machine gun. But Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the bump stock bill. And other efforts to curb gun violence failed.

[instrumental music]

HOST: Arthur Barnard is now part of a campaign to replace Maine’s unique yellow flag law with a red flag law, which would make it easier to temporarily seize the guns of a person considered a threat to themselves or others. Twenty-one other states and Washington, D.C., have some version of these “extreme risk protection orders” on the books.

ARTHUR BARNARD: We have laws in place. But they’re so weak around guns that it’s kind of disgusting that it’s been let go to that point.

[instrumental music]

HOST: Whether they favor some type of gun control or not, victims’ family members and survivors say their sense of safety is gone. And that has affected them in different ways.

LIZ SEAL, PRESS CONFERENCE: “The emotional and physical trauma will stay with us forever. Once justice is served, I feel maybe we can start that process of healing …”

HOST: That’s Liz Seal, who is deaf. An interpreter is voicing her words. She and Tracey Walker both lost their husbands, and both are now seeking justice through the courts.

TRACEY WALKER: I — we just want someone to take accountability … it could have been prevented. It could have been stopped.

HOST: Then there’s the family of Robert Card. His sister and brother-in-law have become advocates for the protection of soldiers from traumatic brain injuries. Card was a longtime hand grenade instructor who is believed to have been exposed to thousands of low-level blasts in the Army Reserve.

NICOLE HERLING:  And my question is, what the hell are we going to do for the people who have traumatic brain injuries today? What are we going to do for their families who are experiencing it today?

HOST: Others affected by the shooting? They’re just trying to move on.

[Breakdown theme music]

HOST: I’m Susan Sharon, and along with my colleagues Patty Wight and Kevin Miller, we’ll focus this final episode on how those affected by the Lewiston tragedy are turning their anguish into action.

This is Breakdown, a collaboration between Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald and Frontline PBS. Episode 6: “I think there’s hope.”

—

[sound of bowling balls striking pins]

PATTY WIGHT, HOST: For some, hope is the sound of bowling balls striking pins again at Just-In-Time Recreation.

Owners Justin and Samantha Juray reopened the bowling alley six months after the shooting here that killed eight people. Hundreds came to the event, including Gov. Janet Mills.

GOV. JANET MILLS: “The road to healing is long, but today, Justin and Samantha are helping us all take a big step forward by reopening Just-In-Time.”

[guitar strumming music]

HOST: This wasn’t the first time Justin and Samantha had saved the bowling alley. They rescued it from permanent closure when they bought the business three years ago. But after the shooting, Justin didn’t think they could do it again.

JUSTIN JURAY: A few days after, I was still against the idea. I didn’t want to do it. I was — I didn’t think I could step foot in here.

HOST: Then, Justin thought about Bob Violette. Bob was a regular at Just-In-Time. He and his wife were killed while he was coaching a youth bowling league.

JUSTIN JURAY: I just felt him pushing me and telling me that, you know, we needed to do this for the kids. And he wouldn’t — he wasn’t allowing me to not reopen.

HOST: Justin also spoke to one of the long time employees, Tom Giberti. The night of the shooting, Tom was shot in both legs as he helped a group of children escape.

TOM GIBERTI: … Right after I got out of the hospital, Justin and Sam came up to see me. And that was one of the first things he asked was, you know, ‘Should we reopen?’

HOST: Tom was unequivocal. They had to reopen. He didn’t want the bowling alley’s fate determined by the shooter.

TOM GIBERTI: I mean, No. 1, we weren’t going to let him win. No. 2, in the area, there really isn’t a lot to do for people and for youth, and we need this to have — be open for everybody, as a community. It’s a family.

[light piano music]

HOST: So, about a month after the shooting, Justin and Samantha started to renovate the place. They repainted and put in new floors. They created memorials for the victims. They also added more security cameras and changed the doors. It’s a tough balance, Justin says, trying to regain a sense of safety and normalcy. Nowadays, he looks over his shoulder more.

JUSTIN JURAY: I have fears that I never had before. And …

SAMANTHA JURAY: Anxiety.

JUSTIN JURAY: Yeah, heightened anxiety, and obviously, loud noises and things definitely startle me a lot more.

[light piano music]

HOST: Moving forward from trauma doesn’t necessarily happen in a straight line. There is healing and grief. Even so, several speakers at a commemoration event on the one year anniversary of the shooting said they see a community that’s grown stronger.

JOANNA STOKINGER, EVENT: “We may be frayed. Some of us are torn and hanging on. Some of us have had to be stronger thread to hold others together …”

HOST: Joanna Stokinger is the lead advocate at a place called the Maine Resiliency Center.

It opened in Lewiston just a few weeks after the shooting. It has government funding for two years and offers free help to anyone affected, directly or indirectly.

TRACEY WALKER: It’s like a place you can just go and get away from everything.

HOST: Tracey Walker’s husband, Joe, was the bar manager at Schemengees. He died while trying to stop the shooter. Losing a loved one to a violent death is especially hard to come to terms with, she says. The Resiliency Center helps her and her grandkids cope.

TRACEY WALKER: They cheer us up. Even the adults. We do activities. We, you know, we have bingo. We do board games. They do scavenger hunt for the kids. And, they even have yoga.

DANIELLE PARENT: What we find is that people come to activities.

HOST: Danielle Parent is the director of the Maine Resiliency Center.

DANIELLE PARENT: I think often about what’s most successful at the Center for us so far, and that has been largely support groups and one-to-one support. But not everybody is ready for that.

HOST: Joining an activity can be an easier first step, she says.

[light piano music]

HOST: Resiliency centers are a relatively new model, specifically designed to respond to mass shootings. They’ve opened in places like Aurora, Newtown, Las Vegas, Parkland and Uvalde, just to name a few.

LIZ SEAL: We’re all pieces of a puzzle. And when we get together at the Maine Resiliency Center, we feel more cohesive.

HOST: Liz Seal is deaf. An interpreter is voicing her words. Her husband, Josh Seal, was killed at Schemengees, leaving behind Liz and their four children.

LIZ SEAL: I don’t have to explain myself. I can just start from where I’m at. … When you say, how are you doing? You know, you can answer somebody, ‘I’m awful.’

[light instrumental music]

HOST: And the site of the other shooting that night in Lewiston has become an important place to seek help.

LINDA SCOTT: I’ll just take you all the way in. Just follow me through here, we’ll take you through.

HOST: The Schemengees space didn’t reopen as a bar and grill. But the building is being used to serve the community. A few weeks after the first anniversary of the shooting, it became home to an emergency warming center.

LINDA SCOTT: So this is the area where we serve the meals …

HOST: Linda Scott, the executive director of the warming center, gives a tour of the space. Some of the area’s most vulnerable can now come here to get a hot meal, warm clothes, or just take a break from the cold. No more pool tables, cornhole games, or darts. They’ve been replaced with a clothes closet, couches, and chairs.

LINDA SCOTT: Everything that you see here, we luckily got donated to us. We have an amazing community that did that for us.

HOST: The initials of all the people who were killed in the shooting are on the wall, and so is an old sign for Schemengees. “Come for the great food, stay for the good times,” it says.

[guitar strumming music]

HOST: Many places that are the scene of a mass shooting never reopen. Some are demolished. But not in Lewiston.

KEVIN BOILARD: It was kind of the triumph through tragedy, you know, mind frame …

HOST: Kevin Boilard runs the nonprofit that operates the warming center.

KEVIN BOILARD: … We will now be turning this into a place that will be saving lives over the winter …

HOST: The warming center is only open overnight, but Kevin hopes to eventually turn it into a full-time shelter with as many as 60 beds. And he’s reassured by some victims’ families that this is the right path for the space. He remembers a visit from a mother and father who came to spend time where their son died.

KEVIN BOILARD: You could tell that the father was kind of one of those old school, you know, don’t want to show his emotions. Um, but he gave me a handshake and then he pulled me close and gave me a hug. And the energy behind that hug is something you just can’t describe. Um, and they thanked us. They blessed us. He tried handing us some money. We tried refusing. He didn’t accept the refusal. So, obviously, we wanted to honor what he was trying to do in memory of his son.

[guitar strumming music]

HOST: Arthur Barnard hoped the place where he lost one of his sons, Artie, could be the salvation for another son, Anthony. Anthony battled substance use disorder for years and struggled to find stable housing. He often slept outside. But just two days before the warming center’s official opening, Anthony was found dead in his tent.

[mournful piano music]

HOST: Even as Arthur manages the loss of two sons, he says he’s determined not to let the terrible actions of one person in this space take away the beautiful memories of so many others.

ARTHUR BARNARD: It had its connection with the community, and I would have put in a memorial wall in there and said, ‘We are strong enough to keep going.’ And thank you to everybody here, because [crying] you’re the ones that make this.

[mournful piano music]

—

NICOLE HERLING, COMMISSION : “Here I’ve brought the very helmet … meant to safeguard my brother’s brain.”

KEVIN MILLER, HOST: Nicole Herling rests her hand on the back of the camouflage helmet that she says Robert Card wore while training West Point cadets to toss live hand grenades. She and her husband James are wearing matching brain health awareness t-shirts as they testify — sometimes through tears — to a state commission investigating the shooting. But as Nicole pulls the Army helmet closer, she directs her words not to the panel a few feet away, but to military officials far from Maine.

NICOLE HERLING, COMMISSION: “To the Department of Defense: it failed. It’s been failing. It’s unjust to continue trainings with explosions and sonic booms until there are protective gear and standards ensuring the safety of all our soldiers’ brains. I won’t relent until these changes happen.”

[piano music]

HOST: For Nicole and James, moving forward means raising awareness about the potential links between brain injuries and mental illness within military ranks. Researchers at Boston University studied Card’s Brain after his death at the request of Maine’s medical examiner.

ANN MCKEE: In Mr. Card’s brain, what we saw was interface astrogliosis, which is a type of scarring, an inflammation of the brain that is — has been found after blast injury, but also has been found in contact sport athletes.

HOST: Dr. Ann McKee is director of the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center brain injury lab.

ANN MCKEE: What we knew from the clinicians who went back and talked to the family was that he had been exposed to grenade explosions repetitively. … So, and knowing that he had a very substantial exposure to these grenade explosions, we thought it was most likely that his traumatic brain injury was was secondary to that exposure.

HOST: Dr. McKee says what her team saw in Card’s brain is consistent with the effects they have seen in previous studies on blast injuries in humans and in experimental models. But McKee says these are often quote “invisible” injuries — without blood, skull fractures or even any symptoms at first. She also says it’s not possible to definitively link brain trauma with specific behaviors.

ANN MCKEE: Everybody wants A to cause B, right? It’s just too simple. … When you say, ‘Did that brain injury cause him to kill 18 people?’ Well, I can’t say that. You know, you can’t. It probably contributed to the story. But how much it contributed, that I don’t know.

HOST: A growing body of evidence suggests that some service members are exposed to potentially damaging blasts outside of combat, such as during routine training.

The Army’s internal investigation agreed that Card may have suffered a traumatic brain injury. But the Army said Card’s records do not indicate that he suffered any quote “significant brain trauma” while on duty. Instead, the report suggested his brain injury could have been related to a fall from a roof in 2008 in which he broke his neck.

Dr. McKee said that doesn’t align with what they found in Card’s brain tissue.

ANN MCKEE: We’ve never seen the type of brain injury, the brain damage that we found in Robert Card after a single event such as a fall, a single fall. … Now, could that single injury have made, uh, the other injury worse? … It’s possible that it added to it, but as a single event, it doesn’t explain the changes we found under the microscope.

HOST: Brain injury experts at the military’s Walter Reed medical center were given access to the BU lab’s analysis but they have not released their own findings.

[instrumental music]

HOST: Nicole Herling is deeply skeptical of both the roof-fall theory and of what the military medical experts will eventually say about her brother’s brain injuries.

NICOLE HERLING: I am not holding out a lot of hope about what Walter Reed will find. They do have a copy of the medical report. I gave that to them hoping that they would use it to help other soldiers.

HOST: The military has been under pressure for years from Congress and families of brain-injured veterans to better protect troops from blasts.

Ten months after Lewiston, the Pentagon announced new, recommended stand-off distances around some weaponry during training. The Defense Department has also begun conducting baseline cognitive assessments of all new recruits, including Reservists, to help them detect any injuries later on.

Since Lewiston, Maine Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins have sponsored bills that would require the military to more closely track troops’ exposure to potentially damaging shockwaves. King, who serves on the Senate committees that oversee both the military and veterans affairs, also wants long-term studies on the impacts of low-level blasts and treatments that show the most promise.

SEN. ANGUS KING: We know enough to know it’s a problem. We just don’t know the magnitude of it. And — but once we can determine that, then we can talk about, uh, how to, how to mitigate it.

HOST: Dr. McKee says baseline assessments and long-term monitoring are critical, but that will take a lot of money and a long time. And she says the military must address the immediate needs.

ANN MCKEE: We need to look at these guys now, right now, while they’re suffering, while they’re having the impacts … while they’re developing the early stages of this deterioration. That’s when we can make a difference. That’s where we can prevent the disease.

[light piano music]

HOST: For the past year, Nicole and James Herling have struggled under the oppressive weight of what her brother did. And as a constant reminder of those lost, the couple has posted the names of the 18 victims on blue hearts nailed to trees on their property.

But Nicole is also hoping to learn from her family’s painful experience. She says she tried repeatedly to find help for her brother, who denied his mental illness and gradually turned away from those closest to him.

NICOLE HERLING: I know that I was tempted to put a barrier between me and my brother because it’s — it’s discouraging. You don’t know how to help this person that’s struggling. They push you away because they’re frustrated. So how are we going to help and love people who are struggling if we can’t even look them in the eye and say. ‘How are you? How can I help you today?’

HOST: Since the shooting, Nicole and James have devoted themselves to learning about brain health. They’ve attended events with families of veterans who died by suicide. She’s talked to people whose family members live with schizophrenia and paranoia.

The Herlings have also been in contact with the Concussion Legacy Foundation and hope to help build awareness about the need for veterans and others to donate their brains to science.

NICOLE HERLING: So it all just comes back to, we have to figure out how we can take a look at these people’s brains so we can best support them and love them through what they are going through.

HOST: They also hope to launch their own nonprofit focused on brain health in veterans within the next few years.

[light piano music]

HOST: In the meantime, Nicole still struggles to reconcile how her brother — who she says for years lovingly looked after his parents, his siblings and their children — could commit such violence.

NICOLE HERLING: There were days that I was angry at Robbie. I had this picture of him and there’s days that, like — I didn’t know how he could hold his baby with those hands and then kill so many people with them too.

HOST: She has no other ready explanation for her brother’s rapid mental deterioration. So Nicole has seized on his brain injuries — and talks about her advocacy as a quote “mission.”

NICOLE HERLING: I don’t know if, like, this mission is so I don’t have to feel that pain, or whether it is the truth. … And it’s going to be hard … or um — I don’t know … I don’t know. And I’ve asked and I’ve asked and I’ve asked. And the more people I talk to, they’re like, ‘You gotta keep going. You have to keep going.’

[piano music fades]

—

SUSAN SHARON, HOST: For some Lewiston survivors and victims’ families, the next step is the courthouse. And the blueprint for their legal strategy may be found in a small town in Texas.

TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT, PRESS CONFERENCE: “We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history.”

HOST: In 2017, a man opened fire during a church service in rural Sutherland Springs. He fired at least 450 rounds, killing 26 people and injuring more than 20 others, including several children.

TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT, PRESS CONFERENCE: “As governor, I ask for every mom and dad at home tonight, that you put your arm around your kid and give your kid a big hug and let them know how much you love them.”

HOST: The shooter was a former Air Force service member who was court-martialed for assaulting his wife and baby stepson and later discharged for bad conduct. Because he had been convicted of domestic violence, it was illegal for him to purchase the firearms used in the church shooting. But the Air Force failed to report his conviction to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. So survivors and families of the victims sued the federal government.

JAMAL ALSAFFAR: “Frankly, we were just upset and had enough of people in power and people with influence not doing anything.”

[light piano music]

HOST: Jamal Alsaffar of Austin, Texas, was the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Sutherland Springs case. In 2021, a federal judge found the federal government 60% liable for failing to report the shooter’s military conviction for domestic violence to the FBI. The shooter had also threatened to commit mass violence.

JAMAL ALSAFFAR: We were able to provide justice to those families. We were able to hold the federal government accountable for their many, many mista— missteps, including the Air Force and the military, in preventing a known and dangerous person from getting weapons.

HOST: The judge ordered the federal government to pay the victims more than $230 million in damages. The Department of Justice appealed, and a few months later, the Sutherland Springs families agreed to settle for $144.5 million.

The federal government is generally protected from liability lawsuits, with limited exceptions.

JAMAL ALSAFFAR: There is a very, very large role that the justice system can and should play in holding folks accountable for this.

HOST: Alsaffar says the case changed the way the military reports convicted felons and it showed the importance of federal background checks. He’s also worked with families devastated by the school shooting in Uvalde and a mall shooting in Allen, Texas.

And now he’s working on the Lewiston case with attorneys from three other law firms.

[light piano music]

CYNTHIA YOUNG, PRESS CONFERENCE: “Hello, I’m Cynthia Young. Last year, on Oct. 25, my life, as well as so many of the others here today, was changed forever.”

HOST: Ten days before the first anniversary of the Lewiston shooting, Cynthia joined dozens of victims’ family members and survivors in announcing their intent to sue the Department of Defense, the Army and Keller Army Community Hospital in New York for negligence. It’s something she and others say they are doing to spare other families from experiencing the pain and grief they now carry.

CYNTHIA YOUNG, PRESS CONFERENCE: “My husband, Bill, and my son, Aaron, were taken from me in what seems like an instant.”

HOST: Cynthia dropped off Bill and 14-year-old Aaron at the bowling alley that night.

CYNTHIA YOUNG, PRESS CONFERENCE: “I kissed and hugged them both, and I told them I loved them. I pulled my son back for a second hug, not knowing it would be the last time I ever saw them.”

HOST: As traumatic as that is, Cynthia says what makes it worse is that there were multiple people and agencies who saw the warning signs and did not take the proper actions to stop Robert Card.

CYNTHIA YOUNG, PRESS CONFERENCE: “There needs to be accountability for those actions not taken that led up to the 18 souls being lost, and also the loss of feeling safe and secure for the survivors of this tragic event.”

[mournful instrumental music]

HOST: A commission established by Gov. Janet Mills to examine the facts of the case came down hard on Army Reserve leaders for failing to take necessary steps to reduce the threat Robert Card posed to the public, including removing guns from his home.

Army leaders said they were not authorized to seize his weapons because he was not on active duty at the time. Commissioners also criticized the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office for failing to use the yellow flag law and relying on Card’s family to try to secure the weapons. That, they said, was an “abdication of law enforcement’s responsibility.”

But Ben Gideon, one of the attorneys representing the group, says they do not anticipate a case against local law enforcement.

BEN GIDEON, PRESS CONFERENCE: “As you may have seen in our claims against the Army, local law enforcement was not provided with all of the critical information that the Army had about the risks presented by Robert Card …”

HOST: Gideon says that includes the fact that, according to the commission report, Card’s treating doctors urged the removal of his firearms from his home.

After 19 days, Card was discharged from the psychiatric hospital in New York known as Four Winds.

BEN GIDEON, PRESS CONFERENCE: “The minimal records we do have from Four Winds … the Four Winds doctors actually concluded that it was unlikely that Robert Card was going to get better or improve after he left.”

HOST: In closed testimony, a Four Winds psychiatrist told the commission that Card had shown progress, agreed to take his medications and participate in therapy.

Attorneys say they have not ruled out a future claim against Four Winds.

[light guitar strumming music]

HOST: Arthur Barnard is not part of the lawsuit. But he understands why it’s important for his daughter-in-law and other families who have signed on.

Instead, he’s putting his energy into gun control. Recently, he says it dawned on him, as he was at a Red Sox game in Boston, that more people were killed by gun violence in 2023 than can sit in Fenway Park. The stadium seats just under 38,000. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 46,000 people were victims of gun violence that year.

ARTHUR BARNARD: You see all these people … having such a good time listening to music and singing along with all these songs that are playing at these baseball games. … It’s such a big spectacle, and all I could think about is, this is how many people were gone in one year.

HOST: Not long after he lost his son, Artie, Arthur started making connections with other families who have lost loved ones in mass shootings. Gun safety advocate Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed in the Parkland high school shooting, invited him to Washington, D.C., for a national vigil on gun violence.

ARTHUR BARNARD: So the next thing I know, I’m meeting the kids from Sandy Hook. I’m seeing all these teenagers. You know, they’re juniors and seniors. … I’m saying, ‘Who are these guys?’ And they’re telling me, you know, they’re the kids from Sandy Hook Elementary School. … They were there in person, watching their teachers and friends get killed. … And to witness, you know, the pain that’s still there… [voice cracks, cryingHOST: Arthur met the parents from Uvalde, too. They sat behind him at the church vigil. At one point, Arthur says people were invited to step up to a microphone and share the name and photo of the person they lost. When he shared that Artie had been killed just a few weeks earlier, there was a collective gasp in the audience. Overcome with emotion, Arthur went to get his coat to step outside for some fresh air. And one of the Uvalde parents followed him.

ARTHUR BARNARD: He just walks up to me, and he says — grabs my hands and he’s in tears and he looks me in the eye and he says, ‘I feel like I failed you.’

HOST: What he was implying, Arthur says, is that as someone who lost a child in a mass shooting, he hadn’t prevented the next gunman’s attack, the next parent’s overwhelming grief, in this case, Arthur’s.

ARTHUR BARNARD: And all I could do is look at him and say, ‘You didn’t fail me. Our system failed us. Our protections, our safety for our children, our safety period, everything surrounding that is what failed us… You didn’t fail me. We’re all doing what we can.’

HOST: These two fathers now regularly keep in touch. They’re part of a club that no one wants to join but whose ranks grow every year.

You might think Arthur Barnard would be discouraged by the math alone — the number of guns and the amount of ammunition sold, the number of mass shootings, the number of victims.

[Breakdown theme music]

But the more gun owners he meets, the more he’s convinced he shouldn’t give up.

ARTHUR BARNARD: The more people I talk to, the more people agree with what I’m saying. In fact, it’s better than 95% of the people I talk to agree with what I’m saying.  It’s uh … so …

HOST, INTERVIEW: So you feel like there’s progress?

ARTHUR BARNARD: I think there’s hope.

HOST: And that’s one of the things he can tell “Little Artie” the next time he parks his car and holds his oldest son’s photograph in his lap outside the pool hall where they used to go.

[Breakdown theme music]

Breakdown is a collaboration between Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald and Frontline PBS, with support from Rock Creek Sound.

Our reporters are Patty Wight, Kevin Miller, and Steve Mistler.

The producer is Emily Pisacreta.

The show is edited by Ellen Weiss and Keith Shortall.

Andrew Catalina is our digital editor.

Our executive producers are Mark Simpson and Erin Texeira.

Sound design and mixing by Benjamin Frisch.

Fact checking by Nicole Reinert.

Legal support from Dale Cohen.

Grace Cooney and Jane Hecker-Cain were the ASL interpreters for Liz Seal.

Rick Schneider is the President and CEO of Maine Public Radio.

Lisa Desisto is the CEO and Publisher of the Portland Press Herald.

Raney Aronson-Rath is the executive producer and editor-in-chief of FRONTLINE.

Breakdown is produced through FRONTLINE’s Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

For an upcoming video translation of the podcast in American Sign Language, go to frontline.org.

For additional reporting about Lewiston, visit mainepublic.org/breakdown, pressherald.com and frontline.org, where you can also stream the documentary Breakdown in Maine.

If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

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I’m Susan Sharon. Thanks for listening.