HOST: In 2023, there were 656 mass shootings in this country. But the one in Lewiston Maine was the deadliest, and maybe the most preventable.

SEAN HODGSON: I warned you [expletive] about this and I didn’t hold back, not one bit.

HOST: Why wasn’t the gunman stopped despite multiple warnings?

CARA LAMB: None of us should be allowed to say that we did enough in this scenario.

HOST: Why was this so devastating for Maine’s Deaf community?

REGAN THIBODEAU: Their friends and family are Deaf. Their families are Deaf. They use American Sign Language. All they want is equity in communication access.

HOST: Why is the gun lobby in Maine so powerful?

DAVID TRAHAN: There’s a culture there that supports gun rights. And politically, it translates into how people vote.

HOST: On October 25th 2023, 18 people were killed in Lewiston Maine. We breakdown what happened and why. From Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald and Frontline PBS, a new series, “Breakdown: How the lessons of Lewiston might help make us safer.”

LEROY WALKER: I still get up every morning and go to bed every night thinking of my son and trying to figure out why would anything like this happen.

KEELA SMITH: People were like, ‘Oh, thank God it’s over. And I thought to myself, it is not over. It is so far from over.

CARA LAMB: Who we are will be affected forever, changed forever. It has to be enough to spark some change.

HOST: Breakdown. Subscribe now in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled a subject’s name. It is Regan Thibodeau, not Thibodeaux.