What We Know About the Shootings in Maine

A manhunt by air, ground and sea continued on Friday for the gunman suspected of killing 18 people and injuring 13 more Wednesday night in a crowded bowling alley and at a bar in Lewiston, a city in Maine of about 40,000 residents.

Here’s what we know about the shooting, the country’s deadliest of the year.

What happened in Lewiston?

Around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, a gunman opened fire at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley. A few minutes later there were reports of a shooting at Schemengees Bar & Grille, a 12-minute drive away.

“I thought it was, like, a table crashing on the floor or something,” one bowler said. “Nobody really screamed. Nobody knew what it was.”

By about 8 p.m., officials released photos of an armed suspect and urged people to stay inside with their doors locked. Around 9:15, they released photos of a vehicle they were searching for, a small white car with a front bumper that may be painted black.

Around 11 p.m., the police named Robert R. Card of Bowdoin, Maine, as a person of interest in the shootings, saying that he “should be considered armed and dangerous.”

On Thursday, the Maine State Police expanded its shelter-in-place advisory for Lewiston, the state’s second-largest city after Portland, to include Bowdoin, about 15 miles away. Classes at Bates College in Lewiston, at Lewiston Public Schools and in neighboring school districts were canceled for Thursday.

What do we know about the victims?

Seven people died at the bowling alley, eight at the bar and three at the hospital, according to Col. William G. Ross of the Maine State Police. Eight of the 18 people killed have been identified so far.

Dr. John Alexander of the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston said the hospital had received 14 victims over 45 minutes on Wednesday night. In addition to the three people who died, three were discharged and eight remain hospitalized — three in critical condition and five in stable condition.

The mother of a victim who was shot at the bar said the shootings and her son’s death had further cemented a belief that she has had for years now: that assault rifles should be banned.

What do we know about the suspect?

Mr. Card, the 40-year-old man they sought in connection with the shootings, is a sergeant first class in the Army Reserve who enlisted in December 2002, the U.S. Army’s public affairs office at the Pentagon said.

He was trained as a petroleum supply specialist, whose work involves shipping and storing vehicle and aircraft fuel. Mr. Card has not served on any combat deployments and is assigned to the Third Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in Saco, Maine, according to an Army spokesman.

Police investigators were looking into a run-in Mr. Card had with officials during a recent visit to Camp Smith, a National Guard training facility not far from West Point, a senior law enforcement official said. The official said that Mr. Card was later evaluated at a mental health facility.

What are Maine’s gun laws?

While it is a largely blue state where Democrats control the governorship and both chambers of the State Legislature, Maine has a long history of resisting gun control measures. Much of the state’s political power base is rooted in rural communities, where hunting is an integral part of the culture.

According to a 2020 study by the RAND Corporation, 45 percent of Maine households owned at least one gun between 2006 and 2017, compared with the national average of 32 percent.

Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates tighter restrictions on guns, ranks Maine 25th in the nation in the strictness of its gun laws, with more permissive laws than nearby Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut. In the region, only New Hampshire has a lower ranking than Maine.

Maine does restrict the possession of guns by people with mental challenges who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or to others. Instead of a so-called red flag law similar to what many other states have passed, which allows the police or the public to petition for a temporary removal of a person’s firearms, Maine has a “yellow flag” law with the additional requirement of a medical professional’s opinion.

How have elected officials responded?

Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a centrist Democrat and Marine Corps veteran who has repeatedly broken with his party to oppose legislation that would ban assault weapons, reversed his long-held stance and has called for a ban on assault weapons.

Senator Susan Collins, a centrist Republican from Maine, declined to back a ban on assault weapons. Ms. Collins, who last year helped negotiate a compromise measure that broke a decades-long stalemate on any legislation aimed at changing the nation’s gun laws, instead said lawmakers should look at banning “very high-capacity magazines.”

“There’s always more that can be done,” she said.

Reporting was contributed by Patricia Mazzei, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Eduardo Medina, John Ismay, Jenny Gross, Glenn Thrush, Michael Corkery and Shaila Dewan.