Robert Card, suspect in the Lewiston, Maine, shootings, is a 40-year-old Army reservist, a trained firearms instructor, and had recently reported mental health issues including hearing voices.

Card was reported to have been committed to a mental-health facility in Maine for two weeks this summer.

This information brings up some very disturbing questions that go beyond this awful crime:

First, why is a citizen in Maine, with a mental health history, able to possess a firearm?

For one thing, Maine lacks a “Red Flag” law which allows people (including families) to request that firearms be taken away from a person who has been deemed a threat to themselves or others, as appears to have been the case here.

As of 2023, 21 states (plus D.C.) have red flag laws.

Maine has a “Yellow flag” law which has only been used two dozen times from 2020 to 2022 and does NOT allow family members to directly petition a judge to order someone to give up their guns.

Only police can issue such a request.

Follow The Post’s coverage of the Maine mass shooting

Furthermore, I believe it is unlikely that Robert Card was taking anti-psychotic medication if prescribed, even after he threatened to shoot up a National Guard base.

This is what psychiatry calls homicidal ideation with a concrete plan. It is justification for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility and it immediately raises the question of why Card was reportedly released after only a two week stay.

Maine is in trouble when it comes to mental health services and it is not alone. Mental hospitals are being closed all across the country.

As of the end of 2021, there were only 87 mental health crisis workers for the entire state, compared with more than 2,500 law enforcement officers.

More than 2,000 patients were waiting for outpatient mental health treatment and 32 out of 45 emergency department beds were filled with individuals awaiting discharge for residential mental health care.

Meanwhile, more than 20 mental health residential programs in Maine had closed that year due to lack of staffing and inadequate financing.

Spring Harbor Hospital is the only nonprofit private psychiatric hospital of inpatient services in Southern Maine. Maine has only two state-run mental hospitals.

The Lewiston shootings are tragic but not isolated. This country needs more emphasis not just on the kind of weapon used but on the person using it and why.

Marc Siegel, MD, is a clinical professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health and a Fox News medical analyst.