A mentally ill Army reservist was able to massacre 18 people and wound 13 more in Maine with a high-powered rifle, but that’s no reason to tighten up any gun laws!

Yesterday, Fox News’ trotted out Maine’s former governor, Paul LePage to banish the thought of new gun laws from viewers’ minds.

Host Neil Cavuto described LePage as “a very important person to talk to” about the mass shootings.

LePage called the massacre “a terrible, terrible situation” before pivoting to calling for more to be done about mental health. “There’s a mental health element to this, and Maine has a yellow flag law, and so I think I would recommend that they have a complete investigation go on because [the shooter] was, as I understand it, was in a military hospital in New York, he got released to come back to Maine,” he said.

“If the law’s in place and there’s mental health issues, we have to deal with that, this country,” LePage continued. “It’s a very, very critical issue that we face, and most of these mass murders involve mental issues.” He added that mental health issues have been ignored “for like 20 years, 25 years.”

FACT CHECK: LePage had a terrible record on social services, including an order diverting funding from mental health services. That was not mentioned.

Also? LePage could probably benefit from some mental health services, himself.

To his credit, host Neil Cavuto suggested that more stringent gun laws might be a good thing.

“Is it a matter of toughening our gun laws? Is it a matter of toughening up who gets guns?” Cavuto asked. “How do you see it going forward because I suspect, sadly, this will not be the last such incident?”

LePage replied, “Before we have a discussion about gun laws and take, you know, firearms away from law-abiding citizens and making criminals out of them because they bought the guns when it was legal and now these gun control bans, what they do is they make you a criminal. Before they do that, we need to evaluate a lot of these mass murders and see what correlation it has to mental illness, and I believe the whole discussion with gun control has to involve mental illness.”

This “very important person” didn’t mention the causes of gun violence nor that gun massacres fell 37% during the assault weapons ban, and soared 183% after its expiration. But it's no surprise gun regulations were dismissed by LePage. "Mental health" has long been one of the right-wing's go-to position after mass shootings, along with accusing the left of "politicizing tragedy" or blaming Democrats and/or progressives, period.

You can watch it below, from the October 28, 2023 Cavuto Live.