The mainstream media’s investigators tried their level best to find something about Robert Lewis Dear (shown), the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooter who killed three and wounded nine in a five-hour stand-off that ended late Friday afternoon. Something — anything — that would support the agenda the media insist on promoting: that he was a protester at Planned Parenthood for killing babies and selling their body parts, that he was connected somehow with a right-wing wacko group with an anti-government agenda, or that he was representative of “gun nuts” so hated by the Left.
After hours of investigation, including conversations with neighbors in North and South Carolina, and in Hartsel, Colorado, where Dear lived, they came up with almost exactly nothing — which proves the point: No background check, no matter how rigorous, would have picked this guy up. But background checks are the solution, according to anti-gunners, including the president, who blamed the shooting on the weapon Dear was using instead of Dear himself. Obama said, “[Dear] opened fire with an assault weapon [that] forced fear upon … more Americans and their families.”
In March of 2002, Lynn Roberts, a neighbor of Dear’s in North Carolina while he was living in a small house with no electricity, reported that Dear had been “leering” at her and “making unwanted advancements to [her].” In July of that year she obtained a restraining order against him.
In November, 2002, Dear shot a neighbor’s dog with a pellet gun.
In September of 2004, Douglas Moore, another neighbor of Dear’s, reported to the police that Dear had threatened him, telling him that “he was going to do bodily harm to him because [Dear] thought that [Moore] had pushed his motorcycle over on the ground.”
Those charges were dismissed.
That’s all they could find. No affiliations with the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazis. No memberships in groups expressing concerns about abortion or out-of-control government. No church memberships. No explosives in his trailer. Nothing that would indict Dear as one who fit the mainstream media’s profile.
Investigators did learn that he considered himself an art dealer. He moved to Hartsel in October of 2014 and began to build a “tiny house” with the help of a girlfriend. They lived in a travel trailer in the meantime, along with two dogs. When investigators interviewed the real estate agent who sold Dear his property, she could tell them nothing: He was a quiet, ordinary guy wanting to live by himself. At no time did she ever feel threatened. Another dead end.
When Pamela Post, Dear’s ex-wife, was quizzed about the shooting, she also had more questions than answers: “I know everyone has a lot of questions. We all do. We’re living it just as everyone else is.” She declined any further comment. Another dead end.
When investigators uncovered James Russell, another neighbor of Dear’s while he was living in North Carolina, he told them: “If you talked to him, nothing with him was very cognitive — topics all over the place.”
When Dear was arrested, an officer asked him why he was shooting people. Dear answered: “I heard voices in my head.” That report came from an observer at the scene who remains anonymous, and efforts by this writer to confirm it were unsuccessful.
There was one interesting bit of information that, for all intents and purposes, has ended any efforts to tie Dear to some nefarious extremist group: After moving to Hartsel last year he registered himself as a female and an unaffiliated voter:
Robert Lewis Dear, Jr., was born in 1958 and she registered to vote, giving her address as 809 Ouray Court, Hartsel, Park County, Colorado, 80449. Her voting status is active. She is unaffiliated.
Voter ID number 601010372
All of which should be sufficient proof that a background check, no matter how rigorous, would never have picked up Dear and kept him from purchasing and using a firearm. Which puts the lie to anti-gunners’ attempts to cram background checks down the throats of innocent, law-abiding citizens as some kind of solution to shooting sprees such as this one in Colorado Springs.
The fact that those in favor of gun control continue to press the matter indicates that there must be another agenda behind their demands, for when their investigation of Dear failed to expose anything that fit their profile, they dropped it.
There is one fact that can be proven beyond all doubt, however: The only thing that stopped this guy with a gun was other guys (an estimated 35 of them) with guns. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Dear, for all the lack of mental clarity observed by his neighbors over the years, was smart enough to pick a location where no one was armed. As noted on a Planned Parenthood website: “Patients, staff, and visitors may not bring guns, knives, or other weapons to any PPNNE office or health care center.”
Photo: AP Images
A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
