The National Guard shooting isn't about mental health

PUBLISHED: December 4, 2025 | www.baltimoresun.com

A makeshift memorial for U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is seen outside of Farragut West Station, near the site where the two National Guard members were shot, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

In the wake of the devastating shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump has announced that he intends to review the status of the nearly 77,000 Afghans who entered the United States under the Biden-era Operation Allies Welcome program, many of whom worked for the U.S. government abroad in Afghanistan to assist our military. He has also announced a full stop to migration to the U.S. from what he has dubbed “third-world countries.”

One of the National Guard members, Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, was killed. The other, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in serious condition but is showing signs of recovery.

And in just one week following the shooting, something peculiar happened.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, stopped being a “criminal” or a “terrorist” — whatever suitable name people called him. Now he was just “mentally ill.”

Yes, your typical shooter is often going to be mentally unstable. But here, this excuse is thin. Rahmanullah Lakanwal traversed the entire nation in his car with a .357 Magnum revolver, driving approximately 2,700 miles from Washington state to Washington, D.C.

So where does this label come from, exactly?

According to reports from a caseworker who was assigned to him after he moved to the United States, Lakanwal spent most of his time for weeks on end in a dark room, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife and older children. The caseworker also described “manic episodes” lasting one or two weeks at a time, where he would take off in the family car and drive long distances.

Let us bear in mind the absurdity that this savage should be given any sympathy for his actions by being labelled as mentally ill. His actions were inhuman through and through. And to discount his actions as him being simply mentally unwell further downplays the atrocity that was committed by him. Neither National Guard member deserved to be shot, but with Lakanwal’s mental fitness now on trial, it provides baseless fodder for people to question President Trump’s motives in reconsidering the status of the other Afghans let into the country.

This is particularly concerning in light of the fact that a 2022 audit by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general found that the government faced tremendous issues when properly vetting Afghan evacuees under President Joe Biden’s program. The report concluded that Customs and Border Protection “did not always have critical data” needed to run checks through U.S. government databases and that key identification information was often inaccurate, incomplete or missing. As a result, the inspector general determined that CBP admitted evacuees who were “not fully vetted” into the United States.

So, unlike what others have stated, I do not believe that President Trump’s actions would dissuade a member of a foreign nation from assisting our nation under fear that they might not be given safe passage into the United States.

We should all be proud and thankful for all of the Afghans who aided the U.S. military and our service members abroad in perilous situations. They put their lives on the line, and the lives of their families.

But the fact is, Lakanwal killed a member of the U.S. military and critically injured another, and he was brought in under potentially suspect circumstances. It is not unreasonable for the president to now question whether the broad stroke of a pen that allowed over 77,000 Afghans to enter the United States might have let in a few rotten apples.