<p>He had apparently bought all the guns before the police came, and maybe the last one wouldn’t have been processed if there is some time backlog, but I would think it would be on. California has waiting periods etc etc. You have to give your fingerprint to get ammo, as well. The record was there. But I don’t think his family had a clue he had guns. He bought them specifically for his ‘Day of Retribution’ according to his ‘manifesto’ and he wouldn’t have advertised them. I think the family just ‘knew him’, as much as he let them, and saw the videos, and worried. I don’t know if the ‘health check’ was in the nature of a suicide intervention or a violent attack intervention. I would think they would check records for guns since they have them, but I don’t know if they did, or if they were ‘supposed to’ under then current protocols.</p>
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I have the manifesto on my computer. I wanted to read it on my own pace and not have to keep a website link. </p>
<p>My university is holding a vigil, as well.</p>
<p>We don’t let people who are blind drive cars. Why do we let people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder and similar psychiatric diagnoses buy/have guns? (I intentionally don’t includes Asperger’s/Autism in this list. However, there are a significant percentage of people with Asperger’s who have another psychiatric disorder as a co-morbidity.)</p>
<p>As someone with an adult family member who had a severe mental illness with characteristics of lacking empathy, I’ve seen how ineffective the “system” is, and how families are actively pushed away on privacy grounds when they attempt to intervene. The current system is a lot better at cleaning up dead bodies than it is at preventing the tragedies in the first place.</p>
<p>I printed a hardcopy of thr manifesto. Will read it on my long flight.</p>
<p>I, for one, am fortunate that we don’t automatically prevent those with mental illnesses from owning guns. There are varying levels to one’s mental illness. It’s not as black and white as some may hope. I don’t think it is the go to solution. </p>
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[quote]
I printed a hardcopy of thr manifesto. Will read it on my long flight.[/quote}
Holy cow! That’s a lot of paper! </p>
<p>Oh dear. I came home today expecting that after this tragic incident everyone could at the very least agree that guns should not be purchased by the mentally ill. But, I guess not. All or nothing means nothing happens again. </p>
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<p>IIRC, he bought at least one gun over a year ago.<br>
But even if they learned he had a gun, then what?
If they were sufficiently concerned that he was a threat to himself or others, they probably would have brought him in or at least spent much more time with him. Apparently, they were not.</p>
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<p>There is a mechanism to prevent mentally ill people from purchasing guns.</p>
<p>One of the problems is that the States are reluctant to share that information.
For example, since the federal database was created in 1999, Massachusetts shared 1 (one) record.<br>
<a href=“http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/01/28/massachusetts-among-worst-sharing-mental-health-data-for-gun-background-checks/WmvEKsnUWsQWxvvsXwLY5O/story.html”>http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/01/28/massachusetts-among-worst-sharing-mental-health-data-for-gun-background-checks/WmvEKsnUWsQWxvvsXwLY5O/story.html</a></p>
<p>Other states aren’t much better.</p>
<p>The NRA wants a national mental health database to be used to cross-check against gun license requests.<br>
Many states oppose that.</p>
<p>I just get kind of pissed when a tragedy occurs and people use it to push a preexisting political agenda they have. The facts will come out and any good recommendations will be made, as well as bad ones, likely, but pushing it in the ‘heat of the moment’ smacks to me of emotional manipulation while people are vulnerable, not like necessarily good policy. Good policy can sell without the emotional play.</p>
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<p>In general I agree with what you said and our tendency to have emotional, rather than thoughtful responses.
It is the old joke:
“Something must be done!”
“Well, X is ‘something’”
“Okay, let’s do X”
“We all feel better now that we did something”</p>
<p>(no thought as to whether or not X actually will address the issue or have significant unintended consequences)</p>
<p>However, on the other hand, we seem to have the attention span and determination of a goldfish - regardless of the issue, and some other issue always seems to come up and grab attention, so this “emotional momentum” does seem to have value.</p>
<p>If you want a particular thing and people tend to disagree that it is needed when they aren’t emotional, possibly it isn’t the right thing to do, or possibly others just disagree on that point, period. I still think if it is actually good policy it shouldn’t take emotional upset, and that that tends to get us into bad policy in order to ‘do something’ someone has ready, rather than to look at what is the right thing if anything.</p>
<p>Personally, I disagree as much as I ever did with the bumper sticker stuff that is bandied around in most of these situations. I think, however, that something about checking records that already exist if you have cause for a health check on someone known to be mentally disturbed might be something to consider. However, I would want to hear any objections I might not have thought of to that. Note, I am NOT speaking of ‘record sharing’, but looking at records you already have. I disagree with a lot of California’s gun law, but if you have to register, what on earth is it for if it isn’t looked at in a case like this? Mind you, I may find out I am wrong about what justification the police knew of to speak to ER. Maybe it wouldn’t reasonably have triggered a gun check. But it seems odd to me that they didn’t check, knowing what I know from reading the manifesto.</p>
<p>^^ I still don’t know what people expect to have happened if the police knew that he was a legal gun owner.</p>
<p>It would have been a different conglomeration of facts. Knowing he has three guns, not in LA so possibly there, they could ask about. They could ask where he keeps them (since I bet it is not allowed under his lease in IV.) They could watch his demeanor. He might have been poised enough to get through it, but he was a very volatile guy, even by his own reporting. I think that together with whatever else they were told might have led them to a different conclusion. Getting a call from the family, concerned AND having bought three guns in the last year, AND the videos… dunno. There might have been reason for mental wheels to turn. I just wonder why we bother having registration unless it will be looked at for some purpose.</p>
<p>His parents didn’t know he had guns and the early videos were not threatening anything. So, it sounds as though the concern was suicide. He explained it away. But, unless it was imminent (out on a ledge or something) the police leave every time. It’s a routine call. Clearly crazy people get hauled in for up to 72 hours. But, even they could be back home the same day. Unless they stumbled into the whole devious plot nothing much changes. Maybe police should try to talk their way into a home and sniff around but there are reasons they don’t take that approach called warrants. And, they didn’t know they were supposed to be looking for a future mass murderer. No-one did.</p>
<p>By the way, in response to some saying he lived at a particular type of integration facility, he lived at an apartment building <a href=“http://capriiv.com/”>http://capriiv.com/</a> Right now they have a ‘take a lease and enter to win two Coachella 2014 tickets’ promotion going on. Some intergration agency may have found him the place, but it was a normal student apartment with roommate matching. </p>
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<p>Good question. I think it may be that:
- It is perceived that it will keep guns out of hands of people who shouldn’t have them…
(okay, that ain’t going to happen) - It can track a gun used in a crime (find gun, find out it was registered to X, question X, find out it was reported stolen)
- Collect licensing fees?
- Warn police responding to a call - household has guns registered there (didn’t happen in this case, maybe it isn’t used for that)</p>
<p>When cops pull you over for a broken taillight, as a precaution they run your plates.
You could have all sorts of stuff on there, or not, but they are aware beforehand.</p>
<p>If I was a cop, and I was going to interview someone on three separate occasions, ( especially in a relative short period of time - * something * was escalating), Id want to know if they had access to weapons.
Especially if they denied it.</p>
<p>You know, the more I think about the whole welfare check thing it seems to me that from a police perspective they are usually checking to make sure you’re still alive in there. They are not going in with the purpose of suicide prevention or launching a criminal investigation. Of course, we don’t know how much information they had but it doesn’t sound like much. I do wonder why whoever was advising them about this didn’t push a little harder if they knew they had a crisis going on because this system and it’s issues is not a secret. </p>
<p><a href=“Confusing Mental-Health Intervention and Violence Prevention - The Atlantic”>Confusing Mental-Health Intervention and Violence Prevention - The Atlantic;
<p>Only one of the interviews was for a welfare check.
He also accused a roommate of stealing candles and in a separate incident claimed he had been beaten, but police suspected he had been the aggressor.</p>
<p>Machetes and hammer to kill the roommates? Hadn’t seen that before. And there is more about what people did and didn’t know about him : <a href=“Elliot Rodger may have used machetes and hammer to murder house-mates in 'killing chamber'”>Elliot Rodger may have used machetes and hammer to murder house-mates in 'killing chamber';
<p>I don’t know what police protocol was and I am not saying it was their ‘fault’ just that protocols could be examined. Apparently they were told about the disturbing videos but didn’t watch them. </p>