Drugs, prescription or illegal can be a precipitator, but I think he was showing the earliest symptoms during his internship at the Salk Institute based on the news reports.
My point of view is that the only type of government that might be able to discover and prevent the occasional seriously mentally ill person with extremely dangerous delusions and obsessions would be so oppressive that it’s not even worth trying.
Fact is, even totalitarian regimes have had mentally ill mass murderers, so this casting around looking for scapegoats and causative agents is misdirected and more dangerous than crazy people.
Political oppression via psychiatry was old hat to Stalin and Mao, let’s not go there ourselves in the name of safety from the mentally ill.
Thanks for your thoughtful posts here: a rare breed in these types of threads.
Bingo! I see the calls for that, too, and think “these people just don’t know their history!”
His first reaction was that Holmes had stop taking his medication.
From his experience/frustration: We have closed so many mental health facilities and underfunded those we still have. If we don't make the mentally ill a priority, incidents such as we've seen lately will increase. Even seventy two hours in house is not enough time to diagnose and establish treatment. Relying on family for care or throwing the patients out on the streets because there are not beds for them in institutions has its costs.