There is a provision in ca law that allows anyone to be committed if they might be a danger to themselves or others, for a 72 hour eval. His parents never did it. So he was legally allowed to buy guns. I know it’s not the guns, and he could have bought them illegally, but if anyone needed a 72 hr check, it was him.
They tried...that’s why they sent the cops to his apartment a month ago. But, as is USUALLY the case, these type of people can turn on the charm and appear perfectly “normal.”
It is actually rather difficult to get someone picked up for a 72 hour hold. I had a family member who was so delusional that she was hearing “voices” and generally living entirely in an alternate reality. The cops finally took her in after she was violent towards another family member. Even then, it ended up before a judge the next day IIRC.
And then, because (as I said above) these people can appear perfectly lucid when they “have” to be...the Psychiatrist actually concluded that this person was perfectly fine and blamed the family for trying to “micromanage” her life.
Fortunately, she later received a correct diagnosis and medication; but in many cases that does not happen.
His parents called the cops on him. They visited and concluded he wasn't a problem.
From his Manifesto, page 134:
After only a week passed since I uploaded those videos on Youtube, I heard a knock on my apartment door. I opened it to see about seven police officers asking for me. As soon as I saw those cops, the biggest fear I had ever felt in my life overcame me. I had the striking and devastating fear that someone had somehow discovered what I was planning to do, and reported me for it. If that was the case, the police would have searched my room, found all of my guns and weapons, along with my writings about what I plan to do with them. I would have been thrown in jail, denied of the chance to exact revenge on my enemies. I can’t imagine a hell darker than that. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but it was so close.
...
The police interrogated me outside for a few minutes, asking me if I had suicidal thoughts. I tactfully told them that it was all a misunderstanding, and they finally left. If they had demanded to search my room… That would have ended everything. For a few horrible seconds I thought it was all over. When they left, the biggest wave of relief swept over me. It was so scary.
I doubt that anybody could have envisioned him going on a shooting rampage. If we all acted, when somebody momentarily loses their shiat, as if they should be locked up, we’d all be locked up at some point in our existence, probably most would be locked up more than a few times.
It’s not that easy. A 72 hour hold has to go through a LEO or a psychiatrist. His parents tried to get him evaluated, the cops did a poor job of assessing him. Having dealt with this issue in the ER in the past in Cali, I had several times I, an experienced ER physician wanted a 72 hour hold, and the cop refused.at which point I was helpless. I had one teenager from a middle class family who was clearly psychotic, paranoid, eating out of trAsh dumpsters, and the local Barney Fife decided she wasn’t an imminent threat to herself and turned her loose despite my request and the pleas of her parents. As the cop was leaving I told him “ too bad I went to medical school and residency, I should have gone to the sheriffs academy”.