> every classmate he had at Pima CC was scared to death of
> him and he couldn't even hold a job as a dogwalker.
"See something, say something" ...?
I just don't get what it is you're proposing to do.
It sounds like you're working your way back around (as was the start of this thread) to a complaint about the dearth of mental health infrastructure in the US, and I certainly don't disagree that It's A Problem. In the mean time, what you *actually* said ("The real scandal") was that there was something wrong with the clerk who sold him a gun -- and by extension, our "culture" ...
This isn't "about" the 2nd Ammendment, it's simply How Things Work Today: the mechanism for "dealing with" mental illness starts with a call to 911 and ends with a court order. That court order is what would have stopped the lawful purchase of a gun by this guy, not that I think it would have ultimately helped one bit in this case. The evolution of gun laws in the US has travelled this trajectory over the past 30-40 years. There are large numbers of people in the US who are forbidden from purchasing a firearm; these are the standards that have been set.
My personal opinion is that the road to homicide (other than the "usual" roads, which are a) as part of a criminal enterprise; and b) in the split-second of passion ... and by "usual" here I mean "the vast majority of") is a long one, and most of those who go down it will never get to the end, and will inflict psychic violence only upon themselves in their waking thoughts and their sleeping nightmares. A very small percentage of those will ultimately commit a single, tragic, lonely, solitary act of physical violence against themselves in an empty room, a garage, or at the railing of a bridge. An even smaller micro percentage will take their rage Downtown.
I do not believe there is much that we can do to stop a committed person from unleashing mayhem in the manner, time and place of their choosing. The calls for action by people after such events that start with "If only we had ..." are silly at best and distracting at worst. By the time this guy walked into a gun store, he was well beyond committed.
But go ahead, imagine a world where you're Tom Cruise and could forsee this guy's murderous rage. What is to be done? Let's even suppose you could find some way to get him put into the computer as someone who can't buy a gun -- which solves your gun store clerk dilema, yes even in Arizona. What then? Do you continue to watch for The Warning Signs ... like when he buys a pickup truck? It turns out that he walked into the parking lot and began shooting; what if he drove into the parking lot and began running people over? What if he fashioned a vest of explosives and nails and got close to the tables and blew himself up? What if he took 6 weeks to learn enough chemistry to make a binary agent in his basement and combined the two jars of liquid that day in front of Safeway? What if he practiced throwing fighting stars in his back yard for six months?
The lead up to the mayhem in Tucson is a complex story; it is only peripherally "about" a gun. A simple solution is tempting but ultimately impossible.
> The fucker was crazy and no sane person would have sold him a gun.
Maybe your experience is different; those who I've known to be, as you say, "crazy" have also been quite adaptive in clever ways, especially when dealing with someone they want something from. This kind of illness doesn't have a tell, like a stutter or a scar on your forehead: if the man behind the counter needs to see you as not being unstable, then by-golly you will be the most upstanding of citizens for however long the transaction takes.
I have no reason to believe that this guy didn't have such cleverness; how else to explain talking his way out of getting a ticket for running a red light that morning? I mean, if he knew what was ahead on that day -- and I have no doubt that this act was pre-meditated for weeks if not months -- why not just take the ticket and be on your way?
/jordan