By Joseph Ax and Julia Harte
NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York City detectives investigating this week’s mass shooting were interviewing the attacker’s associates in his home state of Nevada on Wednesday, as gun safety advocates expressed dismay that he was able to buy a gun there legally last month despite two reported mental health hospitalizations.
Authorities say Shane Tamura, 27, drove from his Las Vegas home to Manhattan, marched into an office skyscraper on Monday and fatally shot four people, including an off-duty police officer, with an assault-style rifle before taking his own life.
Tamura legally purchased a revolver in Nevada in June at a gun store, New York police said, even though, according to multiple news reports, he was hospitalized under an emergency “mental health crisis hold” in 2022 and again in 2024.
The details of those episodes were not known.
Authorities have said Tamura carried a note on Monday in which he claimed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a brain disease linked to football and other contact sports that can affect behavior. The disease can only be confirmed after death.
New York City’s medical examiner said in an email that Tamura’s brain would be examined as part of a complete autopsy but did not say whether it would be screened for CTE.
Tamura, who shot himself in the chest on Monday, bought the rifle he used in the attack from a supervisor at the casino where he worked for $1,400, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing law enforcement sources. Nevada law requires private gun sales to go through a licensed firearms dealer and include a background check.
Whether he obtained the rifle legally or not, advocates for stricter gun laws said the case showed a need for tougher regulations nationwide, especially for people with mental health problems.
“It is horrifying … that a man with documented mental health struggles was able to purchase a weapon, let alone a weapon of such devastating capability,” New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani told reporters on Wednesday, urging a national ban on assault rifles. New York is one of 10 states that bans such weapons, according to the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The National Rifle Association, the New York State Firearms Association and the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The groups oppose restrictions on guns as an infringement on individual rights.
RED FLAG LAWS
Under Nevada law, officers can detain individuals on emergency holds in mental health facilities or hospitals for up to 72 hours for evaluation.
In a handful of states including New York – which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation – such emergency holds trigger some version of a ban on possessing guns, according to experts. But in most states, including Nevada, as well as under federal law, only a court-ordered involuntary commitment results in a prohibition on buying and owning guns.
“What this shooting in New York highlights more than anything else is that we’re only as safe as the laws of the weakest state,” said Nick Suplina, Everytown’s senior vice president for law and policy.
Nevada has enacted a series of gun limits since an October 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people in Las Vegas. Giffords, another gun safety advocacy organization, gave Nevada a “B-” grade in its annual scorecard of gun laws, compared with an “A” for New York.
A new Nevada law that took effect this month – too late to apply to the Manhattan shooter – allows law enforcement officers to take away guns temporarily from someone who is on an emergency mental health hold. The officer can also petition a court to retain the guns if the person is deemed a danger to themselves or others.
That law is similar to Nevada’s “red flag” statute, which allows law enforcement or relatives to ask a court to seize firearms from anyone considered a risk. Twenty-one states have enacted red-flag laws, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
Tamura was able to obtain a concealed carry permit in 2022, according to news reports, although it was unclear whether he did so before or after his first hospitalization.
His permit would have allowed him to buy the revolver last month without a background check under state law.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Julia Harte; additional reporting by Rich McKay; editing by Paul Thomasch and Cynthia Osterman)
