Shane Tamura, the 27-year-old gunman who killed four people in New York City on July 28, had previously undergone two emergency psychiatric holds in Las Vegas — yet was still able to legally purchase firearms, including the AR-15-style rifle used in the deadly attack.
Newly released records from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police reveal multiple encounters with Tamura in recent years, highlighting his ongoing mental health struggles.
According to the documents, police were twice compelled — in 2022 and again in 2024 — to place Tamura under short-term emergency psychiatric evaluation, commonly referred to as a “mental health hold.”
Despite these interventions and reports from Tamura’s mother indicating he suffered from anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder — and that he had previously owned a firearm — the state of Nevada did not block his ability to acquire new weapons.
The reason lies in a significant gap in federal and state reporting systems. Nevada does not automatically submit records of temporary psychiatric holds to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the database used to screen gun buyers.
According to Jeff Swanson, a Duke University professor specializing in public safety law, this means individuals like Tamura can pass background checks despite recent mental health crises.
“About half the states have laws that make a 72-hour psychiatric hold disqualifying for gun ownership — but Nevada does not,” Swanson told NPR. “Under Nevada law, these emergency holds only become disqualifying if they escalate to a court-ordered involuntary commitment.”
As a result, such holds are neither reported to NICS nor reflected in standard firearm background checks.
Swanson argues that the current criteria for mental health disqualification in the federal system are both overreaching and insufficient. “You have people in the system who’ve had civil commitments decades ago and pose no threat,” he explained, “and others who might be volatile and impulsive but don’t meet the narrow criteria for disqualification.”
He emphasized the need for greater reliance on “red flag” laws, which allow police or family members to request emergency risk protection orders (ERPOs) to temporarily remove firearms from individuals deemed dangerous.
Nevada is one of 21 states with such laws, allowing courts to prohibit gun purchases and confiscate existing weapons for up to a year.
Had authorities sought an ERPO after Tamura’s last documented mental health episode in August 2024, he likely would have been barred from legally purchasing the firearm used in the July shooting. But there is no indication that law enforcement pursued such an order.
April Zeoli, a gun violence prevention researcher at the University of Michigan, says the effectiveness of ERPOs varies widely across jurisdictions. “It depends heavily on whether law enforcement is trained and willing to use them,” she said. “Without clear protocols and institutional support, these tools go unused.”
Nevada’s red flag law, enacted in 2019 without Republican support, has seen limited application. The state issued just 28 ERPOs in 2024 — a fraction of the thousands issued annually in states like Florida and California.
A 2022 initiative by Nevada’s attorney general offered training funds for police and families on how to use the law, but results remain underwhelming. Some sheriffs in Nevada and other western states have resisted implementing red flag laws, citing concerns over Second Amendment rights.
The case underscores persistent gaps in mental health reporting and firearm access laws — gaps that, critics say, continue to enable avoidable tragedies.
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