Well, it seems quite important whether the DROS registration could possibly have been staged. If e.g. there is footage of Suchir buying a gun 6+ months prior, using his ID, etc. then the assassins would have had to sneak in and grab his own gun from him etc. which seems unlikely.
Is the interview with the NYT going to be published?
Is any of the police behavior actually out of the ordinary?
Well, it seems quite important whether the DROS registration could possibly have been staged.
That would be difficult. To purchase a gun in California you have to provide photo ID[1], proof of address[2] and a thumbprint[3]. Also it looks like the payment must be trackable[4] and gun stores have to maintain video surveillance footage for up to year.[5]
My guess is that the police haven’t actually invested this as a potential homicide, but if they did, there should be very strong evidence that Balaji bought a gun. Potentially a very sophisticated actor could fake this evidence but it seems challenging (I can’t find any historical examples of this happening). It would probably be easier to corrupt the investigation. Or the perpetrators might just hope that there would be no investigation.
There is a 10-day waiting period to purchase guns in California[5], so Balaji would probably have started planning his suicide before his hiking trip (I doubt someone like him would own a gun for recreational purposes?).
Is the interview with the NYT going to be published?
I think it’s this piece that was published before his death.
Is any of the police behavior actually out of the ordinary?
Epistemic status: highly uncertain: my impressions from searching with LLMs for a few minutes.
It’s fairly common for victim’s families to contest official suicide rulings. In cases with lots of public attention police generally try to justify their conclusions. So we might expect the police to publicly state if there is footage of Balaji purchasing the gun shortly before his death. It could be that this will still happen with more time or public pressure.
Well, it seems quite important whether the DROS registration could possibly have been staged. If e.g. there is footage of Suchir buying a gun 6+ months prior, using his ID, etc. then the assassins would have had to sneak in and grab his own gun from him etc. which seems unlikely.
Is the interview with the NYT going to be published?
Is any of the police behavior actually out of the ordinary?
That would be difficult. To purchase a gun in California you have to provide photo ID[1], proof of address[2] and a thumbprint[3]. Also it looks like the payment must be trackable[4] and gun stores have to maintain video surveillance footage for up to year.[5]
My guess is that the police haven’t actually invested this as a potential homicide, but if they did, there should be very strong evidence that Balaji bought a gun. Potentially a very sophisticated actor could fake this evidence but it seems challenging (I can’t find any historical examples of this happening). It would probably be easier to corrupt the investigation. Or the perpetrators might just hope that there would be no investigation.
There is a 10-day waiting period to purchase guns in California[5], so Balaji would probably have started planning his suicide before his hiking trip (I doubt someone like him would own a gun for recreational purposes?).
I think it’s this piece that was published before his death.
Epistemic status: highly uncertain: my impressions from searching with LLMs for a few minutes.
It’s fairly common for victim’s families to contest official suicide rulings. In cases with lots of public attention police generally try to justify their conclusions. So we might expect the police to publicly state if there is footage of Balaji purchasing the gun shortly before his death. It could be that this will still happen with more time or public pressure.
https://www.fastbound.com/ffl-bound-book-software-features/dros/
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/background-check-procedures-in-california/
https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/7066
https://apnews.com/article/gun-stores-firearms-mass-shootings-credit-cards-abe3a28ea7117340d9a4a8bcde3693fe
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/gun-dealers-in-california/