Bob McDonnell

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In February and March 2007, Seung-Hui Cho bought two guns -- one online and another in Roanoke:

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Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell called Monday for changes in state law to close the gap that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to buy the guns he used in a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus.

The law allowed Cho to purchase two handguns despite his mental problems because he was not involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, McDonnell said.

However, many believe Cho should have been stopped by a broader federal law that prohibits gun sales to anyone declared "mentally defective."

While McDonnell said he believes Virginia should take immediate steps to address discrepancies between the two requirements, he stopped short of saying the gun sales to Cho in the months before last week's incidents violated federal law.

"I know other commentators have rushed to judgment on this and have their opinions, but my job is to advise the governor and other state agencies," McDonnell said.

In December 2005, a temporary detention order was issued against Cho because of his depression and possible suicidal inclinations. But after he was held overnight at a mental hospital, a special justice decided not to commit him to the facility -- even though he posed an "imminent danger" to himself because of mental illness, according to court documents.

McDonnell said his office continues to research whether the state should have included that court order in a database used to screen potential gun buyers.

Others have already made that call.

"What is clear in this case is that even a rudimentary screening process should have revealed that this young man was a ticking time bomb," said Josh Horwitz, head of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "Put simply, Seung-Hui Cho never should have been able to purchase a handgun or any other firearm."

A statement released Monday afternoon by McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin and posted on roanoke.com said the attorney general believed that Cho should not have gotten a gun, given his mental state.

In a telephone interview later in the day, McDonnell said he is not prepared to make that determination yet -- at least not in the legal context of whether the system failed.

But generally speaking, he said: "Knowing what we know about Cho now -- and we still don't know everything -- someone with that level of mental problems is obviously someone who shouldn't have a firearm."

As for how to immediately close the loophole between state and federal requirements, McDonnell said that could be done by an executive order from Gov. Tim Kaine, a special session of the General Assembly or regulatory changes by the agencies involved.

The governor has not decided how to proceed, spokesman Kevin Hall said. "Both of our offices are looking at it, fact-gathering and looking for potential remedies," Hall said.

Although the gun sales to Cho have received much scrutiny over the past week, he could have circumvented both state and federal regulations by buying his handguns from a private dealer. Only federally licensed gun dealers are required to check a purchaser's background.

Gun rights groups also say the state could have averted the massacre by rescinding a policy that prohibits Tech students from having guns on campus.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Virginia leads the nation in reporting mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. As of April 1, the state had entered 80,000 such records.

But there appears to be little guidance given to local court officials as to whether they should include commitment hearings that did not result in people being sent to a mental hospital against their will.

"It's really up to the court's interpretation of the law and decision if they need to notify us," said Corinne Geller of the Virginia State Police, which collects records for the database. "We are dependent on them to provide us with that information."

The clerk of Montgomery County General District Court, where Cho's commitment hearing was held in December 2005, was out of the office Monday and unavailable for comment.

Also on Monday, McDonnell said he believes Virginia needs to tighten its laws to ensure that people ordered to receive outpatient mental treatment -- as Cho was -- follow up on that directive.

At the time of Cho's temporary detention order, the English major reportedly had become depressed and suicidal after professors raised concerns about the dark nature of his writings and two female students complained that he had been harassing them.

It remains unclear whether Cho received any follow-up mental counseling before April 16, when he went on a shooting rampage that left 33 people -- including himself -- dead in a dorm and an academic building.

In each of the past two years, the state has handled an average of 9,500 temporary detention orders like the one issued for Cho. But there were no numbers available on how many involuntary commitments resulted from those orders.

James Reinhard, commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, agreed with McDonnell that the state needs to study aftercare for those released following a temporary detention order.

"I think that historically in Virginia, as well as other states across the country, we tend to focus on inpatient treatment," Reinhard said. "We typically have not put a lot of resources in community alternatives to provide that kind of monitoring."

Staff writer Michael Sluss contributed to this report.