Apparently there were warning signs that were missed in the Pentagon shooter case. The parents had alerted authorities that their son was unstable and might do something bad.

San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill told the AP the parents of John Patrick Bedell filed a missing persons report and were worried about his mental stability. After reading an e-mail from their son to an acquaintance, the parents told deputies they were worried that he had purchased a gun.

Hill said that Bedell has been on the department’s radar since 2003, when deputies found him walking along the side of the road. They wrote him up as a “5150” — police code for crazy — and took him to his parents house.

Hill said that Bedell, 36, has been at in-patient mental health institutions at least four times.

The parents reported Bedell missing on Jan. 4, one day after a Texas Highway Patrol officer stopped him for speeding in Amarillo, according to the missing person’s report. Bedell told the highway patrolman he was heading for the East Coast, and the officer used Bedell’s phones to call his mother, Kaye Bedell, because he seemed disheveled and out of sorts.

Once again, one has to wonder about the gun laws and whether those deemed mentally ill are allowed to obtain the guns (shades of the VA Tech case where the gunman in that case was mentally ill as well, and yet managed to get his hands on multiple weapons).