Elliot Rodger Was A Racist? Experts Say Racism Played A Role In Santa Barbara Murder Rampage; Isla Vista Shooting Leads To ‘Gun Violence Restraining Order’ Proposal

The manifesto that Elliot Rodger posted online before he went on a rampage killing six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara, or UCSB, on Friday, has racist undertones that could have played a role in the shooting spree, New York Daily News reported, citing experts, even as lawmakers scrambled to put together a proposal to restrict the availability of guns to specific individuals.

Rodger, who identified himself as white, claimed that his enemies were not only the beautiful white girls who constantly turned him down and rejected him sexually, but also all the men of color he believed the girls chose over him.

“How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more,” Rodger wrote in his manifesto.

While law enforcement officers questioned Rodger in April, after his parents raised concerns about a threatening video he had posted on the Internet, no action was reportedly taken against him at the time. And, according to the NY Daily News, experts believe that the police's reaction would have been different if Rodger had been black and expressed the threatening rage seen on his YouTube videos.

Rodger, the 22-year-old son of a Hollywood director who worked on the first installation of the “Hunger Games,” stabbed three people identified as his roommates in his apartment, before gunning down three more people Friday night near the UCSB campus in the town of Isla Vista.

Authorities from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s office reportedly said that Rodger also wounded 13 people, including eight he shot as he tried to flee in his black BMW while exchanging fire with police. He then shot himself.

Senate Democratic leaders on Tuesday reportedly said that they plan to introduce a package of bills aimed at reducing violence caused by emotionally disturbed individuals, the Los Angeles Times reported, while two California lawmakers are proposing a bill that would allow concerned family members to initiate a “gun violence restraining order” if someone showed an inclination toward committing violence.

“There is a lot we can do to prevent these kinds of horrific events in the future,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said, according to the Times. “He had bought guns that were in the [state computer record-keeping] system.”