Clearly, people who are an imminent threat to themselves or others are well-served to be restricted and participate in treatment, but things get gray beyond that point and many people were previously restricted based on family reports that were not entirely unbiased.  

So it appears to me that what we have here is a failure by law enforcement to enforce the current laws.

The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff's Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner's family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared's obvious mental instability.

Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner

That is, I've read up on the incident you note and others between Loughner and Giffords, but my point is different.  Say that a Congressman also could not answer such a question.  Would Loughner's reaction have been to target the Congressman for killing?  This, I hope we will find out -- just as we have found out that in school shootings, even young men angry at other men may target women.

Most often, it seems that the reason is the bully principle:  Pick on the ones that you think are least likely to be able to defend themselves.

Also, a reason is the mommy expectation:  Pick on a woman whose response was not nurturing, because women are supposed to be mommies to men.

During the period in which the AWB was in effect, it was illegal to manufacture any firearm that met the law's definition of an "assault weapon" or "large capacity ammunition feeding device", except for export or for sale to a government or law enforcement agency. Possession of illegally imported or manufactured firearms was outlawed as well, but the law did not ban the possession or sale of pre-existing "assault weapons" or previously factory standard magazines which had been legally redefined as "large capacity ammunition feeding devices". This provision for "pre-ban" firearms created a higher price point in the market for such items, which lasted until the ban's sunset.