Mass shootings keep happening. Mental illness is the easy answer but not the cause. Almost monthly we read about horrific shootings in Las Vegas, Orlando, or small towns in Texas and California. The subsequent finger pointing continues as to why these shocking killings keep occurring. Whether you are for additional gun control laws or against, we clearly need to have a reasoned discussion about the root causes of these shootings. These discussions need to be predicated on one fact: we must not equate these shootings with mental illness. It is too facile to claim as did the President that “mental health is your problem here,” or that “Guns don’t kill people—the mentally ill do,” as did Ann Coulter. These statements are inaccurate and fail to recognize how complicated and nuanced the intersection between gun violence and mental illness is, because data show that the nexus is actually quite small.
Although the image of a lone psychopathic mass shooter is an easy narrative to adapt to understand gun violence, the reality is that persons with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, persons with severe mental illness are 10 times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the general population. For instance, people with schizophrenia are 14 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are to be the perpetrator. Convenient as it is blame the violence on mental illness, doing so risks further stigmatization of mental illness and subsequent failure for persons who need mental health care to seek treatment.
Continue reading "Mental Illness and Gun Violence--A False Fallacy" »
