Is Mental Illness Really Fueling Mass Shootings?
Mass shooting seem to be happening more and more. People are becoming more and more afraid of the potential for being shot by disturbed individuals. Living in this fear makes people demand a solution to a problem they don't understand well enough. Action is demanded, but is it even the right action to take?
People get shot many times throughout the year in various countries. The greatest concern arises in the media when it's about mass shootings. When a cop shoots or kills an innocent person with a gun, people react differently compared to mass shooting. You can find videos of cops shooting (and murdering) unarmed individuals who had their arms up, who were already in the process of being subdued, or already were subdued. It's shocking.
Some people will blame the victim saying they deserved it, because these people seem to have undying loyalty, trust and faith in the special authority police yield over everyone else. And other people will recognize the cop is at fault for abusing their power and shooting someone they had no right to. Seldom do you hear anyone try to blame the gun when it comes to police violence.
Source
In mass shootings, the arguments in the media are revolving around the guns. Through fear, a hysteria is developed where people focus on at the gun as the problem. People just want to get rid of gun access for everyone except the centralized gang of authorities that get special "rights" to be allowed to have guns while everyone else can't. Are guns the real problem?
Media coverage often talks about mental illness as the issue behind mass shootings, since people characterize the shooters in mass shootings as crazed, deranged, or mentally ill, as a reason for them to do what they do. With a focus on mental illness as being responsible for creating mass shootings, many people are demanding for more restrictions on the mentally being being able to purchase guns. In many cases there are mental issues, but where do those come from?
Could it be the pharmaceuticals that are altering the way people think and feel, and making them more unstable or "mad", resulting in irrational behavior like mass shootings? That is something to look into. Many of the shooters are reported to have been on pharmaceuticals, yet this is hardly seen as a causal source for producing the effect of their behavior.
Putting aside the question of pharmaceutical drug use to fuel greater mental instability, what does the research show about mental illness in general, and the use of firearms in those who are having mental issues?
Even before the most recent mass shooting in February 2018, a study came out in January about mental illness, the access to firearms, and whether that is fueling mass shootings.
Mental illness is a factor in less than 5% of all violent crimes. Most people who are afflicted with mental illness do not engage in violent behavior.
If that is what the evidence says, then is mental illness really what is driving the violence in America? It seems the answer is no. People with serious mental illness who have access to guns show no greater propensity to be violent compared to people in the same neighborhood with no mental illnesses. There is a myth about armed mentally ill people being more dangerous than everyone else.
The analysis from this recent study showed no difference between the risk of violence of people with prior mental illness and those without. Both groups had direct or indirect access to firearms through people they knew. Policies aimed at restricting gun use to people who have no history of mental illness are doubted as being useful to prevent mass shootings.
The risk posed by mentally ill people with guns, is to themselves, not to others:
Source
People with mental illness have a much stronger desire to harm themselves with suicide, compared to people without mental illness. Firearms access seems to increase the desire for mentally ill people to experience suicidal thoughts.
This helps to explain how mental health fits into gun violencve, and why 2/3 of all gun-related death are from suicides, not homicides.
Oddly enough, the ability for researched to understand this problem more has been essentially prohibited by government. In 2015, Congress quietly rejected an amendment to the 1996 Dickey Amendment that would have allowed the CDC to study the underlying causes of gun violence. It appears the gun lobby put pressure on congress to get the Dickey Amendment passed under claims that the CDC was engaging in propaganda and being used to bring on more gun control in America. The current study was conducted from research done in the 90s, as no new research is allowed.
If laws are passed restricting gun ownership to people without mental illness, this may prevent people who have mental illness from seeking help, in fear of getting diagnosed with a mental illness which would thereby restrict their ability to own a gun under the 2nd Amendment. If people are vilified for having a mental health crisis, fewer will want to get help, which may increase their risk for suicide.
- Do you think general mental illness is the main cause behind mass shootings?
- Will restricting guns from those with mental health history do anything to stop mass shootings?
- What do you think is the cause of mass shootings?
Have your say, speak your mind!
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
References:
- Severe mental illness and firearm access: Is violence really the danger?
- Allowing mentally ill people to access firearms is not fueling mass shootings
- The Population Impact of Severe Mental Illness on Violent Crime
- Mental Disorder and Violence: An Examination of Stressful Life Events and Impaired Social Support
- Quietly, Congress extends a ban on CDC research on gun violence
- Dickey Amendment (1996)
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Trump is a businessman in the first place, we're living in capitalism ideology, that's why it's hard to ban a gun from the seller. That's the result of democracy, we have free will and there's positive and negative result in the environment we created, unless you are living in communist country where everything is being controlled. :)
I wouldn't be surprised at all lol
It's a real tangled mess, that's for sure. You're right: blaming "mental illness" per se is convenient rather than insightful, although the link between psychotropic drugs and shootings should be looked at closely.
Unless the pharmaceutical lobby has something to say about it ;)
Off the top of my head, there are three classes of remedies:
Prior-restraint systems : These comprise the infamous gun-grabbing remedies. The trouble with these systems, as an #2A supporter will be glad to remind you, is false positives. Your post explained one of them: banning gun ownership to people with "mental illness" is going to crate a flood of false positives - each of which are people who are easy to stigmatize already.
Better security : This is similar to prior-restraint in that it has an "everyone's gotta sacrifice" component. Just as non-dangerous gun owners have to be frisked by a red-flag-equipped background-check system, so do students in this option. They have to walk through metal detectors, have their bags and backpacks searched (maybe), be physically frisked, and otherwise enjoy the new privileges of post-9/11 flying. ;-) Again, the problem is false positives combined with indignities. (If I had to go through this gauntlet every school day, I wouldn't exactly be partial to being true to my school.)
Better tactical response : For lack of a better label, call this the Old West solution. Teachers who are willing to carry guns get special tactical training to take down a shooter. Students participate in mandatory safety drills, and security is supplemented by one, two or three school officers who receive more intensive tactical training. The stop-and-frisk is minimal. This has the advantage of not alienating folks by treating them like potential criminals. But it has an obvious disadvantage, plus another: implementing this system requires psychologically accepting that school shootings are part of the new normal.
One interesting point to note: the groups affected by #1 and #2 are quick to spot the false positives!
Great analysis :) Thanks for the valuable input :)
4.The police and FBI do their jobs and arrest those who they receive multiple calls about making threats.
The development of the means of communication shows that people are feeling and getting more alone and lonely and showing increased values in the incidence of mental deceases like depression and anxiety.
The Millennial Generation has the largest number ever seen in history in depression and anxiety disorders than any past generation and that they have the second cause of death by suicide and psychological instability.
The alarming growth numbers and spread of mental illness or what I will call ontological insecurity is co-related with the accelerated growth of knowledge, and technology leading to more psychic unstability based in the parallel decadent of their parents multi-realtionships resulting in uni-parenting or multiple step-mothers and step-fathers.
I made a post today about the Biota and the Digital Man affecting our personality.
I can pretty much agree with all of what you said :/ I created an account on discord again ;)
I see that you write more in your native language than in English now ;) I'll look for your post to read, thanks.
It's the disease of the Biota man, the Digital man is taking all the space of the Psychological Man and the Social Man that I refer in my post "Do Biotas dream of a blockchain city?".
Well, I'm making a new post based on my comment and the ideas of this post to explain why this is happening.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Happy your back. :)
I'll try to post it tomorrow or Monday.
When your back to Discord I have some news to show you.
I'm on discord, in the steemtrail channel as KrNel, just a diff # account...
what do I believe causes mass shooting? 1) Greatest cause is the heart of the person shooting. If the heart is corrupted with hate and confusion such acts are going to happen. Cane killed Abel with a rock or club. It was the heart. Second It is not so much mental illness as it is improper medication. Many are on SRSI inhibitors which mess with the mind. The mind is a complex thing. We do not have it right. Again it is not that they are mentally ill. But that they are taking either the wrong drug or the wrong dosage of the drug. But number one is the heart of the person. Thanks @krnel for the intriguing topic today.
Yeah, a corruption of consciousness from some cause, either pharma or trauma in life, suffering, etc. Consciousness/psyche can be twisted into dark ways :/ Thanks for the feedback.
I don't think it's "mental" illness, I think it's a societal issue. If weed was socially acceptable like alcohol and coffee are people would medicate in peace. Instead they very well might turn to prescriptions. If guns were more socially acceptable there won't be massacres.
Yup, weed instead of pharma, and pretty much make people veg and calm/relaxed lol, plus guns to allow peopel to defend themselves is a good direction for society compared to where we are ;)
Mental illness, gun violence and school shootings are different issues and despite the fact that there are connections between them, each of them requires their own solutions.
Mental illness is something that seems to not be yet treated in a sufficiently effective way all around the world. It's complex subject and there are still aspects that are not well understood. But to me it seems clear that mental health requires more attention on the whole.
It's essential to point out (like you did in your post) that most people suffering from mental illness are non-violent. Vilifying them is a huge problem even if guns are not involved as it discourages people from seeking help when they need it out of fear that they are going to be looked down on and/or lose some rights or freedom.
I do think gun violence is a problem worth addressing and possible prevention is worth investigating and school shootings are something that should not be happening on regular basis. If it is, there is clearly a huge problem.
I live in a country where owning a gun requires a permit and I see nothing wrong with such policy. Guns are a dangerous thing and should not be in the hands of people not capable of handling them properly and since they present a public danger, regulation is a prudent thing to do. Are guns safer and more vital than cars that it would be reasonable for them to be easier to get? If you are going to be driving, you need a driver's license to show that you are capable of performing the task and your car needs to be registered and have a license plate so it is identifiable. I see no good reason for guns to be treated differently especially keeping in mind that cars have more everyday utility than guns.
Where I live, to get both a driver's license and a firearm license, you need to pass a mental health test with a professional psychologist. I have passed both and it's not a high bar to clear but it does serve a purpose. I personally know a mentally unstable person who applied for a gun license and was denies because of this issue and I am glad he did as he has no business having a gun and would have been a huge danger to everybody around him.
Good points. Does that mean anything that can be used to cause harm (vehicle, gun, hammer, knife) should be sold only after proof of mental competency?
You have to obtain a license and pass a test for all? There are two issues of 1) knowledge to know how to use something and 2) abuse to misuse. Why do you need to pass a psyche test for the car and gun, but not for other things that can be misused to harm others?
Passing a test to use vehicles and guns seems reasonable. That is only required because people don't take the responsibility to do learning themselves through self-control and self-governance, and now everyone is forced into external control and governance to get licenses and pay fees for being "verified" by the state. I guess it's up to everyone to raise themselves in consciousness and their children, to be more responsible, then we might do away with all this regulation.
You always have to draw the line somewhere as anything can be used to cause harm. But there are a number of variables that can be looked into so things can be rated on some scale of sorts. Guns (especially assault riffles) have no other direct application than causing harm and have the capacity to cause harm at a level that knives do not compare with. Additionally, I think they can be viewed as something intended to cause more harm than a car so they should be higher on the scale of needing a permit or license to own and operate one. The second variable might be complexity to operate and cars and guns are of higher complexity than knives and hammers. There might be other things to look at like proliferation and so on. But I think it's fairly obvious that guns are a problem in the US and I do think something should be done.
I think both should be tested and screened for at least to some extent. The person I'm talking about who was deemed unfit to bear a weapon was denied by the psychologist because with him it's clear that he is likely to misuse it. But I'm not sure he has a mental health diagnosis really. But everybody is safe because he is unarmed.
Well, unfortunately we are not at the point where we can trust the majority of people to be truly responsible. Maybe someday...
Totally disagree with your first statement. They are different issues that so closely relate to one another and need to be addressed in honesty.
If you look at only where the issues would intersect, you are going to address each issue only partially. What I mean here is not that there is no connection between the issues or that each should be looked at outside any context, but that there is more than one problem to be solved, so there are multi-pronged solutions needed.
"The presence of alcohol in the context of an argument when guns are present increases the chance that there's going to be a shooting by five to seven times. That's probably the most important psychiatric diagnosis to look at. ".. Detailed article here: Everyone blames mental illness for mass shootings. But what if that's wrong?
I agree with the points mentioned in this post.
Yes, alcohol is bad. Cannabis is much better. Alcohol can twist people into very bad ways. Thanks for the feedback.
As you have noted, the wrong questions are being asked.
Further, govern-cement/mockingird-media has an agenda, that is not what they are purporting. They want a disarmed, obedient population. Therefor, everything they say and do is aimed toward that end.
People snapping comes from being put into a bad situation where there is no way out. And, increasingly, schools have become just that. John Taylor Gatto, one of the most awarded teachers, left school teaching decades ago because it was so bad. And now, it is worse.
We should be thinking along the lines of, what would we do if we were put in a cage and tortured for 8 hours each day? Most respond with, well its good training for the corporate cubicle life to come.
It's outcome based education indeed. At the core it's training to go get a job in the workforce of society. Understanding morality, psychology, philosophy... are not of much concern.
Thanks for this post @krnel and for trying to inject some reality into the debate surrounding these horrific crimes.
To my way of thinking and from what you wrote in your post, mental illness has nothing to do with mass shootings. Consequently restricting gun access to those with mental illness will not do anything to alter the incidences of these events (by the way, I'm not saying that those with mental illness who are prone to violence or self-harm should be given access to weapons!).
As to the cause of shootings? I haven't researched this in anyway but I would say that the glorification of violence through the media and video games and the subsequent desensitisation to violence that occurs must have some effect. Also, from what I have read about the Nicholas Cruz shootings, it seems that the authorities were very negligent in their handling of warnings given to them about the potential for this to happen. Maybe, therefore, the authorities need to be more proactive to help combat this kind of event?
Thanks once more for the post.
It can sure have an influence.
The authorities hardly care about helping people int he aggregate, they are there to make money. The are operating form an ruler-dominator mindset much of the time, despite some exceptions for good-willed people who don't. There is a code to not rat on those in blue, to tolerate corruption and wrongdoings. They protect each others before ours.
Thanks for the feedback.