Further commentary on mental illness and violence...

Today, I am going to talk more about guns and mental illness.  First of all, this isn’t my favorite topic.  I wouldn’t have a gun for any reason.  I believe that people should have 2^nd amendment rights, but I think that there is valid reason that we should have some control over access.  I can’t look at crime statistics and the loss of so many people without concluding that.  However, it is an important topic at the moment.  Especially when it becomes a topic that intersects with the discussion about mental illness.  This is the article that I am commenting on:  http://bit.ly/XWM6P3.  For me, the important part of this article is the discussion on whether the risk of violence from the mentally ill is really the issue. This is an article written about a meeting of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).  Public Policy Director Daniela Giordano and Executive Director Katie Mattias are discussing a bill that prohibits gun ownership for people released from a mental institution---voluntarily or involuntarily.  I am not going to express opinion regarding that bill. As I said, I am not exactly pro-gun.

What I am commenting on are the statistics.  These are interesting statistics.  According to a study done at Yale University, there is considerably more media coverage of the mentally ill as perpetrators than there are of incidents in which the mentally ill person is a victim of violence.  According to Professor Larry Davidson of Yale, there is 13 times more coverage of the mentally ill as the perpetrator.  And according to Giordano, the mentally ill are only 2 percent of the perpetrators of gun violence in the United States. Talk about an opinion influencer.  If we keep painting the mentally ill as the dangerous ‘other’, we will keep promoting the view that they should be feared.

In this short paper published by the World Psychiatric Association Journal, there is some agreement with these conclusions. Here is the link to the article. http://1.usa.gov/dXxp5c  As the journal says:

First, mental disorders are neither necessary, nor sufficient causes of violence. The major determinants of violence continue to be socio-demographic and socio-economic factors such as being young, male, and of lower socio-economic status.

Second, members of the public undoubtedly exaggerate both the strength of the relationship between major mental disorders and violence, as well as their own personal risk from the severely mentally ill. It is far more likely that people with a serious mental illness will be the victim of violence.

So, if you look at current research, the idea that the mentally ill are the primary reason for the violence in this country, that view is not supported. When we are still looking at the impact of Newtown, this is significant.  What is the practical result of this whole discussion?  The mentally ill are not, as a group, to be feared.  Instead, we should be dealing with the access of weapons and the reasons that our society seems to be more violent.  (Am I imagining that?)   Here is to the possibility that we will start asking the right questions instead of stigmatizing an already marginalized group in this society.