Two articles underscore the confusion—some say the schizophrenic attitudes—surrounding gun control targeting the mentally ill: Steven Rosenfeld, The NRA once supported gun control, Salon, Alternet, Monday, Jan 14, 2013 and Lexington, Why the NRA keeps talking about mental illness, rather than guns, Mar 13th 2013. I will quote and paraphrase from those articles.
“The gun lobby’s focus on mental illness as the “true” cause of such massacres. Did they really support a large expansion of officialdom’s right to declare someone mentally unfit, trumping their right to bear arms under the constitution’s second amendment? In Hartford the question provoked some debate. But most demonstrators followed the NRA’s line in opposing any talk of moving to “universal” background checks: jargon for closing the loophole that currently allows private individuals to buy and sell guns without any checks on the criminal or mental-health records of buyers. Almost 40% of gun sales currently fall through that loophole. The message discipline of the National Rifle Association and its congressional allies has been impressive. After an initial period of silence, the NRA came out with a consistent narrative about mass shootings. The problem, said such spokesmen as Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice-president, was that criminals and the dangerously ill can get their hands on guns.”
Rosenfeld went on to ask if the NRA had radically changed its iron stiff position on the absolute right to bear arms. He quoted Wayne LaPierre, “We have a mental health system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed.” The executive vice-president of the NRA went on to assert the NRA’s support of FBI-run NICS [instant background checks system used by gun dealers when selling firearms]. That was disingenuous because the NRA’s real objective is found in the loophole that allows private owners to buy and sell firearms at will. In addition, Mr. LaPierre strongly asserted the NRA’s support of laws which would include all persons formally adjudicated as having mental illness into the federal system and went on to deplore “the fact that many states are still putting only a small number of records into the system.” That public statement is the height of disingenuousness because behind the scenes, the NRA has successfully orchestrated measures to thwart the mental health record system thereby effectively emasculating it and allowing the mentally ill to be part of the private citizenry so revered by the NRA who can and should have guns. “The Democratic governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy…accused the NRA of a “bait-and-switch”, in which the gun lobby is trying to appear constructive without allowing any gun rules to change.”
Probably of more importance is the fact that the mental health/gun and violence issue is grossly exaggerated. Only a small proportion of violent crimes carried out by the mentally ill. Researchers and mental health care workers point out that “the mental-health system is good at describing behavior patterns but very poor at predicting specific acts by specific people.” …”And you can’t go around locking up all the socially awkward young men.” Looking with the clarity of hindsight, there is one area where mental illness is well known and well documented to be important, and that is suicide by gun. As of 2010, suicide “accounted for 61% of gun-injury deaths in America.” That is hardly germane to the overall problem of the killing of innocents by gun wielding killers or even the more narrow issue of the role of mental illness in such killings.
The confusing issue of the role of mental illness in mass shootings is well presented in an important recent article by Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD and Kenneth T. MacLeish, PhD, Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms, Am J Public Health. 2015 February; 105(2): 240–249. Published online 2015 February.
“Four assumptions frequently arise in the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States: (1) that mental illness causes gun violence, (2) that psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime, (3) that shootings represent the deranged acts of mentally ill loners, and (4) that gun control “won’t prevent” another Newtown (Connecticut school mass shooting). Each of these statements is certainly true in particular [emphasis by the author of this blogpost] instances. Yet, as we show, notions of mental illness that emerge in relation to mass shootings frequently reflect larger cultural stereotypes and anxieties about matters such as race/ethnicity, social class, and politics. These issues become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime, and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat. [and a political football].”
Conservative media commentator Anne Coulter provocatively and stridently proclaimed that “Guns don’t kill people—the mentally ill do,” and National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre blamed “delusional killers” for violence in the United States which are at the minimum overstatements and at worst impediments to the solution of even the narrow problem of massacre by mentally ill persons. (To say nothing of the larger issues of attacks by terrorists and sane persons with a violent ideological purpose.) LaPierre called for a “national registry” of persons with mental illness.
Shortly after the Newtown shooting, “a number of states passed bills that required mental health professionals to report “dangerous patients” to local officials, who would then be authorized to confiscate any firearms that these persons might own. “People who have mental health issues should not have guns,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters after one such bill passed the New York Senate. “They could hurt themselves, they could hurt other people.’” It is logical to repeat the widespread opinion that “only an insane person would do such horrifying things.”… “Reports suggest that up to 60% of perpetrators of mass shootings in the United States since 1970, displayed symptoms including acute paranoia, delusions, and depression before committing their crimes.” The shooters in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, Columbine High School, and Isla Vista, California, for example, exhibited highly suspicious behavior suggesting an irrational violent propensity. More recently, terrorists of all stripes have taken center stage.
There is strong evidence from psychiatric, psychological, neuroscientific, public health, sociological literature, and even investigative journalism, that there are connections between mental illness and gun violence. “However, notions that mental illness caused any particular shooting, or that advance psychiatric attention might prevent these crimes, are more complicated than they often seem.” The simplistic view of even factual material tends to ignore or to downplay other significant factors such as race and ethnicity, poverty, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood, immersion in socially alienated groups and ideologies, access to firearms, failure of the reporting system, and poor response to reports when they are available. “Anxieties about insanity and gun violence are also imbued with oft-unspoken anxieties about race, politics, and the unequal distribution of violence in U.S. society.” The authors concluded from their extensive research, that, “At the same time, the literatures we surveyed suggest that these seemingly self-evident assumptions about mass shootings are replete with problematic assumptions, particularly when read against current and historical literatures that address guns, violence, and mental illness more broadly. On the aggregate level, the notion that mental illness causes gun violence stereotypes a vast and diverse population of persons diagnosed with psychiatric conditions and oversimplifies links between violence and mental illness. Notions of mental illness that emerge in relation to mass shootings frequently reflect larger cultural issues that become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat.” Furthermore, “linking guns and mental illness in ways that subtly connect “insane” gun crimes with oft-unspoken assumptions about “White” individualism or “Black” communal aggression.” And confuses the issue of what is the best solution for the problem.
“It is understandable that U.S. policymakers, journalists, and the general public look to psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, and related disciplines as sources of certainty in the face of the often-incomprehensible terror and loss that mass shootings inevitably produce. This is especially the case in the current political moment, when relationships between shootings and mental illness often appear to be the only points upon which otherwise divergent voices in the contentious national gun debate agree.” The researchers went on to add, “Our brief review ultimately suggests, however, that this framework—and its implicit promise of mental health solutions to ostensibly mental health problems—creates an untenable situation in which mental health practitioners increasingly become the persons most empowered to make decisions about gun ownership and most liable for failures to predict gun violence.” While “it is undeniable that persons who have shown violent tendencies should not have access to weapons that could be used to harm themselves or others,” it should come as no revelation that health care professionals are reluctant to shoulder the blame for such complicated and broad societal problems.
Finally, the researchers concluded that there are four central assumptions that are commonly asserted in the aftermath of each new horrific mass shooting and have more than a grain of truth: “ (1) Mental illness causes gun violence, (2) Psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime before it happens, (3) U.S. mass shootings teach us to fear mentally ill loners, and, (4) Because of the complex psychiatric histories of mass shooters, gun control “won’t prevent” another Tucson, Aurora, or Newtown. Each of these statements is certainly true in particular instances. Evidence strongly suggests that mass shooters are often mentally ill and socially marginalized. Enhanced psychiatric attention may well prevent particular crimes. And, to be sure, mass shootings often shed light on the need for more investment in mental health support networks or improved state laws and procedures regarding gun access.”