Violence is not a product of mental illness. Violence is a product of anger.

[gollygee]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/04/anger_causes_violence_treat_it_rather_than_mental_illness_to_stop_mass_murder.html

Violent crimes committed by people with severe mental illnesses get a lot of attention, but such attacks are relatively rare. Paolo del Vecchio of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has said, “Violence by those with mental illness is so small that even if you could somehow cure it all, 95 percent of violent crime would still exist.” A 2009 study by Seena Fazel found a slightly higher rate of violent crime in schizophrenics—but it was almost entirely accounted for by alcohol and drug abuse. Likewise, the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study found that mentally ill people who did not have a substance abuse problem were no more violent than other people in their neighborhoods.

With no clear explanation of the causes of violent crime from the mental health field, and with significant encouragement from the gun lobby, the public has begun to seize on the wrong explanation for tragic, violent events. They focus not on the IED-diagnosed patients but on those with other diagnoses, schizophrenia in particular, ignoring the fact that what the perpetrators have in common in every single one of these cases is a loss of control of their anger.

[RKP5637]

1. Excellent article!!! n/t

[Brickbat]

2. Anger, hopelessness, alienation -- the kinds of things that take a huge, long-term, multifaceted

and multidisciplinary approach across industries, culture and populations. It's a massive undertaking, but it needs to be done. People lash out because they're hurting, or because they are so numb they don't feel and they want to feel something. Reducing violence starts at the source.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Well said. n/t

[ellenrr]

11. yes, exactly, criminals like the school shooters are alienated,

they belong to nothing-
- their guns are probably their best friends.

[tblue]

3. I was just thinking that anger issues

should disqualify you from gun purchases. And an awful lot of gunners seem to be incensed and agitated a lot of the time, IMHO. They're frightening.

[Fumesucker]

5. The Kunduz hospital attack by US forces was a product of anger?

Or is that something other than violence?

[gollygee]

8. this isn't about state-sponsored violence, obviously. n/t

[Fumesucker]

19. Murder - Violence condemned by the political class

War -Violence condoned by the political class.

[gollygee]

20. War is about profit, imperialism, and nationalism more than anger

Horrible, but a different issue from what this article discusses.

[Duppers]

23. Excellent.

I'm saving and quoting you.

[dembotoz]

6. how to you measure anger in a retail environment?

as in gun sales

waiting periods help

[gollygee]

7. From the article:

Violence is not a product of mental illness. Nor is violence generally the action of ordinary, stable individuals who suddenly “break” and commit crimes of passion. Violent crimes are committed by violent people, those who do not have the skills to manage their anger. Most homicides are committed by people with a history of violence. Murderers are rarely ordinary, law-abiding citizens, and they are also rarely mentally ill. Violence is a product of compromised anger management skills.

In a summary of studies on murder and prior record of violence, Don Kates and Gary Mauser found that 80 to 90 percent of murderers had prior police records, in contrast to 15 percent of American adults overall. In a study of domestic murderers, 46 percent of the perpetrators had had a restraining order against them at some time. Family murders are preceded by prior domestic violence more than 90 percent of the time. Violent crimes are committed by people who lack the skills to modulate anger, express it constructively, and move beyond it.

So criminal background checks.

[whathehell]

9. Mass shootings seem a combination anger and mental illness..

considering that those killed are often complete strangers to the shooters.

It's clearly anger, but it's one that's so misplaced it indicates a sever mental illness.

[ellenrr]

10. yeah. When kkk lynch Black people nobody says they've got a "mental illness"

when obomba drones a family wedding, no one says he's got a "mental illness"

why israel murders Palestinian women and children no one says they've got a "mental illness"

when Saudi employer cuts off the hand of an employee, no one says he's got a "mental illness"

when Volkswagon causes the death of millions with the corruption, no one says they've got a "mental illness"

Obviously 'mental illness' { which is a made-up term with no meaning anyway }
is selectively applied, depending on the speaker's agenda, and depending on the target.

[zazen]

12. certainly true with battering, which is usually quite "logical" and strategic

Lundy Bancroft has written a lot on this. Most male violence against female partners is based on anger, but that anger has to do with cognitions--the belief that he is entitled to own and control his partner. These same men don't go all out of control with their employers or buddies and usually not with law enforcement and judges. They're the model of rational sanity. These guys usually score "normal" on most mental illness inventories, while their partners who are usually fully traumatized appear like the "crazy" ones.

It's interesting that when their violence against their partner extends into a broader environment like the workplace it's when they believe others are colluding in violating their entitlement to control their domestic life.

[bemildred]

13. Correct. And self-pity. And desperation. nt

[jtuck004]

14. But, splutter..that would mean those people aren't so different from us, and that just can't be. n/t

[JDPriestly]

15. I can't K&R this enough.

The public has been distracted by all the talk about mental illness and violence.

Anger management is the key, and as a nation we are terrible at it.

Just look at some of the posts on DU.

Why are people so riled up about every little thing?

As the OP says, sometimes mental illness is a factor in mass murders.

Sometimes it is a factor in domestic violence.

But anger is the common denominator.

Anger and carelessness cause gun deaths.

There may be a couple of other causes in some gun deaths. But anger and carelessness are the two big ones.

On edit, alcohol as pointed out in the OP is also a common factor in many crimes especially gun crimes.

[B2G]

16. Why can't it be both? nt

[Hiraeth]

22. It is both. This is a crap artricle. Reagan's defunding of mental health services was a grave

injustice to our society,

[Hiraeth]

17. Anger management issues and misplaced anger are behaviorial and as such, can be signs

and symptoms of psychological disorders and should be dealt with by a professional team including psych evaluation.

[gollygee]

18. From the article:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, the reference book used by mental health professionals to assign diagnoses of mental illness, does very little to address anger. The one relevant diagnosis is intermittent explosive disorder, a disorder of anger management. People with IED tend to come from backgrounds in which they have been exposed to patterns of IED behavior, often from parents whose own anger is out of control. But the DSM does not provide a diagnostic category helpful for explaining how someone can, with careful advance planning, come to enter an elementary school, nursing home, theater, or government facility and indiscriminately begin to kill.

[B2G]

21. Sociopaths are are very cunning. nt

[Hiraeth]

24. Let me fix your subject line for you. Should read: From the crap article. But, yes genetics does

play a part in determining our psychological tendencies.