Study
The Virginia Tech, Tucson, and Aurora shooters appear to have had SMI,9–11 a category that includes conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.12 Even though these shootings have drawn public attention to an apparent link between SMI and gun violence, the vast majority of persons with SMI are not violent13,14 and a small proportion of gun violence is committed by persons with SMI.15 The relationship between SMI and violence is complicated by factors such as substance abuse and trauma.13 Furthermore, existing risk-assessment tools do not accurately predict violence among persons with SMI, making it challenging to target policy initiatives to the small subpopulation at heightened risk of violence.16 Nonetheless, some policymakers at the federal and state levels have targeted policy interventions to reduce gun violence at persons with SMI, proposing policies to improve screening and treatment17 and prevent persons with SMI from having guns.18 In the wake of the Newtown shooting, several states—including Maryland19 and New York20—passed laws restricting access to firearms among those with mental illness. These states also passed gun laws unrelated to mental illness, including assault weapon bans.
The recent focus on SMI as a potentially important factor in mass shootings has generated concern among some segments of the public health community. Mental health researchers have long suspected that news media portrayals of violent persons with SMI contribute to negative public attitudes about persons with serious conditions like schizophrenia.21–23 This suspicion is supported by results of a recent experimental study, which found that respondents who read a news story describing a mass shooter with SMI reported higher perceived dangerousness of and desired social distance from persons with SMI, compared with respondents randomly assigned to a control group.24 Communications research suggests that public attitudes about groups of people are heavily influenced by news media portrayals of specific individuals, particularly when the public has little experience with the group in question.25 Given that the majority of the public has no personal experience with SMI,26 news stories describing acts of gun violence by persons with SMI may exacerbate negative attitudes about an already stigmatized population. Although stigma surrounding depression and anxiety has decreased in recent years,27 widespread negative public attitudes toward persons with conditions like schizophrenia have remained steady21,28 or by some measures increased.21,29 Experts have linked these negative public attitudes to the pervasive social problems affecting persons with SMI, including undertreatment,30 poverty,31 and homelessness.31
Mental health advocates have expressed concern that the news media’s focus on mass shooters with SMI could lead the public to view SMI as a common cause of gun violence.32–34 Social psychology research suggests that the torrent of news stories describing mass shooting events by persons with SMI could lead the public to wrongly view SMI as a primary causal factor in such shootings. In a series of randomized experiments investigating news media coverage of poverty, for example, Iyengar found that event-focused news coverage emphasizing specific individuals or events led respondents to blame impoverished individuals themselves for the problem of poverty.35,36 By contrast, thematic news coverage of poverty—which described the issue in broad, general terms—led respondents to more frequently attribute responsibility for poverty to societal factors. Importantly, Iyengar found that individual versus societal attributions of responsibility for social problems led to differing support for public policy responses.35,36 For example, respondents who blamed societal factors for poverty were more likely to support poverty reduction initiatives.35,36
In commentaries published in several prominent public health journals, experts have asserted that a misguided focus on SMI as an important cause of gun violence could lead the public to support policies that restrict the rights of persons with SMI without meaningfully reducing gun violence.32–34 In particular, experts have expressed concern that policymakers might promote policies to prevent persons with SMI from having guns, rather than policies to strengthen gun laws more broadly, as an appropriate means to reduce the likelihood or severity of gun violence in the United States.34 In a 2011 commentary in JAMA, Gostin and Record argued that to reduce gun violence in the United States, policies should target the “dangerous weapons” used in all gun crime, not “dangerous people” with SMI, most of whom are not in fact violent.34 Although dangerous-people causal framing implies that responsibility for gun violence lies with a select group of individuals with SMI, dangerous-weapons framing implies that responsibility lies with widespread access to guns in US society. In line with previous work suggesting that societal attributions of responsibility for social problems may raise public support for policy solutions,35,37 framing dangerous weapons as a principal cause of gun violence may heighten public support for meaningful reform of US gun laws.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3953754/
Myth: People with mental health problems are violent and unpredictable.
Fact: The vast majority of people with mental health problems are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Most people with mental illness are not violent and only 3%–5% of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. In fact, people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. You probably know someone with a mental health problem and don't even realize it, because many people with mental health problems are highly active and productive members of our communities.
https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/mental-health-myths-facts
I'm not religious so I think the taking someone's life is about the lowest thing someone can do since we have only have 1 life but taking guns from the mentally ill doesn't personally affect me because I don't want to own a gun but I feel like the mentally ill make a convenient scapegoat for both the right and left. Homicide is far more common or we wouldn't be having all these wars.
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