Stop Blaming Gun Violence on Mental Illness
This article was written by Diana Chao and published on February 28th, 2018.
In the United States, 80% of youth with severe depression receive insufficient or no mental healthcare. In the aftermath of shooting after shooting, national dialogue, especially in Washington, can’t help but reiterate one point: it’s not the guns, it’s mental illness. But this thought process is not only incorrect — it’s counterproductive to the point of being destructive.
American government continues its lethargic track record of tackling mental healthcare access (bill here, one of many stuck waiting) even as some officials continue to use mental illness as the scapegoat for any problems they may see. Beyond the frustrating concept of blaming something for an obliquely-related problem while refusing to actually fix what is being blamed, the default to mental illness as “ the reason” for gun violence is thoroughly misguided.
“According to the National Center for Health Statistics, fewer than 5 percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with a mental illness.”
On the contrary, people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population.
“If you were to suddenly cure schizophrenia, bipolar, and depression overnight, violent crime in the US would fall by only 4 percent, according to an estimate from Duke University professor Jeffrey Swanson, a sociologist and psychiatric epidemiologist who studies the relationship between violence and mental illness.”
If we truly want to do something about mental health, let’s talk about mental health. No conditionals. No buts. No additional agendas.
When mental health is only brought up as a scapegoat to circumvent real, meaningful discussions about violence in the U.S., progress is halted. Using mental health as an excuse and a political strategy achieves only the following:
- It further contributes to the dangerous and paralyzing stigma/stereotype that those with mental illness are fundamentally bad people, which makes people scared to seek help. If someone becomes afraid of reaching out in fear of being branded as a “bad” person, they become more prone to isolation and vulnerable to the consequences that may ensue from shutting one self down.
- It only hinders the conversation needed to pass actual gun reform and implement meaningful policies. It distracts from the ruthless lethality of assault rifles and lack of safety measures that would otherwise ensure those who purchase powerful guns are capable of handling them logically and cautiously.
- It fails to even address mental healthcare substantially. The conversation, even though positioned within the context of mental health, only seeks to justify individuals owning assault rifles for their own entertainment. Rarely does anyone offer a tangible solution to improving mental healthcare within the country.
Therefore, how about we turn things around and talk about mental health in all contexts, not just when it’s convenient?
Mental health must be properly addressed now; it is a prerequisite to progress in this country.
For instance, we can start by recognizing the dangerous implications of assault against women.
“A large portion of the mass shootings in the U.S. in recent years have roots in domestic violence against partners and family members. Depending on how you count, it could be upwards of 50 percent.”
(It is worth noting that the “boyfriend loophole” still hasn’t been closed, so to avoid guns in talks of preventing mass shootings is ignorant at best and deadly at worst.)
If we want to improve our mental healthcare and implement consequential policies that will curb mass shootings, we must adopt a sense of compassion. We need to recognize that mental health issues are not a mass shooting guarantee, far from it. And if a person’s mental health does contribute to violence in any situation, we ought to address the correlation rather than emptily claiming it a lost cause.
Only by recognizing that we are all human beings with a variety of emotions and thoughts can we start building a more understanding and healthy society. Likewise, only by implementing strict measures against assault weapons can we protect those close to us.
If we do care, let’s care at all times, within all contexts. Let’s do something about mental health.
You can join our movement here at Letters to Strangers, reach out to your congressional representatives about co-sponsoring mental health bills or simply start normalizing vulnerability within your own community.
