Blaming Mass Shootings on Serious Mental Illness Has Harmful Effects, Says APA Past President

In the two weeks since a 19-year-old opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., killing 17 students and faculty members, there has been much talk by politicians about the need to address untreated serious mental illness in the United States.In anarticle published today inJAMA Psychiatry, APA Past President Ren ée Binder, M.D., and Matthew Hirschtritt, M.D., M.P.H., both of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote that while political rhetoric focusing the blame for mass shootings on individuals with serious mental illness may be “politically expedient,” such an approach “stigmatizes an al ready vulnerable and marginalized population, fails to identify individuals at the highest risk for committing violence with firearms, and distracts public attention from policy changes that are most likely to reduce the risk of gun violence.”Binder and Hirschtritt summarized several studies that suggest serious mental illness is not a specific indicator for risk of violence. The article notes that such studies have found that people with mental illness are three times more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence and only 4% of criminal violence in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness.Multiple factors other than serious mental illness contribute to violence risk, Binder and Hirschtritt wrote, including being male, young, having a history of perpetrating violence or being a victim of violence, and unlawful ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: gun violence Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Matthew Hirschtritt mental illness politics Ren ée Binder stigma Source Type: research