{"id":230,"date":"2019-12-14T19:44:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T19:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/?p=230"},"modified":"2019-12-14T21:42:17","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T21:42:17","slug":"mass-shootings-and-mental-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/post-1-spring-2019\/mass-shootings-and-mental-illness\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass Shootings and Mental Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> A. Whalen <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In several public opinion polls, \u201cfailures of the mental health system\u201d are pointed as the main culprit for mass shootings.* This idea leads to pushes for increased background checks for individuals previously diagnosed with mental illness, and increased treatment for the mentally ill. Although the proposed solutions would reduce casualties, they will not prevent the 78% of shooters who are undiagnosed from accessing weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-231\" width=\"356\" height=\"242\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image-1.png 329w, https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/image-1-300x204.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 356px) 100vw, 356px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Michael Stone, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who maintains a\ndatabase of mass shooters, collected data demonstrating that only 22% of people\nwho carried out mass shootings were previously diagnosed as mentally ill.** Out\nof the 235 killers in Stone\u2019s database, which dates back to the 70s, only 52\nwere diagnosed with mental illness. Although many shooters may have been living\nwith undiagnosed mental illnesses, the numbers demonstrate that increased\nbackground checks cannot be the only part of the solution. By only increasing\nbackground checks and treatment for those diagnosed with mental illness, one\nonly prevents a small portion of the mass shootings that occur. Arguing that\nthese solutions are the most immediate ways to prevent a significant portion of\nshootings that occur is valid, but we should seek out better solutions that also\nprevent the other 78% of mass shootings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By focusing m<s>e<\/s>d<s>ia<\/s> attention on shooters with mental illnesses, we are misplacing our attention. We need to focus on how to create effective solutions to prevent all mass shootings, including the 78% that undiagnosed shooters carry out. Mental illness is a part of the problem, but we should also reevaluate the governmental systems that allow any shootings to occur, and not be distracted by the common misconception that mental illness is all to blame. We should try to help diagnose untreated mental illness to prevent the tragedies that result, but if we want to prevent more than 22% of these tragedies, we must take away the weapons that enable them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*\nTexas Politics Project, Factors most to Blame for Mass Shootings<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">** \u201cMass Murder, Mental\nIllness, and Men\u201d by Michael Stone, <em>Violence\nand Gender, <\/em>2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A. Whalen In several public opinion polls, \u201cfailures of the mental health system\u201d are pointed as the main culprit for mass shootings.* This idea leads to pushes for increased background [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-guns","category-post-1-spring-2019","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalprojects.davidson.edu\/writingscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}