Quote:
Originally Posted by vektor
If you want to lower the deaths per annum then regulate guns better, you want to restrict mass shootings start looking at the mental health problems because that one in a million that snaps doesn't need guns.
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While I agree mental health and treatment is something that should be a bigger issue, I'm not sure there is great statistical linkage between mental health causing murder and violence in general. (
Time Magazine link)
You're right though, unsurprisingly, those who commit mass murders suffer from mental illness (from the article):
When looking at the rates of violent crime overall — homicide, for instance — the best estimate is that 5% to 10% of murders are committed by people with mental illness. But a far larger proportion of mass homicides, including the brutal July 2011 attacks in Norway, the Tucson, Ariz., shooting that wounded Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, involve perpetrators with mental illness. The proportion far outstrips the rates of mental illness in the population.
What scares me is that would mean 90-95% of murders are by people who do not have mental illness... so I'd probably concentrate a larger proportion of efforts to that side of things... proper gun restrictions being on that side.