Stop blaming gun violence on mental illness; we can do better
I hate it. I hate our conversations about guns in this country. And I hate our conversations around mental health in the aftermath of these horrific mass shootings.
We are failing those with mental illness and ourselves on two fronts: First, we do not provide necessary, affordable treatment to those with mental illness; and second, we allow easy access to guns.
But conflating mental illness with violence is wrong, and the coverage of mass shootings perpetuates that view.
One could argue that most murders in our country are due to mental illness, but it’s only when a person has actually sought mental health treatment that it becomes the focus of the media coverage.
Here’s just a very limited set of headlines that came out after the heartbreaking events in Texas on Feb. 11:
Houston megachurch shooter had history of mental illness but still was able to buy a gun, her mother-in-law says — CNN
Texas neighbors said they tried to sound the alarm about Houston church shooter for months — NBC News
Suspected Lakewood Church shooter Genesse Moreno had criminal history, mental health issues, documents say — ABC News
Shooter at Joel Osteen church bought weapon legally despite history of mental illness — The Guardian
Texas church shooter had history of mental illness — Boston Herald
If a person involved in a mass shooting has been diagnosed with mental illness, or sought treatment for it, the media pounces on it and splashes it across every headline and TV chyron. In contrast, if the person has not sought mental health help, the media focuses on the misery and carnage, and casts the perpetrator as simply “evil.” Does this dichotomy help us solve either the problem of mental illness or easy access to weapons of mass murder? No.
I’ve had the privilege to work on both of these critical issues. I’ve worked with former Rep. Gabby Giffords on gun violence. I’ve worked with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to eliminate the stigma associated with mental health issues. I’ve helped develop public policy to strengthen New Jersey’s gun control and to better support people with mental health needs. There is really, so much more we can do.
There is no question that our nation needs better gun control and regulation. It is a proven fact that the number of guns in a community directly correlates to a greater risk of gun violence, and a gun in the home increases the risk of harm to the residents of that home. Our dangerous lack of gun control isn’t just about mass shootings, in reality mass shootings are still a tiny percentage of gun deaths, it’s about the fact that guns are America’s leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens.
So we need better gun laws, we know that. We need to get guns off the streets and out of the homes of children. We need to get guns out of public spaces and out of people’s waistbands. We need to limit the size of magazines and the speed by which magazines can be emptied. There are a myriad of avenues we need to travel to reduce gun violence and within that, of course, is a genuine and nuanced assessment of a person’s mental health.
We also need to continue the long and hard work of destigmatizing mental illness — work that has seen a lot of success in recent years but work that is thwarted by how the media covers mass shootings. We need to invest in supporting Americans’ mental health. We need to ensure that mental health care isn’t just for the wealthy and well to do. We need every level of health insurance to actually cover mental health treatment. We need to demand better from the trillion dollar wellness industry and we need treatments based on actual scientific research.
It’s heartbreaking to know that our youth are doing active shooter drills from before they learn the alphabet. And in the face of tragedy after tragedy one party blocks any attempt to put reasonable limits on guns, often going so far as to use mental illness as a means to evade their responsibility in our nation’s gun violence epidemic.
It’s heartbreaking to know that 1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year and that suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 14. These are national crises that deserve national conversations but one of them can’t get most of its coverage (mental health) because the other one rages on (gun violence).
The vast majority of people suffering with mental health issues are non-violent and if they are a danger, most of the time it is tragically to themselves — it’s a callous disservice to so many in our communities to couple mental health with violence. Time to be better, on both fronts.