Media Matters: New Report Destroys Fox's Narrative On Guns And Mental Health

[HereSince1628]

So, should you stand with Fox News on the risk of gun violence from the mentally ill?

This is a widespread belief not just on Fox news, but in America in general. A September 20, 2013 Gallup Poll that found 48% of 1023 persons, representing all 50 states, believed that mass-shootings occurred because the "failure of the mental health system to identify individuals who are a danger to others". That same poll found American attitudes shifting to less blame on gun access.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/164507/americans-fault-mental-health-system-gun-violence.aspx

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http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/11/its-time-to-stop-blaming-mental-health-for-mass/197226

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The {Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy} report, "Guns, Public Health and Mental Illness: An Evidence-Based Approach for Federal Policy," debunks the notion that there is "a direct causal connection between mental illness and violence," revealing that the suggestion that gun violence can be prevented by the institutionalization of people with mental health conditions is illogical:

"Many recent gun violence prevention policy discussions have assumed a direct causal connection between mental illness and violence. The research evidence suggests that violence has many interacting causes, and that mental illness alone very rarely causes violence. As a result, strategies that aim to prevent gun violence by focusing solely on restricting access to guns by those diagnosed with a mental illness are unlikely to significantly reduce overall rates of gun violence in the US."
To buttress this claim, the report notes that only about 4 percent of violence in the United States "is attributable to mental illness." The Consortium also cautions "that violence prevention policies targeting broad groups of people with mental illness -- most of whom will never be violent -- could further stigmatize those with mental illness and potentially create barriers to mental health treatment seeking."

According to the Consortium, only under very limited circumstances a link does exist between "individuals with serious mental illness" and violence:

"Most people with serious mental illness - which includes conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - are never violent toward others, and are in fact more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence. However, research suggests that small subgroups of individuals with serious mental illness, at certain times, such as the period surrounding a psychiatric hospitalization or the first episode of psychosis, are at elevated risk of violence. In addition, the population with serious mental illness experiences high rates of co-occurring substance use, an important risk factor for violent behavior in the general population."

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[rock]

1. I believe I can identify individuals who are a danger to others:

the ones with the guns.

[HereSince1628]

4. You could if they were in front of you threating with one, I suppose

The same problem of extremely low probability events is associated with trying to identify who is going to do one of the bad things (mass murder, murder, suicide, gun-assisted crime) out of the 70+ million owners of legal guns.

The matrix of databases isn't that good.

[seveneyes]

2. It could be better stated

gun violence can be prevented by the institutionalization of people with the propensity and desire to harm innocents.

[HereSince1628]

5. Unfortunately there is no practical way to profile all those people prior to their acts

Last edited Tue Dec 17, 2013, 08:08 PM - Edit history (1)

and prior restraint being as dangerous as it is to civil rights, it is MUST be predicated on some sort of actual evidence.

The dangerous people who don't draw attention acting out in ways that are obvious precedents of crimes would slip completely by such attempts, much as they do now.

Low precision profiles and non-dangerous people who draw attention to themselves would flood prisons and mental hospitals with false positive

[Bandit]

3. It is my opinion that a good portion of America has serious mental problems.

Common sense and Logic were thrown out the window a long time ago..

[HereSince1628]

6. The estimate is somewhere around 1/5 of the population

Thats in the vicinity of 65-70 million people.