Congress bans the CDC from doing study on gun violence

[Faith No More]

I think he made the case that having a well-armed civilian populace is useful  to politicians who use American military might to maintain our economic hegemony, so the politicians (who would have to be the ones to enact genuine gun reform laws) have little motivation to ban civilian guns, regardless of the consequences to those civilians.

Sounds like a stretch to me, but it's irrelevant. They have little motivation to ban guns because people won't vote for them anymore if they do. It's a matter of keeping their jobs.

[Angrboda]

Linking serial shooters to mental illness is pointing the arrow of inference the wrong way. Perhaps there is something wrong with serial shooters, but you're identifying them from the act of serial shooting, not from their being mentally ill. From the fact that one is a serial killer, one may infer that something is wrong with serial killers. You can't infer the other way around that if someone is mentally ill that they are more likely to become serial killers. That's not a valid inference.
serial killer ------> mentally ill
mentally ill --//--> serial killer
All you're doing by increasing treatment for mental illness is helping people get well, not preventing spree shootings like in Oregon.

[brewer]

Linking serial shooters to mental illness is pointing the arrow of inference the wrong way.  Perhaps there is something wrong with serial shooters, but you're identifying them from the act of serial shooting, not from their being mentally ill.  From the fact that one is a serial killer, one may infer that something is wrong with serial killers.  You can't infer the other way around that if someone is mentally ill that they are more likely to become serial killers.  That's not a valid inference.
serial killer ------> mentally ill
mentally ill --//--> serial killer
All you're doing by increasing treatment for mental illness is helping people get well, not preventing spree shootings like in Oregon.

I agree for the most part. Mentally ill does not equal mass shooter. The numbers that I've heard are that only 5% or less of the mentally ill are violent. The violent that may become mass shooters has to be a very small percentage of that.

Go back and look at the mass shooting list from page 7. If you look at the shooters history(s), in the majority of the shooters you will find that the mental illness was documented prior to the shooting/act. So, it is not the act itself that identifies them as mentally ill. It is their behavior prior to the act.

If we are increasing identification and effective treatment of the mentally ill, won't we be potentially helping both? We certainly won't be hurting them if the individual is truly mentally ill. I'm not saying and not sure that this will necessarily have any impact on mass shootings. To me, it does seem like a logical place to start. Better gun control laws appears to be the obvious first choice.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Agree with the above, both of you. In almost every single case, the parents had tried to seek the specialist care their sons needed, and were unable to secure it. It's not a problem with mental health, but with untreated mental health.

The question for me, then, is "why are we talking about gun restriction and/or whether or not to stop letting the mentally ill have guns, since obviously that's not the issue in these mass shootings, once you look at the stats, and start figuring out why these people who sought mental health treatment for these boys before they went off the rails were unable to find the support and medical help they needed?"

The American system of healthcare (non)coverage has everything to do with it.

On the other hand, the issue really stems from the problems of poverty and wealth disparity. The tens of thousands of shootings that we have ignored, in poor neighborhoods, are not related to mental health but to societal detachment and poverty... I would argue that the main issues are the same in both groups. Guns are only the last link in the chain of an impoverished, helpless, angry young man whose teenage brain does not yet fully comprehend the consequences of certain actions, who cannot get the help and support he needs, and who lashes out with whatever is available to him.

Australia managed to take away the easy availability of those guns, which at least stops the last link in the causal chain... but I think in the USA it will take a great deal more to "put the genie back in the bottle", since we have so many guns, per capita, and our streets are flooded with illegal ones thanks in large part to the effects of decades of the Drug War. I suspect we may put in the gun-ban/buyback as a stopgap measure, but I doubt it will really change here until we address how we've treated our "outsider group" neighborhoods for the past 239+ years.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm sure some mental conditions are particularly harmless.

From what I've read, anti-social personality disorders seem to be more harmful than mental illnesses. Mental illness are much more dangerous to those inflicted with the illness.

[brewer]

I'm sure some mental conditions are particularly harmless.

From what I've read, anti-social personality disorders seem to be more harmful than mental illnesses. Mental illness are much more dangerous to those inflicted with the illness.

Personality disorders are a form of mental illness. They are less amenable to pharmacotherapy.

Fact Sheet: http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Personalit...0Sheet.pdf
Details: https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/dsm-...cluster-a/
Treatment: https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/the-...disorders/

[Edwardo Piet]

Not in the UK they're not. When it was suspected I may have a personality disorder and not a mental illness, it was also a rationale to give me less support. Despite identical symptoms to previously

[brewer]

Not in the UK they're not. When it was suspected I may have a personality disorder and not a mental illness, it was also a rationale to give me less support. Despite identical symptoms to previously

Actually, I just looked at UK diagnosis and they are considered a mental illness.

Unfortunately we have the same problem in the US. There is less supportive treatment for personality disorders than other mental disorders. They often have to reach the point of becoming nonfunctional in our society before any kind of support is available. My guess is that a majority of our homeless have some degree of personality disorder.

[Edwardo Piet]

Unless it has changed since!

Maybe some personality disorders count only?

[brewer]

Unless it has changed since!

Maybe some personality disorders count only?

I'm not sure. What I read stated that they followed the US model. This is where I first looked:

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Personality...ptoms.aspx

Then looked here:

http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-info...disorders/

You may not have qualified based in the severity of your symptoms. If that's the case, consider your self lucky. If you think you still need treatment keep banging on the door. The squeaky wheel gets greased.