MENTALLY ILL MENTALLY ILL MENTALLY ILL

[HereSince1628]

20. A little fear, a dash of ignorance, some cherry-picking--shake: mentally ill are the problem.

The notion that it is all about the mentally ill, that they are the biggest part of the gun violence problem is flawed. It's a meme that works for those who believe that bullets and guns don't kill but lunatics and monsters among us do.

It blends almost seamlessly into belief that a person MUST be mentally ill at SOME level to shoot another person.

This blame blitz on the mentally is a consequence of the Gun Lobby cherry-picking an old OTA report on the NICS system, the database used in the instant check for gun purchases.

That report appears as an appendix in a report from 2007 on the effectiveness of the NICS that seems to be turning into the standard reference piece for the current discussions.

That OTA report makes the point that 4 million people are adjudicated prohibited from legal gun purchases, as of 31 DEC 2012 the NICS included only 1.8 million of these people. That number is pushed as evidence that the gun violence thing is about the missing records of the mentally ill!

Well that seems like a problem...but maybe we shouldn't jump on this just yet.

There are lots of records missing from NICS, and there are a lot more records missing for categories who try to get guns at a higher rate than the mentally ill.

The same OTA report that everyone is cherry picking about the missing records for mentally says the combined databases used in the instant check system (NICS and III) are missing 23 million felons, and 14 million user/addicts of unlawful substances.

Felons are 58% of the people denied by the instant check system, known user/addicts are nearly 9% of the people caught trying to buy weapons. The mentally ill represent only 1.03% of those who are denied by the instant check system.

The system needs much more discipline in reporting, including on mentally ill determined to be prohibited from purchases by a judge or panel. I'd think we'd go after the holes in the system most associated with the categories known to be attempting to purchase guns.

But, you say there are scores of millions of undetected mentally ill out there just waiting to shoot the children. All these mass murders are done by undetected mentally ill persons!!!

No. Undetected mental illness is estimated to be associated with about 40 percent of these events. Mother Jones published details about the 61 mass shootings in the US since 1982. Twenty-four of the 61 shootings involved a shooter who when investigations were done -after- the event may have show signs of a mental illness.

Only 33 of the 61 mass shootings were associated with a mental health diagnosis (9) or retrospective evidence of undetected mental illness (24) .

That isn't to say mental illness isn't part of the problem. Mental illness is part of the problem

Indeed it's part is PERFECT for LaPierre's diversion of attention, it hyperbolizes a truth which is thrown against the nation's ignorance and fear of mental illness in order to shift focus away from gun control and onto 'people' control, which is the message in the now decades old saw "guns don't kill people do"