Even as we reel from yet another school shooting, this time leading to the death of 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas (and with many more since), we are still faced with the same inevitable question of how such shootings can be prevented in the future.
To counter calls for stricter gun control, many newspapers and politicians have instead placed the blame for the Uvalde shooting on the presumed mental illness of the shooter in question, much as they have in previous shootings. For example, following the 31 deaths resulting from mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas in August of 2019, then-President Trump publicly stated that "mental illness and hatred pulled the trigger, not the gun." He also called for broader institutionalization of people with mental illness to prevent more shootings, regardless of any actual indication of violent behavior.
But even as budgetary concerns are leading to major cutbacks in mental health funding across the United States and elsewhere, media speculations linking mental illness with violence adversely affect how people with serious mental illness are treated. While studies consistently show that the mentally ill are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than vice versa, mass shootings such as the one in Uvalde make treating mental illness far more difficult as a result.
To read more, check out my new post in Psychology Today
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