Previl: Stop the blame on mental illness

There’s been yet another mass shooting in the U.S., this time on a university campus in Arizona and I’m betting at least someone will blame mental illness.

It’s a good bet considering mental illness has been raised in so many highly publicized mass killings recently.

Aurora, Colo., Newtown, Conn., Charleston, S.C., Roseburg, Ore.

In all these terrible stories, politicians and news media have pointed the finger to mental illness.

It’s exhausting.

In the U.S., it is easier to place blame on something other than guns for the shooting incidents and often mental illness takes this blame.

However, this is not about why more gun control is needed.  It is about the ever present stigma placed on mental illness.

In the aftermath of shootings, Americans speculate about the cause. Dr. Jonathan Metzl, in his article “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings and the Politics of American Firearms” (U.S. National Library of Medicine), challenges the assumptions “mental illness causes gun violence” and “psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime.”

Although he says there can be some truth to this, the automatic connection between the two is also based on stereotypes.  The National Center for Health Statistics suggests fewer than five per cent of gun-related killings between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people diagnosed with mental illness.

Do you think people who suffer from mental health issues will be comfortable raising their hand to publicly admit they have a problem?

So one piece of advice: Americans, please stop it. Just stop. Stop knee-jerk blaming your gun violence on mental illness when statistics show it is rarely a result of mental illness. The blaming doesn’t help anybody and in fact, it may make the situation worse.