When a shoot out happens in the United States, almost instantaneously one would assume that the source of the bullet is mentally ill. Researchers who study mental disorders are working to end this stigma because it doesn't reflect the general truth and is unfair to mentally ill patients.
According to The Atlantic, only 4 percent of violent incidences is linked to mental illness. It cited a new study that blames the media for mass perception of mental health instability as a perpetrator of gun violence, or any kind of violence.
Based on the study, 55 percent of print and broadcast media's mental health coverage involved violence. Noticeably, reports of mass shootings driven by mental illness increased from 9 percent within 1994 and 2004 to 22 percent within the following decade (via The Atlantic).
The Atlantic article discusses further that even though there is no proof of mental health collapse, the media seem to find it important to mention the shooter's mental state. The history of the killer's mental illness is almost an automatic bit of information the media must supply and when it does see a link of the event to mental health, they report it in a way that the ultimate cause of the violent attack is already determined.
The stigma is too prevalent that people experiencing symptoms of mental health deterioration are afraid to come out in the open and consult a doctor for diagnosis. This means one thing: No diagnosis, no clinical treatment.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Bart Rossi tells Quartz, "The stigma associated with mental health is so great that parents are afraid to bring their children to a psychologist because of the fear of having them 'labeled.'"
If anything, more mentally ill patients point the gun to themselves than use it to take away other people's lives. A very recent published study spans ten years of studying 81,794 people with mental illnesses (via Duke Medicine).
Gun violence causes the suicide rate to hike up, not lead to interpersonal violence of which 96 percent is not caused by their mental states. Within the decade, from 2002 to 2012, 254 participants committed suicide, a number of which according to the study, is almost four times the average suicide rate in Florida during the same aforementioned period (via Duke Medicine).
As per a study published by American Public Health Association, the connection of gun violence and mental health is more represented by cultural stereotypes than statistics. The influence of race, ethnicity, social class and/or politics to violence are obscured by the wrong notion attributed to people suffering a mental health condition.
The main lesson is that mental health does not necessarily lead to gun violence; it is just one of the multiple factors. If the government wants to end gun violence without blaming majority of shooting cases to mental health patients, it must strengthen and enforce gun laws more strictly.
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