Paul Ryan is blaming mental illness for mass shootings. Do you agree?

[Ajidica]

Paul Ryan is a spineless worm.
Ryan isn't wrong, in that mass shooters are not examples of mentally healthy individuals. But neither is he right, in that blaming mass shootings on mental illness is a fig leaf.
I would be willing to tolerate his position on the issue as incorrect but well meaning if he were actively pushing for improved access and funding for mental health services, but he seems to be doing his best to kill access by the general population to mental health services.

 

[uppi]

I would be willing to tolerate his position on the issue as incorrect but well meaning if he were actively pushing for improved access and funding for mental health services, but he seems to be doing his best to kill access by the general population to mental health services.

I wouldn't even call it incorrect. There is a pragmatic argument to be made that reducing the number of guns is not going to happen anytime soon, so pursuing better treatment of mental illnesses might yield better short term results. But, yeah, if anyone really honestly held that position, he should try expanding access to mental health care instead of trying to gut it.

 

[plarq]

If the Congress put money on mental healthcare institutions I am going to do a PhD in Psychology (clinical one of course).

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Personally I blame the sun. Like all the suns.
Without them no metal. Without metal no bullets.
Or humans standing around ready to be shot at with them.
But the world is crazy. And what can you do. It is certainly not my fault that it is. So leave me the f alone.

 

[metatron]

Personally I blame the sun. Like all the suns.
Without them no metal. Without metal no bullets.
Or humans standing around ready to be shot at with them.
But the world is crazy. And what can you do. It is certainly not my fault that it is. So leave me the f alone.

The heaviest metal our sun will ever produce is iron.
Basically all heavier elements come form supernovae, which would include virtually all metals commonly used in bullets, like lead, copper, tellur, tungsten, as well as nickel and zink in various kinds of steel.

Just saying.
#notallsuns

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Gargh
While writing this stupid post I had it in the back of my mind that suns did not produce all the stuff, but couldn't recall what this meant.. garghgargh

 

[Broken_Erika]

Just blame the Universe!
#downwiththeuniverse

 

[Patine]

What about mental illness affecting decisions and statements coming from the White House?

 

[Ryika]

Just blame the Universe!
#downwiththeuniverse

You hate the universe because it's black, don't you?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's funny how all of a sudden he's willing to talk about mental health issues vis a vis gun massacres when the problem (which is only a small subset of the overall problem) has been known for years and he blocked past efforts to address it. After Sandy Hook the Dems pushed for legislation to stop the mentally ill from possessing firearms and the Republicans blocked it.

They are only now beginning to realize that we're long past the tipping point on gun restrictions - the public wants them - but so far their gerrymandered districts have protected them. It's finally getting to the point where even that won't stop the backlash against the NRA, particularly in the upcoming change election.

Still, they aren't going to do anything in large part thanks to the NRA.

 

[Lexicus]

Actually now I think on it, it occurs to me that mental illness does play a huge role in gun violence: namely, via suicides. Suicide is very strongly associated with mental illness (mainly severe depression iirc). Vastly improved mental health services would likely cut down on suicides even if you didn't change access to guns at all.

Of course, for any Republican to make this claim about mental illness is fairly disgusting considering their basic position on mental health services tends to be: get rid of them to fund tax cuts heavily tilted toward the top 0.1%.

 

[BvBPL]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/05/opinions/paul-ryan-mental-health-guns-sham-david-perry/index.html

CNN has been peeing the bed for as long as I can remember, but finally, they wrote something good.

That's an opinion piece written by David Perry. The opinions expressed in the commentary are his own, not CNN's.

 

[Hrothbern]

It's more a mental blind spot that becomes visible during a mass shooting.

Here a nice vid on that blind spot from Jan Lubach, the original creator of the "can our country be second ?"

 

[Quintillus]

This is not a well-written article. My main complaint is that it is playing loose with the main statistics it uses to back up its argument, specifically:

Let's be clear. Only 3% to 5% of all violent crimes involve people with psychiatric disabilities, including conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. People with such conditions make up more than 18% of the American population. These individuals are 10 times more likely to be victims of violence than those without mental illness.

The statistic about 3-5% of violent crimes involving people with psychiatric disabilities is talking about violent crimes in general. But the article is discussing mass shootings. The statistics may be significantly different for mass shootings, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were. Someone may commit an armed robbery for a mentally sound reason - such as needing money - even if that choice of how to go about solving their problem is questionable. But mass shooting is a completely different concept. You can't apply a general statistic to a specific subset of what it covers, and expect it to still be accurate.

Put another way, let's suppose I said that 18% of apples sold at retail are yellow, and had evidence to back that up. That would have no bearing on specific types of apples, and would not mean that 18% of Red Delicious apples were yellow, or that 18% of Golden Delicious apples were yellow. It may well be that most Red Delicious apples are red, or that all Golden Delicious apples are yellow.

The author also implies that 18% of Americans have "psychiatric disabilities, including conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder". However, the very source he sites instead states "Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year", citing the National Institutes of Health. The way the author words it, it reads as if 18% of the U.S. populace is mentally ill at any given time. However, it's actually 18% experiencing mental illness at any point during the year - and not all mental illnesses last a year. I don't know what the statistic for any given time during the year is, but it is likely quite a bit lower than 18% - I would not be surprised if it's less than 9%.

Another, more minor, problem is that the first link in that paragraph is dead (and perhaps it died since the article was posted, but it's only two weeks old), and that the "10 times more likely" stat is not quoted. Given the issues with the other statistics, a citation is needed on that third one.

Finally, while "psychiatric disabilities" may be technically correct, by using that phrasing as well as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as the examples, he is implying that 18% of Americans have mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. This could be interpreted in all sorts of ways, but paints an inaccurate picture of what most mental illnesses are.

Overall, it's a sloppily written article, and CNN shouldn't have published it as-is. They already are being branded as "fake news" by the current president, and publishing an article which is loose with its facts like this, even in their opinion section, only supports such allegations.

 

[Quintillus]

Separate post for what I think about the subject, since I wanted to focus on the article itself in the first one.

To a fair degree, I do agree with Ryan that mental health is a significant issue in mass shootings. I haven't seen any convincing evidence that individuals committing mass shootings are mentally sound, and to be honest to assume they are - especially as many of them kill themselves at the end - seems presumptuous. And while it is not the whole problem, I would like to see some hard statistics on it before saying it's not a significant part of the problem. At the very least, there are problems in a society where multiple people every year come to the conclusion that they should shoot innocent civilians.

And as Lexicus mentioned, mental health is an established component of the growing suicide problem, so even if you look at gun deaths in general, noting that mass shootings are still a small fraction of that, mental illness is a significant factor there.

As for legislation, there is definitely room for improvement. Even the most pro-NRA people I know support at least some degree of background checks. A waiting period before acquiring a gun also makes sense, and has been shown to reduce homicides. I can also see the logic for a limit on how many guns/how much ammo you can buy at once, similar to how there are restrictions on how much of certain behind-the-counter drugs you can buy at once, e.g. pseudoephedrine.

Examples: If you just started receiving treatment for depression, and you go to a gun store and want to buy a pistol, that should be a red flag. If you are on an FBI watch list because you've been posting extremist videos advocating violence against civilians online, and you go to buy several rifles, that should also be a red flag. If you've been buying two rifles and 500 rounds of ammo a day for a week, either you should be a certified distributor or owner of a gun range, or that should be a red flag.

I do, however, support the intent of the 2nd Amendment, and don't support drastic restrictions on gun ownership, at least to people who have not shown themselves to be a risk to themselves or others. I think there's a middle ground between restrictions for law-abiding, ordinary citizens, and the current state where essentially anyone can acquire a gun instantly, even if there's very concerning evidence over their intentions.

And mental health is part of the equation. If there are fewer people considering suicide in the first place, and fewer people tempted by extremist ideology, that in turn means there will be fewer people inclined to commit violence with guns in the first place. It will never be perfect, but especially with today's mental health system that can't keep up with demand, to say that increasing mental health care will not decrease gun deaths seems equally as nonsensical to me as saying there is nothing that can be done to help legislatively.

 

[caketastydelish]

That's an opinion piece written by David Perry. The opinions expressed in the commentary are his own, not CNN's.

But CNN published it. Their 'opinions' have been garbage for years, and the entire network has been reprehensible (only a shade better than Fox). They gave Trump WAY too much TV coverage, even early in the election when he didn't have much support. They showed basically all of his speeches and everything he did, thus essentially give him free advertising. They made Trump much more relevant than he had to be.

Remember their coverage of the Malaysian plane that crashed? Jesus, that was terrible. Every 15 minutes for months it was "still no news of the crash". Being INCREDIBLY repetitive and redundant.

There was also a time several years ago when some girl got raped by some football players at CNN stuck up for the players. I was saying back then (here at CFC) 'who's surprised, this is CNN' and I got misinterpreted as supporting CNN. Basically, I was saying "business as usual... because this is CNN"

As I said already, CNN is just a shade better than Fox. I've personally reached the point where I don't watch them at all anymore. MSNBC is where it's at.

 

[Lexicus]

MSNBC is where it's at.

You shouldn't watch that either, it's crap.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Still, they aren't going to do anything in large part thanks to the NRA.

The NRA put out a statement in the immediate aftermath saying they were supporting of making bump stocks illegal.

Haha j/k guys, they are totally against any bump stock bans now that "enough" time has passed since the Vegas massacre. I'm so thankful they are making America great again by giving support to a undermining machine gun bans with bump stocks. Clearly the right to own weapons that can put out 600 rounds a minute outweighs the public's right to not be mowed down at country music concerts. Totes.

And it was such a blatant lie they told! They just played it safe for long enough to get out of the news cycle before doing a complete 180.


I owned a gun. I enjoyed shooting it. I want another and have thought about buying one recently. But for gods sake I don't need a machine gun. No one does. The fact that a portion of our society has internalized the extreme propaganda of the NRA and congressional Republicans to the point where we can't even agree to ban weapons that are only useful on the battlefield is a sad commentary on the way we've allowed cold hard cash to intrude into our political system.

 

[Lexicus]

To a fair degree, I do agree with Ryan that mental health is a significant issue in mass shootings. I haven't seen any convincing evidence that individuals committing mass shootings are mentally sound, and to be honest to assume they are - especially as many of them kill themselves at the end - seems presumptuous.

To say that they're not seems equally presumptuous.

 

[El_Machinae]

That said, I'd not be surprised if they were significantly over-represented. But, there's then an underlying question, how many people with mental health issues are going to be denied the right to bear arms in order to prevent a small minority of them from mowing down crowds of people?

The actual solution, obviously, is better mental health research and provision. But find me an NRAer who recognizes that, and I'll be startled.