Some well-meaning folks believe that all we need is “better mental health treatment,” and suddenly we will no longer see school shootings or mass murders. While better access to mental health treatment will help society in the long-run for numerous reasons, it will make little difference for these rare mass shooting events.
Contrary to popular belief (and media hype), mass shootings are not on the rise. And on the face of it, it is fairly ridiculous to focus so much “preventative attention” on something that accounts for less than one percent of murders in the U.S. in any given year.
We’re driven to do so for emotional reasons, not logical ones. But even if you employ emotion as the rationale for improving society’s access to treatment for mental illness, will that matter one whit?
Jacob Sullum over at Reason has the story:
And of various “factors that some say might have helped prevent last year’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” a plurality of 27 percent favored “better mental health treatment,” an option that was especially popular among independents and Republicans. Leading defenders of Second Amendment rights have been trying to change the subject from gun control to mental health since shortly after the massacre, and it looks like they have succeeded pretty well. The problem is that controlling crazy people makes no more sense than controlling guns as a response to Sandy Hook.
Which is true, especially in the Sandy Hook case. In more than this one case, the perpetrator had interactions and ready access to mental health treatment providers already.
“Those mental health professionals who saw [Sandy Hook shooter Lanza] did not see anything that would have predicted his future behavior,” Sedensky’s report says. “Investigators…have not discovered any evidence that the shooter voiced or gave any indication to others that he intended to commit such a crime.”
Which is just as well, because mental health professionals have a pretty terrible track record in accurately predicting which patients they see will one day turn into a violent criminal. Much less a mass murderer.
“Over thirty years of commentary, judicial opinion, and scientific review argue that predictions of danger lack scientific rigor,” notes University of Georgia law professor Alexander Scherr in a 2003 Hastings Law Journal article. “The sharpest critique finds that mental health professionals perform no better than chance at predicting violence, and perhaps perform even worse.”
There’s zero research to demonstrate that improved access to treatment of mental illness will reduce violence in general, or mass shootings specifically.
Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, had pretty extensive interactions with mental health professionals. Despite all those interactions, he still committed that horrible crime.
And what do we do with these young adults who might be suspect for committing atrocities (using characteristics that millions of teens share, such as enjoyment in playing violent video games)? Do we force them into treatment? What kind of treatment has been shown to be effective at reducing violence and criminality? Answer: There are some models of treatment, but they are primarily focused on existing criminals and criminality — not young adults who are merely at-risk for some potential, future behavior.
So let’s look at what we have:
- Mental health professionals aren’t great predictors of future violence
- There’s little targeted, empirical treatment for young adults “at risk” for potential future violence
- There’s no way to provide such treatment, even if it were available, without taking away that person’s civil liberties (if they decline treatment)
- There’s zero research to demonstrate that such treatment, even if it were available, works
- There’s zero research to demonstrate that improved access to treatment of mental illness will reduce violence in general, or mass shootings specifically ((Many mental health advocates are troubled by the focus on the supposed link between mental illness and violence. But quietly, they also accept that no matter what the rationale, directing more funding into the mental health system in America is no bad thing. The system has been woefully underfunded for decades, and has suffered the loss of over $4 billion in funding in just the past five years.
If we accept the money, however, we may also be reinforcing the faulty message — that this focus on mental illness will help reduce the likelihood of future mass shootings. ))
- Even if you provide state-of-the-art care to every young adult or teenager at-risk, some may still choose to commit such murders
Rational, Practical Help for the Problem of School Shootings
The problem with school shootings and mass murders of this nature isn’t mental illness. (Lanza didn’t even have a mental illness diagnosis, outside of some family members’ speculations.)
The problem is the surprisingly easy access teens and young adults have to not just one gun, but multiple guns and nearly limitless ammunition. Lock down your guns and ammunition and restrict their access to your children, teens and young adults — unless you’re around to supervise. Even guns the teen may own. This would go a long way to helping prevent future tragedies. ((I’m not aware of any of these mass killings involving a sharp pencil or a knife.))
This infringes on nobody’s rights. All it does is put up a barrier to impair — and perhaps prevent — a distraught teen or young adult from grabbing a gun and killing a bunch of people. If every American gun owner committed to restricting and curtailing unsupervised access of their guns to their children, teens and young adults, I think that would have a much greater impact than more mental health treatment ever would. ((“Supervised access” in my mind is just knowing who has your gun — or their gun — at all times. So if your son comes in and says, “Hey Dad, I’m going to grab my rifle and shoot some possum,” that’s fine. You know where he is and where the gun is. The problem with potential problematic gun use by teens and young adults is when their access is unrestricted and the parents have no idea when or where their guns are being used.))
I know it can be extremely challenging as a parent, but also being a more involved parent in your teen or young adult’s life might help too. That costs no money, restricts nobody’s civil liberties, and just requires a little more commitment and effort on a parent’s part. While I understand teens can sometimes be moody and secretive, we shouldn’t use a broad generalization as an excuse from disconnecting from their lives. “But they don’t want me in their life!” is the common retort. Well, as long as they live in your home and you pay their bills, guess what — you still have the power (and responsibility) to keep parenting them. And that means involving yourself in their life to some degree and understanding what they’re up to.
None of this, however, will stop future school shootings or mass murders. But a combination of these two latter things — restricting access to guns and ammunition, and being a more involved parent — might just help reduce their occurrence.
Read the full article at Reason: Why ‘Better Mental Health Treatment’ Won’t Prevent Future Sandy Hooks
Mass Murder: Price We Pay for Personal Freedoms?
10 comments
Thanks. You provided a lot of food for thought and very good advice.
I disagree that no one could predict Adam Lanza’s behavior. In fifth grade he wrote a book called “The Big Book of Granny” about a grandmother with a cane with which she shoots children. Who on earth would ever think such a thing? BIG red flag right here!His total withdrawal from society is another red flag. If anyone had bothered to look through his computer there was a lot of evidence -though he tried to delete the hard drive. He was researching all sorts of violent things. His mother saw how he was and she gave IN to his demands -she only communicated with him vis email though they lived in the same house. She was not allowed to enter his room. She drove him wherever he demanded. He had severe OCD and required special meals with special rules about the presentation of the food-same type of things with clothing. Yes he refused therapy and medication. What to do in a case such as this? How about REMOVING the guns from the house for starters? Or an against his will hospital stay -of course they can only hold a person for a short time-but it would be enough time to gain access to that computer which gave many indications of his violent nature. Sorry but in this case things could have been done to stop the horror. Maybe not in other cases. But this case is clear-the Federal Gov’t has released the information so you can read it for yourself if you google it.
CP,Adam Lanza did not have a psychiatric diagnosis. What he did have, however, is a mother who bought him guns and took him shooting and let him have access to guns and ammunition. Clearly that family had some issues – but that doesn’t mean they had psychiatric problems.
Not only were many of these shooters already receiving treatment, there is increasing evidence that the treatment they receive, in particular, SSRI antidepressants and to a lesser extent stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, make it MORE likely that they will engage in mindless violence. Most of the shooters received plenty of “mental health treatment” prior to their attacks. Clearly, increased mental health treatment is not the answer.
Thanks for the courageous and honest article.
I agree with Portland17, prior mental health services seems to be the cause of most of the shootings. And the antidepressants now carry a black box warning stating they increase “suicide, violence, and mania” (bipolar). So it’s not surprising that people put on these drugs are committing violent acts. Here’s a link to a site that shows how often people who have been stigmatized and drugged by the “mental health” (death?) community have gone on to commit violent acts.
http://ssristories.com/
It is a shame that the mental ‘health’ industry argues against treatment of serious mental illness by noting they don’t believe it will reduce mass carnage. The claim may or may not be true. But treating people with untreated serious mental illness will certainly reduce violence against parents, incarceration and more. The mental health industry minimizes incidence of violence, by failing to limit the stats to the most seriously ill, and even more disengenuously, including the treated in the population being studied. Are people with “serious” mental illness more violent than others? The answer is to study the untreated, and it is yes. But the industry quotes studies of the treated, which only shows that treatment works, not that persons with untreated serious mental illness are not more violent than others.
DJ Jaffe
Exec. Dir.
Mental Illness Policy Org
Mr. Jaffe continues as always to talk his party line without any data to back him up. There is zero evidence that “mental health treatment” reduces violence to anyone, and increasing evidence that medical treatment, at least, which is what he intensely pushes, actually may increase the likelihood of violence. This guy’s got a battle axe to grind and I understand that has admitted to making up or exaggerating data to scare people into agreeing with his enforced treatment agenda. Just want everyone to know where he’s historically been coming from.
I actually have no problem detaining people who have been shown to be violent or are making credible threats of violence, and I have no trouble removing weapons from people who have proven dangerous. But I do not support enforcing our idea of “treatment” on anyone as a means of stopping violence, mostly because it just plain doesn’t work. Until I see some convincing evidence to the contrary, I will give DJ Jaffe and his ilk all the consideration they deserve, namely, none at all.
—- Steve
People want to really minimize and avoid the legitimate increase in mass shootings and murder/suicides that are honestly occurring in America these past 10 years? Start by being honest and direct, and having zero tolerance for abuse and threats of violence to others.
We won’t stop these episodes from happening completely, but, if we can impact in a way that reduces the frequency even by a sizeable percentage, that seems to be success to me. People should own guns because they show the ability to be responsible and accountable to do so, people should be able to defend themselves and be defended by others who see the need to support those who are unable to speak out easily, and, people should be able to say no and be able to set that boundary without hostile challenge.
Hey, I think it is easy, you start with an affirmation that empowers and motivates you.
Try this one on for size: ZERO TOLERANCE FOR ABUSE, AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT AND RESPONSIBLE.
And say a tough but responsible goodbye to any and all who disagree! Happy Holidays and New Year, and say goodbye to the status quo of American attitudes that drown common sense. You figure it out for yourselves, I hope you do!
I love how everyone thinks they have the answer to this problem. Intellectual humility seems to be in limited supply. “It’s the drugs”, “it’s mental illness”, “it’s the provision of inadequate services”. There are so many imponderables involved in human behaviour, our point of departure for any any enquiry into its determinants (although, strictly speaking a behaviour isn’t determined by anything other than the human will, although there are no doubt certain influences that predispose us to certain behaviours) should be both scepticism and an acknowledgment of the limitations of human understanding.
Not so with people on this issue. A manifest want of intellectual humility straddles both sides of the ideological divide on this issue, be it the proponents of psychiatric torture at TAC, or the people who congregate at that sewage outlet and all-round ego scene(and who seem to spend most of their lives engaging in fruitless bickering with each other and trying to win arguments through sheer word count), MIA.
These otherwise divergent groups, despite the admitted fissiparity of the latter, converge on the conviction of claiming to have privileged access to the truth. Yet all their blather is little more than the mere vapourings of human egotism, which has no place in a reasoned speculation about why these killings happened.
The problem is with these all encompassing, monocausal explanations, symptomatic perhaps of a genral blunting of the critical and moral faculties. Whilst there may be some truth in them, they are far too broadly applied to be taken seriously. Instead of at least tailoring our explanations according to the individual’s known circumstances and the known antecedents of the crime, all these killings are subsumed under the umbrella of the term “mental illness”, or “psychiatric drugs”, or “access to guns”.
Me, I have no diea why these things happened, and I find all explanations advanced to be equally useless and contemptible.
Probably the best response I’ve ever heard. You mean everyone is different and may have different reasons for their actions, and different interventions might be effective for different people because we’re not all automatons who follow a pre-designed program that can be manipulated by the “smart people” who know better than everyone else just how someone ought to best be manipulated for their own and society’s benefit?
Couldn’t agree with you more!
— Steve
P.S. Thanks for the new SAT word I get to add to my vocabulary!