Sure it is. 'Violence is a product of an inability to modulate anger...' Sure...in most instances, in our danger-deficient Western world -- this quai-utipia -- violence as a reaction to most any stimulus one's likely to encounter could be characterized as such. So...an expression of violence to non-life-threatening stimulation is characteristic of a deficiency in one's ability to cope. An abberration. A sickness. An illness. ...A mental illness. There are no warlords here. No predators eating our young. No rival tribes raping/killing all of your kin group. If you're acting out with violence in this relative paradise, there's something wrong with you.
I wrote this on your Twitter, Marina, but I've been kind of obsessing over this topic as of late for a lot of reasons. For weeks now I've been reading about the Columbine killers. After the shooting happened, people wanted to blame all kinds of reasons, from video games to music to, yes, mental illness. But when it comes to studying the psychological profile of Dylan and Eric, it reads a lot to me like angry boys who wanted to feel powerful and seen. Their shooting was partially about revenge to those who'd bullied them, but it was mostly about infamy. They wanted to create a great tragedy that would ensure they were remembered. They hated being seen as weak. Eric wrote in his journals fantasies of raping girls and hurting his classmates. No doubt Dylan was in a lot of pain, suicidal and depressed, *but as you've stated, that alone does not cause someone to pick up a gun and kill people. * And what about Elliot Rodger? With his shooting, everyone wanted to blame mental illness again. They painted him as a lonely, misunderstood boy who'd been rejected all his life. But what made him pick up a gun was so similar to Dylan and Eric. He was of Asian descent and had subscribed to a lot of racist ideas that told him Asian men were inherently weak and undesirable. He felt entitled to women's attention and hated them for rejecting him. And he hated men who had sex because they had what he couldn't have. It's not hard to find articles that link shooters to histories of domestic violence. There's a lot. And it's easy for a NotAllMen crowd to want to dismiss this point as the rambling of SJWs who want to politicize every issue. But when the only emotion a boy is allowed to express is anger, and when access to guns is both so easy and so revered as a powerful, macho symbol of the modern man, then angry men with guns are going to continue to plague our country. Not every shooting will fall under this point, of course. But that's why gun control is the crux of the issue. Whatever the reason is, we need to start with preventing other tragedies of this type and this scale, whilst also addressing underlying issues of racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc.
People seem to try to make the point that the suggestion of mental illness somehow acquits the killer(s) of their crimes, releasing them of responsibility. This, too, I believe is a comes down to a basic misunderstanding of mental illness in general. It's hard for me to comprehend why some people are wiling to dismiss someone being so angry or jealous or whatever to the point where they kill many people before killing themselves can be dismissed as "normal" behavior. At what point are we willing to admit that anyone who does this--prior diagnosis or no--has at least some form of behavioral/mental disorder?
John Thompson the argument isn't that these people might in some way be dealing with mental illnesses. They might be because not every entitled man with inferiority issues and unchecked anger picks up a gun to kill people (though arguably they'll still hurt others one way or another). The point is that mental illness *alone* does not cause someone to kill. Eric and Dylan had most likely several issues they were dealing with that can categorize them as mentally ill. We know at least that Dylan suffered from depression and had suicidal tendencies. But, again, that's not enough to kill. Lots of people have to battle with depression (or bipolar disorder or paranoid schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder) but it's when our culture has taught them to pick up a gun to feel powerful or to hate gay men or women or black people to a point of murderous rage, that's a problem. Combine that with a lack of safeguards and proper regulations in place for gun purchases endure we're continuously hit with these tragedies. There's an argument to be made that lack of accessibility to mental health treatment and the stigmas associated with it have pushed certain dangerous people to be untreated. But that's not the even the crux of the issue. And like Marina pointed out in the video, it's a blatant deflection when you say "this tragedy happened because mental illness" and then do nothing (and in fact do the opposite) to rectify that problem.
Lack of empathy and a grandiose sense of self worth are typical psychopathic / sociopath traits. Racism and homophobia and misogyny are gross as human behaviours but I honestly believe that most school shooters just lack empathy or suffer from psychopathy in some way, on the general mental health note, often I think people with conditions like Bipolar or even schizophrenia become MORE emphatic not less as a result (I have bipolar1 so that is how it has worked for me) But yes you are correct that since school shootings have become more prevalent in America it becomes a way for lone psychopathic men to think they can mythologise themselves, in the same way that other pathological psychopathic personalities do (like serial killers etc). Unfortunately I think it is just a consequence of abnormal pysch, America is a big place, so unless you ban guns full stop (which will never happen) it will just carry on.
Thank you for this video. I've been trying to find a way to articulate my thoughts on this subject and you summed it up perfectly. I will definitely be referencing this video in the future.
There's also a huge link between holding misogynistic views and committing mass shootings. They usually have at least one accusation of domestic violence or even rape and sexual assault. Or they had openly admitted to "having traditional views" of women. The Venn diagram of sexism and violence is a mildly distorted circle.
I think those are symptoms of men that have a toxic view of what masculinity is or should be. When you think that being a man means constantly repressing your emotions and dominating women, you end up angry and frustrated, which lead to violence and guns are part of being a man in the U$. The result is an angry frustrated violent gun owner.
Ireallyreally Hategoogle No, just no. I own guns and shooting us a passion of mine. Competitive shooting and working with firearms is what I want to do in my future. Guns do not make people violent. Guns are not the issue. Mental illness is a part of 2/3 of gun deaths in america. Suicide is lumped in with gun violence making the number skyrocket. 2/3rds of gun related deaths are suicide. Mental heath is a big part of the issue especially when its unreported.
Depressingly true yes, but I think it is a reflection or side product of their anti-social / psychopathic natures often. The real horror of these conditions in the house of mental health conditions is that they are thought to be very hard to manage or treat effectively with meds or therapy, unlike the other conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar or schizophrenia, which tend to just negatively affect the individuals mood or cognition. I am fairly sure I saw a documentary on abnormal psych a few years ago that showed that neurologists have identified brain structures which are present in psychopathic people too, so it might just be as simple as a scientific anomaly and an abnormal brain structure that produces lack of empathy and aggressive behaviour.
Tbh I think it requires better gun regulation at the least, and a healthcare system that doesn't let loads of people slip through the cracks. I don't think most people with mental health problems are ever going to hurt many people and will most likely hurt themselves as the video says, however, pathological psychopaths are the exception to this rule, in my opinion, and there should be some sort of checks in place at the least, otherwise this will just happen again and again. I'm from the UK so gun ownership is literally a foreign concept to us.
This is a difficult subject. While I agree with you that being mentally ill does not automatically make you more dangerous and that blaming crimes on mentally ill people is wrong and unhelpful, I also think it's important to note that some mental illnesses and disabilities make it hard to regulate your emotions, control your impulses, react accordingly to situations or understand what's right and wrong (for example: conduct disorder in combination with ADHD, some personality disorders, PTSD, FASD etc.). I don't know if ppl with these disorders / disabilities are actually more likely to commit gun violence but I do know they are more likely to go to prison and get expelled from school.
I've always been under the impression that if you commit such a terrible act like a mass shooting, there must be something wrong in your mind that makes you believe that you should do that. Nobody in their right mind would do such a thing. This doesn't mean mentally ill people are dangerous, as the majority of mentally ill people are good people who would never hurt anyone. I believe blaming mental illness for gun violence is a bad way to go about it as it distracts from the primary issue that is the lack of gun control. However I don't think we should deny that mental illness is a factor in mass shootings and that people who murder many other people likely have something abnormal or delusional in their minds.
I consider my self a liberal but I grew up in a very gun friendly state and have been shooting a and hunting before and while I support responsible legal gun ownership I also support reasonable gun regulations such as expanded and strengthen gun background checks. If the air force had done it's job and reported this guys record to the gun back ground database this guy would have never been allowed to buy any fire arms even under existing gun laws. We need to properly fund and staff the nics database and make gun trafficking a Federal crime.
Leonard McGriddle NICs(national instant criminal background check system) was created by the Brady act of 1993, it is a database maintained by the FBI .It contains the names of person prohibited from owning firearms under Federal law namely the gun control act of 1968 the list includes convicted felons, fugitives from justice, an unlawful user addict of a controlled substance, any person adjudicated a mental defective or involuntarily committed to any mental institution, any member of the armed forces dishonorable discharged, a person who has renounced his/her us citizenship, any person subject of a retraining order , any one convicted of domestic violence even a misdemeanor.
I'm a bit confused... Can you really discuss unplanned acts violence committed in heat of the moment, premeditated for a purpose (I.E. drug related or terror) and these mass shooting with out almost any reason behind them? Seems counter intuitive to me. Are the proven similarities in the mental state of the attacker?
A few holes which would have been nice to have answered. 1. Of the people committing mass shootings, what percentage had a history of mental illness? 2. Of those who committed violent crimes, how many were mentally ill and what types of mental illness did they have? 3. How many of the people committing mass shootings had a serious history of violent crime? 4. How many had a history of both mental illness and violent crimes?
The human race has been violent for centuries before the invention of video games, guns, and any of today's technology combined. And I agree that mental health/illness is not to blame for gun violence. The people committing gun violence (along with the slashings, bombings, etc.) are to blame
Wow, this is an old video, but I can't help but commenting. I'm all for security when it comes to guns, but... Firstly, I don't think you understand that mental health is broad. PTSD, Depression, etc. Are not always linked together. Just because the media says a killer has a mental illness, doesn't mean they're refering to YOUR mental illness as well. It's not an attack on all the mentally ill. Not everyone who's mentally ill acts as one body. Secondly, clearly you try to shift the blame from the mentally ill to anger, but if a person gets angry enough to go on mass shootings, then they obviously are not mentally stable. Yeah, it's true, not all people with mental problems cling onto weapons and kill people, but we can't just ignore the ones who do.
When it comes to school shootings, in almost every case the killer or killers were diagnosed with mental issues and most were on psychotropic drugs. Perhaps one can't say violence committed by someone using a gun generally is tied to mental illness, but school shootings do seem to be
Most were either on anti-depressants or had just come off them. Depression seems to be the mental illness that leads to these shootings. The Columbine shooters and Cho (Virginia Tech) are some of the better known cases on psychotropic drugs. Here's a list of 36 for starters and what drugs they were on: www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/
We probably don't see eye to eye on gun violence issues in general, but I'm totally on board with all of your points here about the involvement of mental illness. Simply blaming unthinkable acts on failures of mental health is one of the weaker arguments from the pro-gun community. While mental illness can and sometimes does play a roll in mass killings, attributing it to the vast majority of these cases lets too many people off the hook for their heinous crimes imo. It's difficult to admit to ourselves, but sometimes there are just terrible people that do terrible things for a variety of reasons while still being completely sane and in control.
+JudsonRadio So you admit that mental illness has in fact played a role in some cases of mass shootings, yet you seem to also suggest that since it can't be said for all cases we should discount mental illness as a factor all together? Because that's basically what's being argued here.
+Butterfly Would it make you feel better if we said that all white men should be viewed as potential aggressors of mass killings? No one is making blanket statements here, simply attempting to shine a light on the complexity of the issue and to get folks acknowledging the nuance inherent in these situations.
John Thompson Not at all. I'm saying that while mental illness does play a roll in _some_ mass killings, portraying it as the sole cause of _all/most_ mass killings is misleading and inaccurate. I think that all factors should be considered, rather than just using mental illness as a catch-all for causes of these types of crimes.
+JudsonRadio Ah ok. It was difficult for me to initially determine your stance from your OP. Indeed there is no one thing that these killings can be blamed on, but given the context of all the debates surrounding the issue, it seems, like with most issues, people tend to spout one idea in particular over another as absolutes. But even with those who admit that mental disorder plays a role, it seems they still believe that the level of implication is minuscule compared to others.
I agree that most mental health problems and people suffering from it do not do this, absolutely, but some do when it's mixed with anger. Intense mood still counts as a disorder.
Loved the video as always, Marina! Even those about the most difficult topics give me hope and comfort :) (CW: suicide) TL;DR - elaborating on suicidal people and guns + a genuine question for men's rights activists I don't know if someone's said this already, but it breaks my heart that the legitimate connections between gun violence and mental illness appear to be neither party's concern. Mentally ill people (like Marina said) are far more likely to be on the receiving end of a bullet than to use bullets on others, which means that discussing mental illness in conversations about mass shootings is unhelpful and misleading. HOWEVER, mentally ill people suffering from suicidality (includes ideation, planning, and attempts) who have access to guns are far more likely to be successful in taking their own life. The argument that constantly comes up when this is mentioned is that "if someone wants to kill themselves, they'll find a way," which of course echoes the insistence that mass shooters "would just kill people some other way" if they didn't have a gun. All of that ignores the (albeit limited) statistical and scientific analyses that demonstrate how access to guns correlates with the prevalence of gun violence. I'm frustrated in how these arguments ultimately evolve into primarily legal debates, rather than interdisciplinary ones. That is to say, the focus on "legality" is irritating to me because I think the issue is much bigger than that. One of the most important facts to me is that cisgender men are statistically more likely to use guns than any other demographic. (Note: I also believe that the troubling comingling of masculinity, intimate partner violence, misogyny and gun culture is very important, but that's not what I'm focusing on here.) This has a critical consequence for mentally ill men: they are more likely to have access to guns and are therefore more likely to be successful in taking their own lives. Thus, men are at a higher risk of suicide than any other demographic, yet are far less likely to have access to the social and emotional support that prevents self-harm and combats mental illness. This is a worrying reality, and if any men's rights activists are reading this, I would really like to hear what you have to say about it. I don't know if I can convince you that I'm not trying to bait you; for what it's worth, I do actually want to know how you feel about this, what you think the causes are, and how you think we can combat it. Sources: www.sprc.org/news/demographic-and-health-related-risk-factors-suicide www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
Honestly that’s so accurate, that background checks for psychological problems deter people from getting help. I have a friend whose ex-boyfriend has talked to her about hearing things and he specifically said he’d never seek treatment because he didn’t want them to take his guns away.
I feel the same way. As a person with mental illness, when other people talk about how mentally ill people initiate gun violence and how they’re, by extension, dangerous, I feel as if I'm viewed as a threat to society, while the super vast majority of mentally ill people are just attempting to function and live......just like everyone else. Being mentally ill and being dangerous are two separate things and I hate when people lump them together.
6 лет назад+1
I think the problem with this post is that it looks too general statistics. US gun deaths have very specific groups that are very distinct from each other and the reason behind those are vastly different. For example inner city gang violence, i think we can all agree that it isn't about mental health but about poverty, lack of hope of future etc. that drives the phenomenom. Then we have accidental deaths that are clearly distinct and separate. Suicides, again separate, but closely related to mental health. Police shootings. And so on. And then we have this video's starting point, the mass shootings. I'd argue that it is mental health issue that is behind most mass shootings, they tend to end with the perpetrator committing suicide, the people doing them usually have variety of different problems as well and reasoning behind the act, if known, is usually not very sane thinking. what does this have to do with gun control? Well in most cases where legal guns are used, we are talking about accidents or mental health issues. The violence committed with criminal purpose and without mental health issues are usually done with illegal guns. What this means is that gun control is not effective way to lower gun violence. This means that concerning lawful gun ownership, mental health issues are important factor. Concerning illegal gun use, mental health isn't that important factor. If you mix the two and argue with general statistics, it isn't very good argument for this reason. If anyone really thinks guns are the reason, i bid you to see gun violence statistics in US in geographical manner, there are areas in US with lots of guns and minimal european numbers of gun violence. Then there are areas that have huge numbers of gun violence, but it is very specific kind(criminal, usually gang related). The mass shootings are clearly distinct in this category from both earlier ones, being unpredictable from year to year where they happen.
There have been many cases gun violence where the root cause of many gun related tragedies was the person have some form of mental illness. I always felt if a person who is showing mental illness that exhibits violence against himself or other's... That person should be barred from owning or obtaining firearms period. Also a special database formed to prevent mentally challenged persons from getting a firearm. identified only by a file number. Similar to being denied a credit card you get a letter in the mail to challenge the decision in which you have an opportunity to appeal it through a panel of doctors.
This is not particularly my field, but I am pretty familiar with sosialscienses. I made a quick look at the research from this field and it seems that what Marina is saying is correct. But if we want to know are mass shootings caused by mental illness most of Marinas arguments miss the mark. This is because she is mostly arguing that violence or gun violence as a whole is not caused by mental illness. Research seems to strongly supported the claim that there is no link between gun violence and mental illness in general. But if we are interested in mass shootings it seems that we dont have evidence ether way. Next quote is from the meta-analysis about the link between mental illness and gun violence "Scholars who study violence prevention thus contend that mass shootings occur far too infrequently to allow for the statistical modeling and predictability" . So my point is that Marina is taking too strong position when we really dont have the data to back it up. I'm not arguing that mental illness causes gun violence or that there is evidence for this claim. Marian just sounds too certain and I would like to advice caution. It of course depends on what she is arguing about but to me the relevant conversation in these instances is mass shootings and not shooting in general. Sorry about my english. It is not my mother tongue. Here is the link to the study I refered to: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
It's definitely bothersome when people associate mental illness with violence. Like, frick, I wouldn't hurt a fly. Anecdotal, yes, but the facts are with me on this. It's especially offensive when it comes to this Texas church shooting. The perpetrator of this sounds like a real jerk (beating babies and women, wtf?!), and I'd rather not be associated with that.
It upset me so much when Trump said that. Even if people disagree with the role that mental illness plays on mass shootings, it should still be obvious that mental illness is not the only issue. To say that it's a "mental health problem" is to disregard way more important (or at the very least equally important) factors.
Trump always refuses to acknowledge what doesn't fit his personal interest. He vehemently denied numbers, pictures and rain at is inauguration. Mental health is always a factor when the U$ president can't see reality.
"I pride myself on not being a murderer, but if I ever get a gun, the bloodlust would just take over me" ... Yes, Marina, let it all out! Let the hatred flow! 😀
Lunar Echlipse probably the same. I'm not a feminist, so someone's gender isn't a big deal to me. Good question though. I actually did some introspection on that.
I have a mental health problem - bipolar1 but despite that i disagree with your premise as is - mental illness is a relevant factor sometimes. mental illness is also a spectrum and killers are usually on the psychopathic / sociopath spectrum i.e pathological and severe personality disorders, how else could someone kill with so little empathy?? Stigma should be reduced and yes much of the timementally ill people are often are victims it is true. but essentially if america wants to stop it happening again it just requires stricter regulations on guns, education on mental health and help for those who need it.
Well, obviously the levels of gun violence in the US can't be blamed on one single cause. It seems to be a very complex problem with many factors. Also, mental illness is simply too broad of a label in this debate. I'd think that there are probably some types of mental illness that make you much less potentially violent. It should be more specific as to what kind of mental illness is being talked about. It's like saying "people with broken bones cant walk" ...That might apply to legs, hips , or feet. but probably not many others. I hope that makes sence...:)
I think that a person with such anger issues has undiagnosed mental issues, and that they happen to have mental illness that prevents them from being diagnosed. Namely, anger issues themselves are indicative of mental illness, and angry people are probably pretty likely to *adamantly* reject mental help. With that said, perhaps I'm biased. I'm not comfortable preventing individual gun ownership on a massive national scale. I think there are legitimate reasons to be against that. Existential reasons.
Of all the liberal SJWs on RUclips, you're easily the most palatable one to me (and also horribly cute). While we don't always agree on everything, I'm absolutely willing to concede that the promulgation of stigma towards mental illness has the vile consequence of causing people to shy away from getting the help they need and deserve. Though you mentioned at 3:35 that most violent crime committed by mentally ill people isn't with guns, it would be helpful to relate their contribution to the overall scheme of gun violence in a way that numerically reaffirms your premise, otherwise it becomes a mostly misplaced but still important footnote in its own right. Also I don't know if it's necessarily fair to affirm that mental illness doesn't fuel gun violence on the basis that you have no intentions since, and I'm about to make potentially incorrect assumptions, I believe you're not already accustomed to handling firearms, and the aspects of mental illness (which is itself a huge and vague umbrella term, not blaming you for its popularized bandying) you and I perhaps similarly face are far less likely to cause us to be predisposed to committing gun violence as a solution to our problems or a fulfillment of any excessively sadistic desires. Anyway, I enjoyed your honest contribution to the discussion. Keep up the good work Marina and if you or anyone disagrees with me, I'm open to all manner of discussion.
So I have a serious question about this topic: how exactly is the definition of mental illness? I mean it would be necessary to have a clear definition if we are to make and cite statistics and such and to make statements about the group of people as a whole. But to me it is not at all obvious what makes a person mentally ill and what would be "just a personality trait". Also if there is such a defining characteristic of mental illness, we should surely try to put that into context with the statistics to see if they make sense, shouldn't we?
Awesome video! Loved the statistics! I just wanna to point out that "if a person is violent in the past then there is a likelihood that they will be violent in the future" is not actually based on common sense, in fact it's pretty well studied and documented by Behavioral Psychology and Behavior Science... just for future reference ;)
☺️ tiny edit suggestion - at 3:29 you say "3-5% of mentally ill people who are violent," but I think you meant "3-5% of violent acts by mentally ill people," based on the statistic you quoted.
I’m like super down for conversations about issues with access to mental healthcare to have nothing to do with conversations about gun legislation. Literally though when was the last time our piss poor healthcare systems has been on a national stage while not accompanying a horrific act of violence?
This is another of your videos that keeps getting better and better with each re-watch. Chelsea Handler deserved to get called out for her comments regarding what she said about mental illness. If you claim to be an "activist" of any sort and you make ableist statements like the ones Chelsea made in her tweet, the only thing you're doing is hurting you're cause. Comments like those show how liberals aren't completely blameless. I'm glad you made this video.
I don't own a gun because I'd probably use it on my self. It's terrifying living in America and having the president put you down AND worrying about cops shooting you.
If you want to know more about mass shootings, there is a documentary called something like "America goes postal", which talks about murder by proxy. Very interesting stuff; go watch it, y'all!
Please do spend more videos linking lots of boring statistics at us, I greatly appreciate it. I may be a nerd. Actually I'm gonna go on a little wider rant on the role of such statistics and things in my personal experience, cause I feel like it's something a lot* of people currently struggle with. *(maybe not a lot lot, but still) So I want to make good decisions and think critically about stuff right? Except what things to think critically about is the whole problem here. I see lots of people saying, like, "educate yourself" and "the information is out there I shouldn't have to walk you through it". I am sympathetic to the fact that walking every cishet white guy through everything is a burden to an already burdened class and definitely not an obligation, and I understand that the truth probably IS out there and I could find it on my own. However, I work 12 hours a day and can barely spend time with my girlfriend, I am trying to study in my free time and I don't have a social studies education background which makes researching this stuff kinda difficult. Also Google knows I'm cishet and white so when I look for information it shows me content I will probably relate to - aka right-wing bullshit. I can wade through the crap, find the studies, read the abstract, maybe take a peek at the study itself if it's unclear or interesting. But again, I don't have the educational background to do this stuff. I can critique the statistical models used and double check the math, but in the end I have no idea as to what constitutes a sufficient sample size (in my world of theorems, sample size is "N tends to infinity", and we leave it at that). I can totally make a thing that extracts data from a database but I have no context for it beyond "this has a high correlation factor", nor any idea of previous or further research. So what if I do the obvious stuff I usually do in this occasion and go for the opinion of respected scientists in the field? Turns out they are usually white men. Also where am I looking for them? Should I filter my search through the lens of newspapers and other media? Should I just Google top professors from random prestigious universities and ask them? Try to learn their opinion through... Social media? Who ARE these people anyway, what do they even look like my professors looked like nerds should I look for nerds are there social science nerds out there aaaaaagh! So as you probably understand at this point, I don't feel like I have a good view of any of these subjects and I struggle to find a way to fix that. This channel, and other RUclips channels that present the perspective of minorities and marginalised people, are REALLY helpful. This channel in particular doubles as an authoritative source for social sciences, which is why I opened with "please do share more statistics with us", because really, I am looking for expert opinions and I struggle to find them in the sea of Facebook style monopolies. (let's just skip the whole RUclips is already a huge capitalistic filter on repressed voices and has a big startup cost thing)
well perhaps you should know that the vox article you cited is using a reddit page. i dont think that a public forum counts as a source but thats just me. anyway the definition they used for mass shooting is quite different from what most people mean when they say that phrase.
i dont get ur train of thought here, so gun violence is only in part (an extremely small part) due to mental health issues and the main culprit being anger, but, wouldn't anger management be a mental health issue too? particularly in the degrees that lead to mass-shootings, my conclusion is that "gun violence is due to mental health problems" would be technically true, but misleading since it puts the burden in all mentally ill ppl, this would mean the nuance of 'only a very small part of mentally ill ppl r dangerous' should be added to the conversation so we can find appropriate solutions. i dont see how do u completely separate the subjects
Newton's FLS anger management issues =\= mental illness. Anger management from most of these killers could be attributed to racism, sexism, religion, american society’s coddling of white men, etc. But no one can be 100% sure because rich white elites dont want any studies or reports coming out that prove this kind of behavior isnt from “lone wolves” but part of a deep rooted and historical pile of crap within America’s social/justice systems
Do you think gun violence could also be seen as a feminist issue? like most mass shootings are committed by men who have a history of violence (probably due to toxic masculinity) therefore shouldn't we focus on getting rid of Toxic Masculinity rather than regulating guns, as that would get to the root of the issue?
Knowledgeable Reaction I was with you until you said "rather than regulating guns". I think it's important to address toxic masculinity ALONGSIDE (sorry I don't have italics so I capitalize instead) regulating guns.
you're joking right?... most gun violence is committed by thugs who should never have had the guns to begin with. the answer is to enforce the laws we have better, not destroy everybody's gun rights.
Since mental illness is already pretty brushed off, blaming problems that are caused by inadequate regulations of purchase of dangerous weapons (and law enforcement allowing people who have committed violent crimes in the past to keep guns or buy new guns) on mental illness is basically the best way to shift the focus to something else.
I disagree with like 95% of your videos but this was great. I'm for gun rights but still think that we shouldn't spread misinformation about what causes shootings.
Ok....whew. So, you say that mental illness does not cause gun violence. There already seems to be a pretty big fundamental misunderstanding as to what actually constitutes a mental illness. When the words 'mental illness' are used, we tend to conjure up images of someone who has lost touch with reality such as a person with paranoid schizophrenia or something similar. We forget that depression is a mental illness, as well as anorexia nervosa and attention deficit disorder. So while there may not be a specific, DSM-5 defined mental illness that causes these types of shootings, there are still several that list anger issues as a symptom. Anger, and the ability to properly work through that anger and deal with those emotions appropriately (i.e. not shooting up a church full of people for the purposes of killing many people) is undeniably indicative of a mental health issue, despite what even the APA rep apparently has said about it. Because like I mentioned earlier, there are actually several DSM-5 defined mental disorders where the inability to properly deal with anger is a symptom. Almost all of the Personality Disorders such as BPD, APD, or SPD I/SPD II, just to name a few (that's Borderline Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Schizoid/Schizotypal Personality Disorders, respectively). Unfortunately, many perpetrators of mass shootings tend to take their own life or are taken out by law enforcement before they can be apprehended and arrested and subsequently tested for diagnosis--if they had yet received a diagnosis. So for the people who insist that this is a non -issue to ignore this aspect in favor of solely pushing for stronger gun law reform, this is a very irresponsible and naive way to approach the issue. The mental health aspect MUST be acknowledged, despite republicans and others insisting the opposite-that this is solely a mental health issue therefore we don't need to implement any further gun regulation, which is just as naive and irresponsible. BOTH must be taken into account. Why we don't emphasize mental health in this country as much as we focus on our physical health is beyond me and pretty disconcerting. Too often we are simply handed antidepressants or some other pill to treat our problems. There must be a comprehensive strategy for dealing with our stressors, anxieties, depressions, anger issues, or whatever else that is plaguing damn near everyone in this country. I believe it's too important to not be mandatory. But anyway, my point is simply that we need to address how both mental health treatment and common sense gun regulation can be instrumental in the attempt to stop these types of attacks. Picking just one of these issues to focus on for your narrative is turning a blind eye to the other. I'll have to look into the APA's statement further in order to see if this really is their stance or if they actually acknowledge the complexity and nuance of these situations, because it would surprise me greatly if they didn't.
I had to edit my initial comment to elaborate on some of the things I mentioned. Also wanted to make sure to mention the thing about the people who carry out mass shootings committing suicide after their rampage because the issue at hand was mass shootings, and not violence in general or even just all gun violence. I mention this also because it's brought up in the video that people with mental illness are more likely to turn a gun on themselves than to others, so that pretty much only serves to back up my sentiment on the issue. Basically my point is that I've had too much coffee this evening and just wanted to make sure that I was clear in my ramblings.
John Thompson I have BPD and I would never own a gun and/or murder someone; I have friends I met at therapy, that I bet you all I have, wouldn't kill anyone. You're just saying that people with personality disorders will be murderers and just no.
+Cam M. Giusti That's good to know, but I believe you've completely misunderstood my comment. I said nothing of the sort and made no such accusations. Feel free to re-read and try again, however. EDIT: But, I suppose to save you or anyone else the time of having to re-read my bloated comment, I'll simply reiterate. The claim in the video is that mental illness doesn't cause mass shootings, that anger is the only underlying cause along with inefficient gun legislation (I do agree with the latter, of course). I offered that uncontrollable anger can actually be a symptom of various defined mental disorders, with BPD only being an example of a disorder where inappropriate dissemination of anger is one of many symptoms . I never made the claim that people with BPD or any other disorder are all murderers. That would be a huge blanket statement generalization as well as patently false. I try not to do that whenever possible. Thanks for reading the first time around at least.
your last comment about mental illness not causing violence but anger doing so was a+! great video, marina
Sure it is. 'Violence is a product of an inability to modulate anger...' Sure...in most instances, in our danger-deficient Western world -- this quai-utipia -- violence as a reaction to most any stimulus one's likely to encounter could be characterized as such. So...an expression of violence to non-life-threatening stimulation is characteristic of a deficiency in one's ability to cope. An abberration. A sickness. An illness. ...A mental illness.
There are no warlords here. No predators eating our young. No rival tribes raping/killing all of your kin group. If you're acting out with violence in this relative paradise, there's something wrong with you.
I wrote this on your Twitter, Marina, but I've been kind of obsessing over this topic as of late for a lot of reasons. For weeks now I've been reading about the Columbine killers. After the shooting happened, people wanted to blame all kinds of reasons, from video games to music to, yes, mental illness.
But when it comes to studying the psychological profile of Dylan and Eric, it reads a lot to me like angry boys who wanted to feel powerful and seen. Their shooting was partially about revenge to those who'd bullied them, but it was mostly about infamy. They wanted to create a great tragedy that would ensure they were remembered. They hated being seen as weak. Eric wrote in his journals fantasies of raping girls and hurting his classmates. No doubt Dylan was in a lot of pain, suicidal and depressed, *but as you've stated, that alone does not cause someone to pick up a gun and kill people. *
And what about Elliot Rodger? With his shooting, everyone wanted to blame mental illness again. They painted him as a lonely, misunderstood boy who'd been rejected all his life. But what made him pick up a gun was so similar to Dylan and Eric. He was of Asian descent and had subscribed to a lot of racist ideas that told him Asian men were inherently weak and undesirable. He felt entitled to women's attention and hated them for rejecting him. And he hated men who had sex because they had what he couldn't have.
It's not hard to find articles that link shooters to histories of domestic violence. There's a lot. And it's easy for a NotAllMen crowd to want to dismiss this point as the rambling of SJWs who want to politicize every issue. But when the only emotion a boy is allowed to express is anger, and when access to guns is both so easy and so revered as a powerful, macho symbol of the modern man, then angry men with guns are going to continue to plague our country.
Not every shooting will fall under this point, of course. But that's why gun control is the crux of the issue. Whatever the reason is, we need to start with preventing other tragedies of this type and this scale, whilst also addressing underlying issues of racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc.
People seem to try to make the point that the suggestion of mental illness somehow acquits the killer(s) of their crimes, releasing them of responsibility. This, too, I believe is a comes down to a basic misunderstanding of mental illness in general. It's hard for me to comprehend why some people are wiling to dismiss someone being so angry or jealous or whatever to the point where they kill many people before killing themselves can be dismissed as "normal" behavior. At what point are we willing to admit that anyone who does this--prior diagnosis or no--has at least some form of behavioral/mental disorder?
John Thompson the argument isn't that these people might in some way be dealing with mental illnesses. They might be because not every entitled man with inferiority issues and unchecked anger picks up a gun to kill people (though arguably they'll still hurt others one way or another). The point is that mental illness *alone* does not cause someone to kill. Eric and Dylan had most likely several issues they were dealing with that can categorize them as mentally ill. We know at least that Dylan suffered from depression and had suicidal tendencies. But, again, that's not enough to kill. Lots of people have to battle with depression (or bipolar disorder or paranoid schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder) but it's when our culture has taught them to pick up a gun to feel powerful or to hate gay men or women or black people to a point of murderous rage, that's a problem. Combine that with a lack of safeguards and proper regulations in place for gun purchases endure we're continuously hit with these tragedies.
There's an argument to be made that lack of accessibility to mental health treatment and the stigmas associated with it have pushed certain dangerous people to be untreated. But that's not the even the crux of the issue. And like Marina pointed out in the video, it's a blatant deflection when you say "this tragedy happened because mental illness" and then do nothing (and in fact do the opposite) to rectify that problem.
Lack of empathy and a grandiose sense of self worth are typical psychopathic / sociopath traits. Racism and homophobia and misogyny are gross as human behaviours but I honestly believe that most school shooters just lack empathy or suffer from psychopathy in some way, on the general mental health note, often I think people with conditions like Bipolar or even schizophrenia become MORE emphatic not less as a result (I have bipolar1 so that is how it has worked for me)
But yes you are correct that since school shootings have become more prevalent in America it becomes a way for lone psychopathic men to think they can mythologise themselves, in the same way that other pathological psychopathic personalities do (like serial killers etc). Unfortunately I think it is just a consequence of abnormal pysch, America is a big place, so unless you ban guns full stop (which will never happen) it will just carry on.
Thank you for this video. I've been trying to find a way to articulate my thoughts on this subject and you summed it up perfectly. I will definitely be referencing this video in the future.
There's also a huge link between holding misogynistic views and committing mass shootings. They usually have at least one accusation of domestic violence or even rape and sexual assault. Or they had openly admitted to "having traditional views" of women. The Venn diagram of sexism and violence is a mildly distorted circle.
Imoddest Oddish also some were reported for stalking women, like the shooter from Virginia Tech.
I think those are symptoms of men that have a toxic view of what masculinity is or should be.
When you think that being a man means constantly repressing your emotions and dominating women, you end up angry and frustrated, which lead to violence and guns are part of being a man in the U$.
The result is an angry frustrated violent gun owner.
Ireallyreally Hategoogle No, just no. I own guns and shooting us a passion of mine. Competitive shooting and working with firearms is what I want to do in my future. Guns do not make people violent. Guns are not the issue. Mental illness is a part of 2/3 of gun deaths in america. Suicide is lumped in with gun violence making the number skyrocket. 2/3rds of gun related deaths are suicide. Mental heath is a big part of the issue especially when its unreported.
Depressingly true yes, but I think it is a reflection or side product of their anti-social / psychopathic natures often. The real horror of these conditions in the house of mental health conditions is that they are thought to be very hard to manage or treat effectively with meds or therapy, unlike the other conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar or schizophrenia, which tend to just negatively affect the individuals mood or cognition. I am fairly sure I saw a documentary on abnormal psych a few years ago that showed that neurologists have identified brain structures which are present in psychopathic people too, so it might just be as simple as a scientific anomaly and an abnormal brain structure that produces lack of empathy and aggressive behaviour.
Tbh I think it requires better gun regulation at the least, and a healthcare system that doesn't let loads of people slip through the cracks. I don't think most people with mental health problems are ever going to hurt many people and will most likely hurt themselves as the video says, however, pathological psychopaths are the exception to this rule, in my opinion, and there should be some sort of checks in place at the least, otherwise this will just happen again and again.
I'm from the UK so gun ownership is literally a foreign concept to us.
Such a perfect final line. Great video as always!
This is a difficult subject. While I agree with you that being mentally ill does not automatically make you more dangerous and that blaming crimes on mentally ill people is wrong and unhelpful, I also think it's important to note that some mental illnesses and disabilities make it hard to regulate your emotions, control your impulses, react accordingly to situations or understand what's right and wrong (for example: conduct disorder in combination with ADHD, some personality disorders, PTSD, FASD etc.). I don't know if ppl with these disorders / disabilities are actually more likely to commit gun violence but I do know they are more likely to go to prison and get expelled from school.
Social stigma, prejudice and discrimination in law enforcement and the legal and educational systems are all things.
I agree (I think?) but I don't understand the link between your comment and my comment...
Going to prison or being expelled from school are not proof of bad behaviour, much less of a crime or of violence.
I've always been under the impression that if you commit such a terrible act like a mass shooting, there must be something wrong in your mind that makes you believe that you should do that. Nobody in their right mind would do such a thing. This doesn't mean mentally ill people are dangerous, as the majority of mentally ill people are good people who would never hurt anyone. I believe blaming mental illness for gun violence is a bad way to go about it as it distracts from the primary issue that is the lack of gun control. However I don't think we should deny that mental illness is a factor in mass shootings and that people who murder many other people likely have something abnormal or delusional in their minds.
I consider my self a liberal but I grew up in a very gun friendly state and have been shooting a and hunting before and while I support responsible legal gun ownership I also support reasonable gun regulations such as expanded and strengthen gun background checks. If the air force had done it's job and reported this guys record to the gun back ground database this guy would have never been allowed to buy any fire arms even under existing gun laws. We need to properly fund and staff the nics database and make gun trafficking a Federal crime.
big mike you know where the NICS database came from?
Leonard McGriddle NICs(national instant criminal background check system) was created by the Brady act of 1993, it is a database maintained by the FBI .It contains the names of person prohibited from owning firearms under Federal law namely the gun control act of 1968 the list includes convicted felons, fugitives from justice, an unlawful user addict of a controlled substance, any person adjudicated a mental defective or involuntarily committed to any mental institution, any member of the armed forces dishonorable discharged, a person who has renounced his/her us citizenship, any person subject of a retraining order , any one convicted of domestic violence even a misdemeanor.
big mike you forgot the part about the NRA helping to build that database.
I'm a bit confused... Can you really discuss unplanned acts violence committed in heat of the moment, premeditated for a purpose (I.E. drug related or terror)
and these mass shooting with out almost any reason behind them?
Seems counter intuitive to me. Are the proven similarities in the mental state of the attacker?
A few holes which would have been nice to have answered.
1. Of the people committing mass shootings, what percentage had a history of mental illness?
2. Of those who committed violent crimes, how many were mentally ill and what types of mental illness did they have?
3. How many of the people committing mass shootings had a serious history of violent crime?
4. How many had a history of both mental illness and violent crimes?
Coming from a conservative, I completely agree.
As someone with a personality disorder, I appreciate this video and your content so much Marina, thank you
As someone with a personality disorder, I do not appreciate it. No disrespect.
The human race has been violent for centuries before the invention of video games, guns, and any of today's technology combined. And I agree that mental health/illness is not to blame for gun violence. The people committing gun violence (along with the slashings, bombings, etc.) are to blame
Wow, this is an old video, but I can't help but commenting. I'm all for security when it comes to guns, but... Firstly, I don't think you understand that mental health is broad. PTSD, Depression, etc. Are not always linked together. Just because the media says a killer has a mental illness, doesn't mean they're refering to YOUR mental illness as well. It's not an attack on all the mentally ill. Not everyone who's mentally ill acts as one body. Secondly, clearly you try to shift the blame from the mentally ill to anger, but if a person gets angry enough to go on mass shootings, then they obviously are not mentally stable. Yeah, it's true, not all people with mental problems cling onto weapons and kill people, but we can't just ignore the ones who do.
When it comes to school shootings, in almost every case the killer or killers were diagnosed with mental issues and most were on psychotropic drugs. Perhaps one can't say violence committed by someone using a gun generally is tied to mental illness, but school shootings do seem to be
Philip Van Cleave which school shooters? What mental health issues did they have?
Most were either on anti-depressants or had just come off them. Depression seems to be the mental illness that leads to these shootings. The Columbine shooters and Cho (Virginia Tech) are some of the better known cases on psychotropic drugs. Here's a list of 36 for starters and what drugs they were on:
www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/
Philip Van Cleave do you know how many people have depression? Depressed people are murders. Angry ones are
We probably don't see eye to eye on gun violence issues in general, but I'm totally on board with all of your points here about the involvement of mental illness. Simply blaming unthinkable acts on failures of mental health is one of the weaker arguments from the pro-gun community. While mental illness can and sometimes does play a roll in mass killings, attributing it to the vast majority of these cases lets too many people off the hook for their heinous crimes imo. It's difficult to admit to ourselves, but sometimes there are just terrible people that do terrible things for a variety of reasons while still being completely sane and in control.
+JudsonRadio
So you admit that mental illness has in fact played a role in some cases of mass shootings, yet you seem to also suggest that since it can't be said for all cases we should discount mental illness as a factor all together? Because that's basically what's being argued here.
+Butterfly
Would it make you feel better if we said that all white men should be viewed as potential aggressors of mass killings?
No one is making blanket statements here, simply attempting to shine a light on the complexity of the issue and to get folks acknowledging the nuance inherent in these situations.
John Thompson
Not at all. I'm saying that while mental illness does play a roll in _some_ mass killings, portraying it as the sole cause of _all/most_ mass killings is misleading and inaccurate. I think that all factors should be considered, rather than just using mental illness as a catch-all for causes of these types of crimes.
+JudsonRadio
Ah ok. It was difficult for me to initially determine your stance from your OP. Indeed there is no one thing that these killings can be blamed on, but given the context of all the debates surrounding the issue, it seems, like with most issues, people tend to spout one idea in particular over another as absolutes. But even with those who admit that mental disorder plays a role, it seems they still believe that the level of implication is minuscule compared to others.
I agree that most mental health problems and people suffering from it do not do this, absolutely, but some do when it's mixed with anger. Intense mood still counts as a disorder.
Thank you a thousand times for this video. Sadly, this topic will be relevant for quite a while.
Loved the video as always, Marina! Even those about the most difficult topics give me hope and comfort :)
(CW: suicide) TL;DR - elaborating on suicidal people and guns + a genuine question for men's rights activists
I don't know if someone's said this already, but it breaks my heart that the legitimate connections between gun violence and mental illness appear to be neither party's concern. Mentally ill people (like Marina said) are far more likely to be on the receiving end of a bullet than to use bullets on others, which means that discussing mental illness in conversations about mass shootings is unhelpful and misleading.
HOWEVER, mentally ill people suffering from suicidality (includes ideation, planning, and attempts) who have access to guns are far more likely to be successful in taking their own life. The argument that constantly comes up when this is mentioned is that "if someone wants to kill themselves, they'll find a way," which of course echoes the insistence that mass shooters "would just kill people some other way" if they didn't have a gun. All of that ignores the (albeit limited) statistical and scientific analyses that demonstrate how access to guns correlates with the prevalence of gun violence.
I'm frustrated in how these arguments ultimately evolve into primarily legal debates, rather than interdisciplinary ones. That is to say, the focus on "legality" is irritating to me because I think the issue is much bigger than that. One of the most important facts to me is that cisgender men are statistically more likely to use guns than any other demographic. (Note: I also believe that the troubling comingling of masculinity, intimate partner violence, misogyny and gun culture is very important, but that's not what I'm focusing on here.) This has a critical consequence for mentally ill men: they are more likely to have access to guns and are therefore more likely to be successful in taking their own lives. Thus, men are at a higher risk of suicide than any other demographic, yet are far less likely to have access to the social and emotional support that prevents self-harm and combats mental illness.
This is a worrying reality, and if any men's rights activists are reading this, I would really like to hear what you have to say about it. I don't know if I can convince you that I'm not trying to bait you; for what it's worth, I do actually want to know how you feel about this, what you think the causes are, and how you think we can combat it.
Sources: www.sprc.org/news/demographic-and-health-related-risk-factors-suicide
www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml
www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
Honestly that’s so accurate, that background checks for psychological problems deter people from getting help. I have a friend whose ex-boyfriend has talked to her about hearing things and he specifically said he’d never seek treatment because he didn’t want them to take his guns away.
I feel the same way. As a person with mental illness, when other people talk about how mentally ill people initiate gun violence and how they’re, by extension, dangerous, I feel as if I'm viewed as a threat to society, while the super vast majority of mentally ill people are just attempting to function and live......just like everyone else. Being mentally ill and being dangerous are two separate things and I hate when people lump them together.
I think the problem with this post is that it looks too general statistics. US gun deaths have very specific groups that are very distinct from each other and the reason behind those are vastly different.
For example inner city gang violence, i think we can all agree that it isn't about mental health but about poverty, lack of hope of future etc. that drives the phenomenom. Then we have accidental deaths that are clearly distinct and separate. Suicides, again separate, but closely related to mental health. Police shootings. And so on.
And then we have this video's starting point, the mass shootings. I'd argue that it is mental health issue that is behind most mass shootings, they tend to end with the perpetrator committing suicide, the people doing them usually have variety of different problems as well and reasoning behind the act, if known, is usually not very sane thinking.
what does this have to do with gun control? Well in most cases where legal guns are used, we are talking about accidents or mental health issues. The violence committed with criminal purpose and without mental health issues are usually done with illegal guns. What this means is that gun control is not effective way to lower gun violence. This means that concerning lawful gun ownership, mental health issues are important factor. Concerning illegal gun use, mental health isn't that important factor. If you mix the two and argue with general statistics, it isn't very good argument for this reason.
If anyone really thinks guns are the reason, i bid you to see gun violence statistics in US in geographical manner, there are areas in US with lots of guns and minimal european numbers of gun violence. Then there are areas that have huge numbers of gun violence, but it is very specific kind(criminal, usually gang related). The mass shootings are clearly distinct in this category from both earlier ones, being unpredictable from year to year where they happen.
There have been many cases gun violence where the root cause of many gun related tragedies was the person have some form of mental illness. I always felt if a person who is showing mental illness that exhibits violence against himself or other's... That person should be barred from owning or obtaining firearms period. Also a special database formed to prevent mentally challenged persons from getting a firearm. identified only by a file number. Similar to being denied a credit card you get a letter in the mail to challenge the decision in which you have an opportunity to appeal it through a panel of doctors.
This is not particularly my field, but I am pretty familiar with sosialscienses. I made a quick look at the research from this field and it seems that what Marina is saying is correct. But if we want to know are mass shootings caused by mental illness most of Marinas arguments miss the mark. This is because she is mostly arguing that violence or gun violence as a whole is not caused by mental illness. Research seems to strongly supported the claim that there is no link between gun violence and mental illness in general. But if we are interested in mass shootings it seems that we dont have evidence ether way. Next quote is from the meta-analysis about the link between mental illness and gun violence "Scholars who study violence prevention thus contend that mass shootings occur far too infrequently to allow for the statistical modeling and predictability" . So my point is that Marina is taking too strong position when we really dont have the data to back it up. I'm not arguing that mental illness causes gun violence or that there is evidence for this claim. Marian just sounds too certain and I would like to advice caution. It of course depends on what she is arguing about but to me the relevant conversation in these instances is mass shootings and not shooting in general. Sorry about my english. It is not my mother tongue. Here is the link to the study I refered to: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
This was recommended to me today. Chilling, and the fact that it's still relevant...
It's definitely bothersome when people associate mental illness with violence. Like, frick, I wouldn't hurt a fly. Anecdotal, yes, but the facts are with me on this. It's especially offensive when it comes to this Texas church shooting. The perpetrator of this sounds like a real jerk (beating babies and women, wtf?!), and I'd rather not be associated with that.
It upset me so much when Trump said that. Even if people disagree with the role that mental illness plays on mass shootings, it should still be obvious that mental illness is not the only issue. To say that it's a "mental health problem" is to disregard way more important (or at the very least equally important) factors.
Trump always refuses to acknowledge what doesn't fit his personal interest.
He vehemently denied numbers, pictures and rain at is inauguration.
Mental health is always a factor when the U$ president can't see reality.
The NRA gives waaay too much money to the GOP for Trump to fold on the gun issue unless most of the GOP congress members do so first.
"I pride myself on not being a murderer, but if I ever get a gun, the bloodlust would just take over me" ... Yes, Marina, let it all out! Let the hatred flow! 😀
Leonard McGriddle I wonder what your reaction would be if a man said that? 🤔
Lunar Echlipse probably the same. I'm not a feminist, so someone's gender isn't a big deal to me. Good question though. I actually did some introspection on that.
I have a mental health problem - bipolar1 but despite that i disagree with your premise as is - mental illness is a relevant factor sometimes. mental illness is also a spectrum and killers are usually on the psychopathic / sociopath spectrum i.e pathological and severe personality disorders, how else could someone kill with so little empathy?? Stigma should be reduced and yes much of the timementally ill people are often are victims it is true. but essentially if america wants to stop it happening again it just requires stricter regulations on guns, education on mental health and help for those who need it.
Noir Vortex having low empathy doesn’t make someone a killer
Well, obviously the levels of gun violence in the US can't be blamed on one single cause. It seems to be a very complex problem with many factors. Also, mental illness is simply too broad of a label in this debate. I'd think that there are probably some types of mental illness that make you much less potentially violent. It should be more specific as to what kind of mental illness is being talked about. It's like saying "people with broken bones cant walk" ...That might apply to legs, hips , or feet. but probably not many others. I hope that makes sence...:)
stoned887 Yes!
I think that a person with such anger issues has undiagnosed mental issues, and that they happen to have mental illness that prevents them from being diagnosed. Namely, anger issues themselves are indicative of mental illness, and angry people are probably pretty likely to *adamantly* reject mental help.
With that said, perhaps I'm biased. I'm not comfortable preventing individual gun ownership on a massive national scale. I think there are legitimate reasons to be against that. Existential reasons.
Of all the liberal SJWs on RUclips, you're easily the most palatable one to me (and also horribly cute). While we don't always agree on everything, I'm absolutely willing to concede that the promulgation of stigma towards mental illness has the vile consequence of causing people to shy away from getting the help they need and deserve. Though you mentioned at 3:35 that most violent crime committed by mentally ill people isn't with guns, it would be helpful to relate their contribution to the overall scheme of gun violence in a way that numerically reaffirms your premise, otherwise it becomes a mostly misplaced but still important footnote in its own right. Also I don't know if it's necessarily fair to affirm that mental illness doesn't fuel gun violence on the basis that you have no intentions since, and I'm about to make potentially incorrect assumptions, I believe you're not already accustomed to handling firearms, and the aspects of mental illness (which is itself a huge and vague umbrella term, not blaming you for its popularized bandying) you and I perhaps similarly face are far less likely to cause us to be predisposed to committing gun violence as a solution to our problems or a fulfillment of any excessively sadistic desires. Anyway, I enjoyed your honest contribution to the discussion. Keep up the good work Marina and if you or anyone disagrees with me, I'm open to all manner of discussion.
Thank you so much for this
So I have a serious question about this topic: how exactly is the definition of mental illness?
I mean it would be necessary to have a clear definition if we are to make and cite statistics and such and to make statements about the group of people as a whole. But to me it is not at all obvious what makes a person mentally ill and what would be "just a personality trait". Also if there is such a defining characteristic of mental illness, we should surely try to put that into context with the statistics to see if they make sense, shouldn't we?
Grael949 depression, anxiety, ptsd, adhd, OCD,, etc.
Awesome video! Loved the statistics!
I just wanna to point out that "if a person is violent in the past then there is a likelihood that they will be violent in the future" is not actually based on common sense, in fact it's pretty well studied and documented by Behavioral Psychology and Behavior Science... just for future reference ;)
Hell yeah you tell 'em gurl!!!
☺️ tiny edit suggestion - at 3:29 you say "3-5% of mentally ill people who are violent," but I think you meant "3-5% of violent acts by mentally ill people," based on the statistic you quoted.
Ooooh you're right! Dammit.
I’m like super down for conversations about issues with access to mental healthcare to have nothing to do with conversations about gun legislation. Literally though when was the last time our piss poor healthcare systems has been on a national stage while not accompanying a horrific act of violence?
This is another of your videos that keeps getting better and better with each re-watch. Chelsea Handler deserved to get called out for her comments regarding what she said about mental illness. If you claim to be an "activist" of any sort and you make ableist statements like the ones Chelsea made in her tweet, the only thing you're doing is hurting you're cause. Comments like those show how liberals aren't completely blameless. I'm glad you made this video.
Normally I would criticize sjws, but you actually pointed out some well researched facts, mad props to you.
I’m mentally ill and I’ve learned a lot from this.
this was lit
Hey can leave links for your sources? I believe you, but I want to review these sources myself.
Yup! They're all linked now. Sorry about that!
No problem thank you so much and have a wonderful day.
You neglected that most shooters do in fact have a mental illness; fascism.
Never apologise for statistics! They are the BEST!
Courage!
I don't own a gun because I'd probably use it on my self.
It's terrifying living in America and having the president put you down AND worrying about cops shooting you.
If you want to know more about mass shootings, there is a documentary called something like "America goes postal", which talks about murder by proxy. Very interesting stuff; go watch it, y'all!
Please do spend more videos linking lots of boring statistics at us, I greatly appreciate it. I may be a nerd.
Actually I'm gonna go on a little wider rant on the role of such statistics and things in my personal experience, cause I feel like it's something a lot* of people currently struggle with.
*(maybe not a lot lot, but still)
So I want to make good decisions and think critically about stuff right? Except what things to think critically about is the whole problem here. I see lots of people saying, like, "educate yourself" and "the information is out there I shouldn't have to walk you through it". I am sympathetic to the fact that walking every cishet white guy through everything is a burden to an already burdened class and definitely not an obligation, and I understand that the truth probably IS out there and I could find it on my own.
However, I work 12 hours a day and can barely spend time with my girlfriend, I am trying to study in my free time and I don't have a social studies education background which makes researching this stuff kinda difficult. Also Google knows I'm cishet and white so when I look for information it shows me content I will probably relate to - aka right-wing bullshit. I can wade through the crap, find the studies, read the abstract, maybe take a peek at the study itself if it's unclear or interesting. But again, I don't have the educational background to do this stuff.
I can critique the statistical models used and double check the math, but in the end I have no idea as to what constitutes a sufficient sample size (in my world of theorems, sample size is "N tends to infinity", and we leave it at that). I can totally make a thing that extracts data from a database but I have no context for it beyond "this has a high correlation factor", nor any idea of previous or further research.
So what if I do the obvious stuff I usually do in this occasion and go for the opinion of respected scientists in the field? Turns out they are usually white men. Also where am I looking for them? Should I filter my search through the lens of newspapers and other media? Should I just Google top professors from random prestigious universities and ask them? Try to learn their opinion through... Social media? Who ARE these people anyway, what do they even look like my professors looked like nerds should I look for nerds are there social science nerds out there aaaaaagh!
So as you probably understand at this point, I don't feel like I have a good view of any of these subjects and I struggle to find a way to fix that. This channel, and other RUclips channels that present the perspective of minorities and marginalised people, are REALLY helpful. This channel in particular doubles as an authoritative source for social sciences, which is why I opened with "please do share more statistics with us", because really, I am looking for expert opinions and I struggle to find them in the sea of Facebook style monopolies. (let's just skip the whole RUclips is already a huge capitalistic filter on repressed voices and has a big startup cost thing)
more than one mass shooting a day? source please.
All my sources are linked. Easier to click "read more" than to leave a comment.
And I say it in the video. So...idk what more you want.
well perhaps you should know that the vox article you cited is using a reddit page. i dont think that a public forum counts as a source but thats just me. anyway the definition they used for mass shooting is quite different from what most people mean when they say that phrase.
koori049 they’re using the technical definition of mass shooting
Love this
i dont get ur train of thought here, so gun violence is only in part (an extremely small part) due to mental health issues and the main culprit being anger, but, wouldn't anger management be a mental health issue too? particularly in the degrees that lead to mass-shootings, my conclusion is that "gun violence is due to mental health problems" would be technically true, but misleading since it puts the burden in all mentally ill ppl, this would mean the nuance of 'only a very small part of mentally ill ppl r dangerous' should be added to the conversation so we can find appropriate solutions. i dont see how do u completely separate the subjects
Newton's FLS anger management issues =\= mental illness. Anger management from most of these killers could be attributed to racism, sexism, religion, american society’s coddling of white men, etc. But no one can be 100% sure because rich white elites dont want any studies or reports coming out that prove this kind of behavior isnt from “lone wolves” but part of a deep rooted and historical pile of crap within America’s social/justice systems
Anger is a mood disorder though.
86thislove Then couldn't someone just as easily say that depression is a mood disorder, not a mental illness?
Depression is a mood disorder. Specific disorders can lead to violence, obviously not all of them.
The American Psychiatric Association clearly states that depression is a mental illness.
Trump talking about gun violence as though he doesn’t have his hand on the nuclear destruct button. 🙄
Im sorry this is off topic but you look so pretty marina!
Yes she does!
So, you’re a mental health researcher?
YES GURL
Do you think gun violence could also be seen as a feminist issue? like most mass shootings are committed by men who have a history of violence (probably due to toxic masculinity) therefore shouldn't we focus on getting rid of Toxic Masculinity rather than regulating guns, as that would get to the root of the issue?
Knowledgeable Reaction I was with you until you said "rather than regulating guns". I think it's important to address toxic masculinity ALONGSIDE (sorry I don't have italics so I capitalize instead) regulating guns.
I think both are necessary! There was a lot to cover, but I definitely think macho culture perpetuates violence.
Andrew And you're the prime example. So tired in toxic masculinity you don't even know it.
First you remove the guns that are used to kill a lot more people, then yes, you need to address the issues causing the violence.
you're joking right?... most gun violence is committed by thugs who should never have had the guns to begin with. the answer is to enforce the laws we have better, not destroy everybody's gun rights.
Since mental illness is already pretty brushed off, blaming problems that are caused by inadequate regulations of purchase of dangerous weapons (and law enforcement allowing people who have committed violent crimes in the past to keep guns or buy new guns) on mental illness is basically the best way to shift the focus to something else.
I disagree with like 95% of your videos but this was great. I'm for gun rights but still think that we shouldn't spread misinformation about what causes shootings.
Would you be willing to do a video on the issues you have with the Democratic Party?
Ok....whew. So, you say that mental illness does not cause gun violence. There already seems to be a pretty big fundamental misunderstanding as to what actually constitutes a mental illness. When the words 'mental illness' are used, we tend to conjure up images of someone who has lost touch with reality such as a person with paranoid schizophrenia or something similar. We forget that depression is a mental illness, as well as anorexia nervosa and attention deficit disorder. So while there may not be a specific, DSM-5 defined mental illness that causes these types of shootings, there are still several that list anger issues as a symptom. Anger, and the ability to properly work through that anger and deal with those emotions appropriately (i.e. not shooting up a church full of people for the purposes of killing many people) is undeniably indicative of a mental health issue, despite what even the APA rep apparently has said about it. Because like I mentioned earlier, there are actually several DSM-5 defined mental disorders where the inability to properly deal with anger is a symptom. Almost all of the Personality Disorders such as BPD, APD, or SPD I/SPD II, just to name a few (that's Borderline Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Schizoid/Schizotypal Personality Disorders, respectively). Unfortunately, many perpetrators of mass shootings tend to take their own life or are taken out by law enforcement before they can be apprehended and arrested and subsequently tested for diagnosis--if they had yet received a diagnosis. So for the people who insist that this is a non -issue to ignore this aspect in favor of solely pushing for stronger gun law reform, this is a very irresponsible and naive way to approach the issue. The mental health aspect MUST be acknowledged, despite republicans and others insisting the opposite-that this is solely a mental health issue therefore we don't need to implement any further gun regulation, which is just as naive and irresponsible. BOTH must be taken into account. Why we don't emphasize mental health in this country as much as we focus on our physical health is beyond me and pretty disconcerting. Too often we are simply handed antidepressants or some other pill to treat our problems. There must be a comprehensive strategy for dealing with our stressors, anxieties, depressions, anger issues, or whatever else that is plaguing damn near everyone in this country. I believe it's too important to not be mandatory. But anyway, my point is simply that we need to address how both mental health treatment and common sense gun regulation can be instrumental in the attempt to stop these types of attacks. Picking just one of these issues to focus on for your narrative is turning a blind eye to the other. I'll have to look into the APA's statement further in order to see if this really is their stance or if they actually acknowledge the complexity and nuance of these situations, because it would surprise me greatly if they didn't.
I had to edit my initial comment to elaborate on some of the things I mentioned. Also wanted to make sure to mention the thing about the people who carry out mass shootings committing suicide after their rampage because the issue at hand was mass shootings, and not violence in general or even just all gun violence. I mention this also because it's brought up in the video that people with mental illness are more likely to turn a gun on themselves than to others, so that pretty much only serves to back up my sentiment on the issue. Basically my point is that I've had too much coffee this evening and just wanted to make sure that I was clear in my ramblings.
John Thompson I have BPD and I would never own a gun and/or murder someone; I have friends I met at therapy, that I bet you all I have, wouldn't kill anyone. You're just saying that people with personality disorders will be murderers and just no.
+Cam M. Giusti
That's good to know, but I believe you've completely misunderstood my comment. I said nothing of the sort and made no such accusations. Feel free to re-read and try again, however.
EDIT: But, I suppose to save you or anyone else the time of having to re-read my bloated comment, I'll simply reiterate. The claim in the video is that mental illness doesn't cause mass shootings, that anger is the only underlying cause along with inefficient gun legislation (I do agree with the latter, of course). I offered that uncontrollable anger can actually be a symptom of various defined mental disorders, with BPD only being an example of a disorder where inappropriate dissemination of anger is one of many symptoms . I never made the claim that people with BPD or any other disorder are all murderers. That would be a huge blanket statement generalization as well as patently false. I try not to do that whenever possible. Thanks for reading the first time around at least.
John Thompson ADHD isn't a mental illness. It's on par with autism.
John Thompson People who aren't mentally ill can be extremely angry and guns make people feel somewhat invincible and/or powerful.
Good to know that shooter in Las Vegas was just like us, just a little bit more pissed off.
you should be our POTUS
Wow, what a stupid take.
I dunno, u gatta be pretty crazy to commit homicide