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I agree with much of what you say, but I simply cannot agree with this.
Gun violence is most assuredly a mental health issue.
Mentally ill people who are determined to kill will use whatever is at hand. I grant that guns make executing the thing more convenient, and thus likelier to happen on some scale.
Mentally healthy people who own firearms do not kill others, except in the most extreme of circumstances. This is almost a tautology.
ETA - To put it another way, I could kill you with a pencil in the room, and I could kill you with a can of gasoline in the room. In either case, a third possibility is that I could not be thinking of a way to kill you. One logic branch is healthy, and the other is not.
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Of course, thereās booby traps that can be triggered by oneās deathā¦ But I donāt think thatās what you meant.
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See that is the lie though. They are using the act of killing someone with a firearm as a diagnosis for mental health issues, when it isnāt. Only ācrazyā people kill other people! That just isnāt true. At all.
it is a lie that you must be crazy or have mental health issues to kill people. the most recent statistics quoted by John Oliver show that less then 12% of gun homicides involve people with mental health issues. gun violence does not occur in clusters of mental health issues, it does occur in clusters of extreme income inequality, poverty, and hopelessness. if you push people past a certain point you create conditions that make this sort of thing much more likely.
Isnāt that true for anyone? Wouldnāt anyone determined to kill use whatever is at hand? How is mental illness a factor?
Why does firearm reduction work in every country it has been tried in? I think because there is a huge difference between the disattached point and click death by gun, then the very personal and much more difficult task of using a sharp implement. Being disattached from your victim makes killing them magnitudes easier, and not just because of the efficiency of the implement, because of the psychological barrier to using the implement is so much lower.
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And here we have a fundamental difference of opinion.
I have the ability to kill many things and people in my daily life. Iām a big, burly white guy. There are a lot of ugly things I could do.
I genuinely believe that if I choose to do an ugly thing, that is because I am unhealthy in some aspect.
If you donāt think that, then I donāt understand.
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So, you didnāt watch the video either. If you did you would have seen your claims roundly disputed within 3 minutes.
The idea that people who commit mass shootings are by definition mentally ill or somehow āotherā than all the rest of us is a cognitive fallacy.
The majority of these shootings are committed by people who do not have a diagnosable mental illness, but have been led to extreme actions by a multitude of environmental pressures.
You are thinking about mental health the wrong way, that is the whole point John Oliver is making. It is really important and it is flying over the heads of quite a few commenters here.
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Again, for good measure:
Itās a very simple standard.
the vast majority of acts of violence are not committed by people with mental health issues, that is a fact. committing an act of violence is not a diagnosis of a mental health issue, that is also a fact. acts of violence are less likely among the mentally ill, also a fact. theyāve duped a lot of people into thinking that you must be mentally ill to commit an act of violence, but it just isnāt true. not even slightly true.
you have the ability to commit all sorts of crimes but you donāt, do you think that all crimes are committed by people with mental health issues, or only crimes of violence?
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Itās very simple! No argument from me on that!
Itās also really wrong and damaging within the context of this discussion.
Look I get it, someone who commits a mass shooting is clearly unstable at the time they commit that act.
But in the vast majority of cases (I think 95% 88% is the figure quoted) they are not people who would have come to the attention of even a good, functioning mental health system.
So talking about mental health issues whenever there is a mass shooting is misguided at best, and serves to further stigmatise people with diagnosed mental health issues, who are already suffering more than a compassionate society should allow.
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Once again, I disagree.
Healthy people have systems to deal with stresses in their lives. Unhealthy people find unhealthy ways to respond.
Honestly, this is just wrong. The vast majority of us simply donāt encounter the stressors that lead some people to commit acts of great violence, but that just means our capacity to commit such acts is untested.
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Look, Iām not entrenched on either side, and I really think both points of view are valid areas to look for improvement in.
Gun laws need attention, and so does the mental health care of our populus in general. (Crap, is my Latin right there? I can never tellā¦)
I just care about the realism of the thingā¦the rifle on the wall isnāt a forgone conclusion. Healthy folks will handle it one way, and others, another.
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Yeah I understand, I can see where you are coming from and what you write seems well intended, itās just that what Oliver is saying here involves some really profound misconceptions that most of us have about these kinds of events.
It takes some effort to get your head around it. David McRaney covered it briefly in one of his podcasts, I tried to find a reference to it but couldnāt, it is deep stuff.
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See this? Itās about California successfully identifying nuts and making them do nutty things somewhere else.
Thereās a counter-point here about passing the buck, but look at the big pictureā¦these folks moved so that being crazier would be easier. That aināt healthy.
So by that definition all criminals are mentally ill? All gang members are mentally ill? All police who shoot people are mentally ill? All army soldiers that kill people are mentally ill? Just trying to understand the logic.
I think it is way easier to cross the line to violence then you are realizing, and that it is more often done by people who have no mental illness. Again, less then 12% of gun homicides involve someone with mental illness.
Most people who own guns do so in case they need to commit an act of violence in self defense. See how easily an act of violence can be justified?
Iād argue that it is never okay not even for self defense.
I agree with this, it is a symptom of societal conditions and pressures, not mental health.
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If we say, āA member of our society who is not a criminal does not do thisā¦ā. Whatās the difference between that, and āA person who is mentally healthy will notā¦ā?
Iām not saying thatās right, but itās social truth.
By definition, healthy people donāt break the law.
And I agree that these conditions can lead to an utter breakdown of mental health.
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Ima just leave this hereā¦
Have they added jaywalking to the DSM-5 yet? Perhaps itās in the same section as drapetomania?
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