MENTAL ILLNESS CAUSES VIOLENCE

Running head: MENTAL ILLNESS CAUSES VIOLENCE
MENTAL ILLNESS CAUSES VIOLENCE
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MENTAL ILLNESS CAUSES VIOLENCE
Mass shooting has been an old vice of our social system. It is believed that these
tragedies take place primarily due to the mental illness or some trauma faced during the early life
of the shooter. The shooter gets pleasure killing so many people at one time. He feels powerful
and authoritative. It is often found that mass shooters have a history of psychiatric illness
(Leonard et al., 2014). Psychologists are of the opinion that these gunmen might have faced
some trauma in their early childhood that has left a deep impact in them. Thus, they feel that
society should get back what they had felt before. This essay argues that mental illness paves the
way for mass shooting and the people having mental illness have more chances of committing
acts of crime.
This essay states that child hood abuse or that of drug addiction can cause an individual
to face mental disorder that can propel an individual towards violence. Often history of
childhood abuse, drug addiction, loss of near and dear ones, encountering violence can lead to
severe psychological disorder. It has been observed that majority of the mentally ill people are
never diagnosed in their lifetime (Rogers & Pilgrim, 2014). Gunmen and shooters are mostly
diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. People with mental illness are also
vulnerable in taking their own life. However, some psychologists are often of opinion that not all
mentally ill people are engaged in mass killings as they have their own struggles and
vulnerabilities. It is wrong to say that only mentally ill people are shooters. Many believe that
criminals are made and not born criminals. The recent happening of Orlando massacre in
Orlando, Florida is one of the popular massacres in history (Zambelich & Hurt, 2018). A gunman
aged twenty-nine, open fired at a night club killing forty nine people and injuring at least fifty.
Another massacre that shook the entire world was the Paris attack on November 15, 2015
(BBC.com, 2018). It is considered as one of the deadliest attacks in the history of France. Several

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MENTAL ILLNESS CAUSES VIOLENCE
places were attacked including a concert, nightclubs and restaurants. One hundred and thirty
innocent people were brutally killed. The brutality of such attacks are ingrained on the minds of
the victims who survived the attacks.
However, it is illogical and partial to state the relationship between mental illness and
mass shooting incidents or gun violence committed by individuals as mentioned above. Even
though some of these happenings that have occurred in the past have been proved to be the
deadly work of people who were suffering from serious mental illness. However, no concrete
evidence have been established behind the motive or the factors that may trigger the convict to
engage in such violent act. In fact, it has been observed that people with serious mental illness
committing the tragic act of mass shooting is less than 1% of all yearly gun-related homicides
(Leonard et al., 2014). Furthermore, it has been observed that only 3% of individuals suffering
from serious mental illness are engaged or associated with the violent crimes such as mass
shooting, gun violence and so on (Jones, 2013).
This essay points out that media plays an important role in linking mental disorder with
that of the gun violence. According to McGinty, Webster & Barry (2013), the media is heavily
responsible behind this stereotypical assumption of establishing the link between mental disorder
and gun violence incidents. Although there have been certain researches conducted upon the
factors that may have triggered such mass shooting incidents. The findings of the researches are
not valid enough to find out the concrete evidence to establish a relationship between mental
illness and mass shooting incidents. On the other hand, a study conducted upon approximately
185 mass shooting incidents, criminologist Grant Duwe found out that approximately 59% of
people that have committed a crime of mass shooting or similar from the period of 1900 to 2017