GSPP Professor Jennifer Skeem briefs Congress on mass shootings and mental illness

Has restricting access to firearms among people living with a serious mental illness been effective in reducing gun violence toward others?

For the most part, no. At least that’s what GSPP Professor Jennifer Skeem testified to the US House and Senate in her congressional briefing last month.

According to Skeem, while people living with a mental illness are modestly more likely to demonstrate violent behavior, the vast majority do not. And even if we cured mental illness today, 96% of violent acts in the US would persist, and so would mass shootings – only about 17% of which are committed by a shooter with a serious mental illness. That’s why policies that screen based on mental health status allow most potentially violent people to slip through the cracks.

The good news is that there are indicators which help accurately predict violence. In one large study, delusions and hallucinations were not nearly as predictive of violence as anti-social and antagonistic traits such as distrust, combativeness, and attention-seeking. In other words, when people who are living with a mental illness are violent, it’s usually for the same reasons as people who are not experiencing these challenges. That’s why improving policies and practices that keep guns out of dangerous hands will aid in reducing violence, among both the general population and people experiencing mental illness.

According to Skeem, the focus on mental health as a solution to gun violence has unfortunately been “driven more by stigma than by science.” When a mass tragedy occurs, we seek an explanation. Unusual events are the most salient in our minds, so we remember the tiny fraction of violent crimes that are committed by people living with a mental illness. These incidents are then amplified by the media. Our reasoning is often circular (Why did they do something awful? Because they’re mentally ill. How do we know they’re mentally ill? Because they did something awful). And while the “red flags” of mental illness seem obvious in hindsight, they rarely predict future violence – as anti-social traits often do.

Demonstrating her reputation for translating research into practice, Professor Skeem concluded by previewing the recommendations that will be released in her upcoming paper, to be published in Criminology & Public Policy in February, 2020:

• Develop new prohibitions on individuals’ ability to purchase and possess firearms based on evidence-informed risk factors
• Implement new mechanisms for temporary removal of firearms from individuals who pose serious risk of harm to self or others
• Fund crisis intervention services for high risk people, both with and without serious mental illness
• Implement and evaluate threat assessment teams
• Implement media reporting guidelines for mass violence that minimize contagion and stigma