School shootings and mental health: Inside the minds of mass shooters
THESE MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS AND METHODS ARE BEING USED TO HELP KEEP AT-RISK STUDENTS FROM TURNING INTO POTENTIAL MASS SHOOTERS.
"It's been nearly two decades since a pair of teens walked into a high school and carried out one of the worst mass shootings in the nation's history.
But the debate on school safety, guns and mental health sparked by the 1999 Columbine High School shooting rages on. From Columbine to Sandy Hook, and most recently Santa Fe, innocent lives are still being lost in record numbers each year. Similar to past high-profile shootings, the latest has prompted a renewed debate about what more can be done to identify students grappling with mental health issues before they turn violent.
It may be easy to dismiss these shooters as simply "evil" or "deranged," as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz did when he referred to 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis. The teen is accused of fatally shooting 10 people and injuring 10 others at the Texas high school near Galveston last week.
But mass shooters can't just be hastily categorized as either “bad or mad,” experts say. It’s just not that simple, according to research published by the American Psychiatric Association..."
School shootings and mental health: Inside the minds of mass shooters
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Mass Shootings and Mental Illness
"...Mass shootings understandably create outpourings of public horror and
outrage. Nevertheless, and contrary to common media depictions and the general
public’s beliefs, mass shootings are extremely rare events. These tragedies
are influenced by multiple complex factors, many of which are still poorly understood.
However, the lay public and the media typically assume that the perpetrator
has a mental illness and that the mental illness is the cause of these highly
violent acts of horrific desperation. Although some mass shooters are found to
have a history of psychiatric illness, no reliable research has suggested that a
majority of perpetrators are primarily influenced by serious mental illness as
opposed to, for example, psychological turmoil flowing from other sources. As a
result, debate on how to prevent mass shootings has focused heavily on issues
that are 1) highly politicized, 2) grossly oversimplified, and 3) unlikely to result in
productive solutions.
In this chapter, we discuss the existing research, limited though it may be, on
mass shootings and then examine the nature of the link between gun violence
and mental illness. We consider the value of gun laws focusing on mental illness,
with attention to their potential efficacy in preventing future mass shootings. We
conclude by proposing that instead of the focus on mental illness, increased attention
should be paid to sociocultural factors associated with mass shootings
and exploring other interventions and areas for further research...."
Psychiatry Online
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