![]() ![]() Crimes such as Newtown-where Lanza killed 20 children and 6 adults with a military-grade semiautomatic weapon-appear to fall outside the bounds of sanity: who but an insane person would do such horrifying things? And, of course, scripts linking guns and mental illness arise in the aftermath of many US mass shootings in no small part because of the psychiatric histories of the assailants. Such associations make sense on many levels. “They could hurt themselves, they could hurt other people.” 5 “People who have mental health issues should not have guns,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters after one such bill passed the New York Senate. 4 Meanwhile, in the months after the shooting, a number of states passed bills that required mental health professionals to report “dangerous patients” to local officials, who would then be authorized to confiscate any firearms that these persons might own. In a contentious press conference, National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre blamed “delusional killers” for violence in the United States, while calling for a “national registry” of persons with mental illness. Similar themes permeated political responses to Newtown as well. 2 Conservative commentator Anne Coulter provocatively proclaimed that “Guns don’t kill people-the mentally ill do.” 3 strongly suggest undiagnosed schizophrenia” added the New York Times. ![]() “Was Adam Lanza an undiagnosed schizophrenic?” asked Psychology Today. For instance, the US media diagnosed shooter Adam Lanza with schizophrenia in the days following the tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. In the United States, popular and political discourse frequently focuses on the causal impact of mental illness in the aftermath of mass shootings.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |