Thursday, April 3, 2014

The "presence of a gun in the home is a predictor of violence."

Or so a mental health professional for the US Army tells us. That along with alcohol and drug abuse (both very popular in the US) makes for the perfect storm in predicting mass shootings.



That's a far cry from the NRA's "lone nut with an illegal gun" or a "gang banger from the hood" profiles.



It's interesting that the obvious seems so alien to most Americans until you look at the  degree of paranoia, stress, anxiety, and delusional fears Americans suffer from.



Over 330 million guns on the streets of a country with around a 300 million total population should give it away.



PTSD may not answer Fort Hood's painful questions | Al Jazeera America


“Most mental illness is not associated with violence,” Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a longtime Army psychiatrist who is now chief clinical officer for the District of Columbia’s Department of Mental Health, told Al Jazeera.

Rather, it’s much more likely that the suspect, identified as Army Spc. Ivan Lopez – a man who was deployed to Iraq for four months in 2011 and reportedly had a self-diagnosed traumatic brain injury (TBI) – suffered from some other concurrent problem. Experts warn that pointing fingers at his PTSD or depression as a cause of the shooting could further stigmatize mental illness and prevent more people from seeking treatment.

That’s because longstanding anger issues, substance abuse, serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia — and even just the presence of a gun in the home — are far better predictors of mass shootings than depression or PTSD, Ritchie told Al Jazeera.

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