The federal gun law enacted this summer includes $8.5 billion for mental health services. This is a welcome infusion of cash into a chronically underfunded service area. But will it significantly reduce gun violence?
The research suggests some skepticism. The Violence Project has created a large database of mass shooters and studied them in depth. According to the New York Times, the project’s researchers determined that mental illness is not a major contributing factor. Sociologist Jeffrey Swanson agrees. “If we were to cure serious mental illnesses,” he told the Times, “violence would go down by 4 percent.”
What most perpetrators do have in common, according to the Violence Project, is a recent life crisis, the sort of thing—grief, job loss, a breakup—that can overwhelm anyone’s coping mechanisms. Such crises are often visible to others, so intervention may be possible. But the larger takeaway is how common they are. Nearly everyone has one at some point.
