Madison Shumway
Life Editor
After every American tragedy involving a gun and dozens of bodies, the same debate repeats. I could write at length about the many facets of this debate, criticize many tired talking points. I could write about the weariness I feel, having read yet another list of victims. I could write about media coverage, about copycats, about complicity. There’s a lot to unpack each time a breaking news alert hits our phones and we, as a nation, must grapple with yet another senseless massacre.
In assigning sense to the senseless, often blame falls upon mental illness. Donald Trump, the day after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, tweeted, “So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem.”
Last October, after the shooting in Las Vegas, Paul Ryan told reporters that “one of the things we’ve learned from these shootings is often underneath this is a diagnosis of mental illness.” While it might provide comfort to think that only a mentally ill person could commit such a horrifying crime, thereby separating mentally-ill shooters with the population at large, there’s simply not a strong connection between diagnosable mental illness and mass shootings. Don’t take it from me—there’s a wealth of research, and plenty of other newspapers covering it, that studies the effect of mental illness on mass shootings and gun violence in general. Read it.
If you do, you’ll find that mental illness and violence are not as connected as people believe them to be, and that the vast majority of people with mental illnesses are not violent. Stray further into the rabbit hole, and you’ll learn that one in five Americans and one in four Idahoans suffer from mental illness and that over half of American adults with mental illnesses receive no treatment for their illness. You’ll learn that Idaho has one of the country’s highest suicide rates—48 percent higher than the national rate—and one of the most severe psychiatry shortages. In Eastern Idaho, one-ninth of the recommended number of child psychiatrists are in practice, and across the state, our mental health care system is, as Boise State Public Radio puts it, “fragmented, underfunded, and threadbare.”
For American politicians, mental illness provides convenient political rhetoric for press conference soundbites. But for millions of Americans, mental illness presents a daily challenge, insufficient mental health infrastructure and stigmatization real and sometimes insurmountable obstacles. Putting the blame on the mentally ill without increasing resources shirks responsibility, perpetuates bias and demonizes innocent individuals with mental illnesses. Mental illness is more complex than a talking point. It’s more widespread than a few isolated shooters. It’s more serious than finger-pointing tweets. To trivialize and twist the reality of mental health in America, like so many do in the wake of national tragedies, is to trivialize the experiences of Americans with mental illness and to twist the real cause of those tragedies.
We deserve more than that.
