Public Association Between Violent Gun Crimes And Mental...

Since Barack Obama’s second full term in office, not a single full calendar week has gone by without some sort of mass shooting. A mass shooting is defined as â€Å" an incident in which four or more people are shot,† and a Sunday-to-Saturday week has not passed without one of these incidents in more than a year (Bump, 2015). So, what gives? Following a mass shooting crime, one of the first things that always comes up is the perpetrator’s mental health: Was the shooter mentally ill? In recent years, the mass shooters we hear about have been, enabling a cycle of stereotyping in which those who have some sort of mental illness are associated with violent crime. Terms like â€Å"psycho† and â€Å"insane† are thrown around, creating a blanket of†¦show more content†¦It’s estimated that the onset of 50% of chronic mental illnesses occurs by the age of fourteen, and about 75% by the age of 24 (NAMI, 2015). The most common mental health dia gnoses in the United States are mood disorders, which include the spectrums of anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Unfortunately, 60% of adults and 50% of youth did not receive medical services for their mental health conditions in the previous fiscal year (NAMI, 2015). 18.1% of American adults have some sort of anxiety disorder. That percentage may seem low, but when calculated person for person it adds up to approximately 42 million people. Anxiety symptoms include feeling powerless, nervous, or helpless, even over mundane tasks; having a sense of impending doom or increased heart rate; sweating and shaking; restricted breathing or hyperventilating; and trouble thinking about or concentrating on anything other than the present worry. Anxiety disorders can have specific focuses, like phobias, or just be about everyday trivial tasks, known as generalized anxiety. 6.9%, or about 16 million people, live with clinical depression, also known as major depressive disorder. Symptoms of clinical depression include: feelings of sadness, emptiness, or hopelessness; angry or irritable outbursts, often over trivial matters; changes in appetite, sleep habits, or weight; trouble concentrating, thinking and recalling information; loss of interest in normal activities