Vice
Mental Health Providers Can’t Stop Mass Shootings
Psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers have been legally tasked with reporting homicidal and suicidal people for decades, according to Susan B. Sorenson, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the epidemiology of violence. And the Gun Control Act of 1968 has long prohibited the sale of guns to individuals who have been committed to a mental institution or deemed mentally “defective.”
But Sorenson pointed out what tens of millions of Americans with a family member or friend dealing with a condition like depression already know: most mentally-ill people are not violent. In fact, they’re far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.