Parkland Shooting, Mental Health, and Gun Control

In response to the latest mass shooting, I’ve seen a number of people posting things saying basically, ‘it’s a mental health problem, not a gun problem’. There are a lot of things wrong with that approach. First, most people with mental health problems pose no danger either to themselves or others. Second, every advanced industrial and post-industrial country has people with mental health problems, but only the United States has a mass shooting problem on this scale.

Beyond that, one wonders what exactly this person thinks should be done with regards to people with mental health problems. Few people present any cogent ideas regarding that, most just try to divert the conversation from gun control to mental health.

What efforts are currently being made to keep guns out of the hands of those with serious mental health problems? In truth, not much. Someone who has been committed can be denied the right to purchase a weapon, but not those who have never been committed. There were some additional restrictions on people with mental health problems getting weapons, but the GOP Congress repealed those rules, and the Republican president signed that repeal.

One could say that at least those with who have been committed can be denied the right to purchase a weapon. That is limited by three things: guns sold at gun shows are seldom subject to background checks; a background check which takes longer than three days can be skipped; and private gun sales are not subject to background checks. The estimates of weapons sold with no background checks range from 20% to 40%, though the upper end has been called into question.

So we can only keep guns out of the hands of people with mental health problems 80% of the time, and only then if the person has been committed. Many people with serious mental health problems, who are indeed a threat to themselves and others have never been committed. At best we have a system with a lot of holes, which all too easily allows someone with mental health problems to legally obtain weapons.

What about dealing with the mental health problems themselves? Well, the GOP Congress is cutting funds for various health care programs as well as specifically mental health care programs. So we are not making an effort to deal with mental health problems, nor in many cases are we keeping weapons away from people with mental health problems. That being the case, how then can we prevent people with mental health problems from engaging in mass shootings? Basically, we can’t.

The other side of the equation is access to the deadliest types of weapons. Semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazines increase the death toll when used in mass shootings. Studies have found that when semi-automatic weapons are used in a mass shooting, the death toll is more than 50% higher than when they are not used.

What then is the rationale for these weapons being sold? Standard pistols, rifles, and shotguns are far more useful in hunting and personal protection than semi-automatic weapons. The people most attached to these types of weapons seem to feel that they need to protect themselves from some sort of dictatorial government. This is at best a specious argument. If indeed the government acted in that fashion, someone with a semi-automatic weapon could not match the firepower of automatic weapons, grenades, rocket launchers, drones, tanks, bombs, and the like.

Some folks claim the fifth amendment gives them the right to own such weapons. That is patently false, since there was a prior ban on such weapons. That ban was adjudicated all the way to the Supreme Court, and even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia ruled than the assault weapons ban was constitutional. No less than former President Ronald Reagan said there was no need for private ownership of assault weapons. There is a long history of bans on private ownership of military style weapons, in particular automatic weapons. The fifth amendment clearly does not give individuals the right to own any weapons they choose.

Some gun aficionados would say that assault weapon bans are just a prelude to total gun confiscation. The fact is that automatic weapon bans and the prior assault weapon ban did not lead to widespread gun confiscation.

Another argument against bans on assault weapons is that criminals will find a way to get guns if they really want them. If assault weapons are banned and taken out of circulation, then it will be very difficult to get them whether by legal or illegal means. What has fueled the rise in mass shootings and the associated death toll is the easy access to semi-automatic weapons. If they are no longer available, certainly determined people can use other means, but will do so less often and with far lower death tolls for those who use semi-automatic weapons.

There frankly is no perfect solution, but the solution which will reduce the deaths from mass shootings is to have universal background checks and ban semi-automatic weapons. I truly believe this will reduce the incidence  of mass shootings and the death tolls in the ones remaining.