Virginia Tech Massacre Research Paper

“Guns don’t kill people, people do.” This is a well known statement that is oftentimes considered true. However, it is not completely true. Someone who is mentally ill may be unable to make logical decisions and the perception they receive of reality may be tainted by the illness. Gun laws pertaining to those suffering mental illnesses should be more restrictive. Weapons such as guns make committing an act of violence, especially when there are multiple victims, much easier. It is difficult to assess the probability of a person to commit a violent act that harms anyone including himself/herself. Therefore, gun laws need be monitored very closely and made more consistent throughout each state in order to prevent violence that could

Most pro-gun ownership often supports their argument with the Second Amendment. However, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution doesn’t include or mention what types of firearms can be used for self-defense. It would be common sense to limit the sale of guns to handguns or small weapons to protect one’s life. America has the Second Amendment mainly because of the history and it’s been a long tradition of the American people. And it has been further reinforced when the Revolutionary war began and armed civilians or militias won America’s freedom. People don 't think about much of this history anymore, they care more for what the law states rather than how it got started or why it’s been implemented. And because of this lack of interest “attempts to restrict a citizen’s right to own a gun evoke

Mental Health is the root to numerous problems in America, how your brain deals with certain situations determines how sick or healthy our minds are. Based on a Washington Post-ABC News Poll of 808 adults, 57% agreed that the mass shootings were due to mental health issues whereas 28% said that it was due to inadequate gun control laws (SHEN). Almost 30% additional people thought that it was a mental health issue instead of a gun control issue. Since a larger portion of adults believe that mental health is the root to mass shootings a mental health test need to be complete on anyone who wants to carry or purchase a weapon.

The mental health system in The United States is flawed and needs serious reform. Many of the mentally ill are failing to seek the help that they need and deserve in a country like the U.S is baffling and must be reassessed. The system causes a rise in gun violence and more specifically, mass shootings. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when approaching mental disorders and their correlation with mass shootings. Things such as type of mental disorder, the widespread diagnosis in the US, masculinity in men, and gun laws themselves. This research was done through a series of articles, interviews, and books. Mental disorders need to be taken largely into consideration when trying to find a cause for a shooting, and

Mass shootings happen about every two weeks (“Behind the bloodshed, 2013, para. 3). After a mass shooting, many people ask these two same questions: How did the mental health system default them? How did he or she get such a powerful weapon? However, these questions do not have to be asked because these tragic shootings can be prevented. This can be done by taking better care of the mentally ill, enacting better gun control laws, and by not allowing violence in video

The domain of focus for this paper is “gun laws.” Federal gun laws exist that prohibit federally licensed gun dealers from sales to potentially dangerous populations previously convicted of serious crimes determined by criminal background checks. However, in some states this requirement is met using "instant check" procedures that can be easily defeated using straw purchasers and forged identification documents. (Vernick 2nd paragraph, 2nd column page 184). Vernick 352 et al? indicated that federal laws have been implemented to ensure all states abide by the same standard gun law. Federal law applies to all states and creates a

Suicide was by far the greatest number of deaths from firearms. According to the CDC of the total 33,594 deaths from firearms in 2014 over 64% of the deaths from firearms were a result of suicide (Kochanek, Murphy, Xu, Tejada-Vera 2014). While it is tragic to know that means the other 36% were killed by having a firearm turned on them it still shows that the dangers of firearms lies mainly in the hands of someone who has a mental illness. Even if we assume all other deaths were from people who had no form of mental illness that is over 20,000 people who if mental illness did not exist or even just better treated, would still be alive today. In order to treat mental illness however, we must be able to distinguish what is and is not a mental illness. For the purpose of this article a mental illness is; any disease or disorder that is clinically recognized and causes some sort of distress. Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year (Martinelli., Binney, & Kaye 2014). Considering that most gun deaths are caused by suicide, it is understandable to assume that these people were

Of the 130 studied incidents, only one had evidence the shooter was barred by federal law from owning weapons due to severe mental illness. In 15 other incidents, there were concerns about the mental health of the shooter and had been brought to the attention of a medical practitioner, school official, or legal authority prior to the shooting. Otherwise every shooter had a clean bill of

The shooter is typically labeled mentally ill or psychotic without actually having been diagnosed. Americans use this label when no other explanation is visible or when they can’t provide a logical explanation for someone’s actions. The same label is commonly used in children that tend to fidget during class. Adults do not blame the class, or the teacher but just assume that the child has ADHD. “ Sixty-three percent of respondents blamed a deficient mental health care system as the prime reason for America's incessant gun massacres. .” ( Follman 1 ). It is assumed that a psychiatric diagnosis can predict a gun crime. With this bias towards a shooter's mentality, fear could be instilled into the minds of the younger generation to fear mentally ill patients, and could lead to the exclusion and segregation of any mentally ill patient because of the fear of that person committing mass

a law repealed by Congress in February that would have required the registration of Social Security recipients with mental disabilities to prevent gun ownership. They state that because the mentally disabled are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence, fear about them owning guns is prejudiced and as a result, obstructs their civil rights. In my rebuttal, I counter their statistic about mentally disabled victims, arguing its irrelevance in mass shooter situations and the subsequent unsoundness of their argument. Finally, I explain how unhealthy mental conditions can lead to unsafe consequences in day-to-day situations

If you look at the news or any sort of social media you will see all the headlines of the most recent shooting, the Las Vegas massacre. This was by far the biggest mass shooting we have seen in a while, with about 50 dead and hundreds injured. Some of the most famous mass shootings are Columbine and Virginia Tech, both of which had mentally ill gunman. All of these shootings have one thing in common, besides the fact that they are all mass shootings, that is that all of the gunman in these situations had a mental illness are had threatened violence previously. For example, when analyzing the two Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Kelbold, conclusions have been made that both shooters had some sort of mental illness. Dave Cullen states in his article about the mental states of the Columbine shooters, “Klebold is easier to comprehend, a more familiar type. He was hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal. He blamed himself for his problems. Harris is the challenge. He was sweet-faced and well-spoken. Adults, and even some other kids, described him as "nice." But Harris was cold, calculating, and homicidal. ‘Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people,’ Fuselier says. Harris was not merely a troubled kid, the psychiatrists say, he was a psychopath.” I think that people with mental illnesses should not have the right to bear arms regardless of the Second Amendment right, because they do not have the mental capacity to stop themselves from doing something, especially if they do not think they are mentally

Almost after every single shooting, the shooters had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar depression, or other mental illnesses. Jiverly Wong, Nikolas Cruz, and Adam Lanza all had shown great warning signs or issues of mental health issues, and even took medicine. When citizens are doing psychopathic things such as harming others, animals or themselves, don’t you think it would be common sense to watch them? About 61% of shooters from 1915-2013 had been diagnosed or showed signs of mental illnesses. If doctors could track those who are mentally ill or stopped taking medication, then many shooters could have been stopped. Nikolas Cruz was one of the people on a mental health facilities “watchlist” who started to watch Cruz but ended up “forgetting” about him. Closer surveillance of mentally ill people will

With mental illness identified as a very probable cause of these shootings, it is critical that the evidently poor and ineffective clinical help for mental disorders be reevaluated. A theoretical explanation for the modern prevalence of mental illness could be the increasingly optional nature of treatment: therapy is a choice, and checking into a facility or institution is

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, fewer than 5 percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the U.S. between 2001-2010 were carried out by individuals diagnosed with a mental illness. And the fact that one person with a mental illness committed a mass shooting does not make that person a representative of others with that type of mental illness. Many common mental health diagnoses—including anxiety, depression, and attention deficit disorder, have no correlation with violent behavior at

Since the late 1970’s, there has been a strong correlation between mental health disorders and the perpetrators of mass shootings. “Up to 60% of the perpetrators have displayed symptoms including acute paranoia, delusions and depression before committing their crimes” (Metzl & Macleish, 2015). In the case of Adam Lanza, infamously known for the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, the history of his mental illnesses is quite extensive. However, it has been discovered that when it comes to mental illnesses, it is not influenced by one factor, but rather many factors that have integrated into the individual’s life (Sue, 2014). These factors began affecting Lanza’s life at only two years old, continuing throughout his lifetime until his heinous act of murder at the age of twenty. Throughout his