After every mass shooting, a number of politicians and pundits highlight the need for better mental healthcare in American society as a way to hedge against future incidents. But according to the authors of the book Gun Violence and Mental Illness, less than 5% of such shootings are actually perpetrated by someone with a psychiatric disorder—or at least one that can be diagnosed.
The psychological profile for a mass shooter is usually an angry young man who’s socially isolated. The Parkland, Florida shooter fits the profile. Not only was Nikolas Cruz 19 and marginalized, he’d been referred to authorities for violent threats several times and had amassed a cache of weapons. Yet, he had never been diagnosed with any sort of mental illness.
The Las Vegas shooting that occurred last October — the largest in American history — saw 58 dead and over 500 injured. It was perpetrated by a 64-year-old with no criminal background or history of mental illness. Stephen Paddock was well off, had a relatively normal social life, and wasn’t considered angry or disturbed by anyone who knew him.
Professor Matthew Miller at Northeastern University has written several papers on gun violence. He said that if a psychiatric disorder was the main driver, the high number of mass shootings in the U.S. would mean an exceptionally large mentally ill population. Rather, it has about the same rate of mental illness as other developed countries, like those of Western Europe for example.
Someone with mental illness is far more likely to be the victim of a shooting than the perpetrator. Credit: Getty Images.
Thirty years of solid research points to no link between mental illness and gun violence. In 2015, ProPublica interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Swanson, a psychology and behavioral sciences professor at Duke University School of Medicine and one of the leading experts on mental illness and violence. According to Dr. Swanson, schizophrenia, bipolar, and depression combined only account for about 4% of all cases of violence in the US annually. “The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent and never will be,” he said.
A report written by Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox found that between 1966 and 2015, only 14.8% of mass shootings were carried out by a known psychotic. Another study found that just 23% of all mass killers were mentally ill. Improving mental health care could help loads of people in the U.S., and should be a national priority. But it’s not going to stop all mass shootings.
Only 4% of all interpersonal violence committed annually in America can be attributed to a psychiatric disorder. And in fact, the mentally ill commit less than 1% of all gun violence each year. Columbia University forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone keeps a database on mass shootings. As of 2015, out of 235 incidents, only 52 were perpetrated by someone diagnosed with a mental illness, just 22% of the total.
The data is clear. Those with a psychiatric condition are more likely to be the victim of gun violence than the perpetrator. As such, expanded firearm restrictions or background checks for the mentally ill will be ineffective in stopping gun rampages. Risk factors for the kind of violence that happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High include a history of child abuse, substance abuse, and living or growing up in a violent environment. One doesn’t have to be schizophrenic or bipolar to experience such things.
Broadly limiting access to guns in the US would be effective but remains highly controversial. Credit: Getty Images.
President Trump has raised the idea of resurrecting mental health hospitals, but advocates and patients say such an act would more likely infringe on the rights of our most vulnerable, and make them susceptible to inhumane conditions and abuse. Following mental health records won’t do the trick, either. Not only is it unfair and irrelevant, there’s a problem with noteworthy mental health issues being recorded or even reported.
What complicates things further is the understanding that in psychology there isn’t even a standard use of the phrase “mentally ill.” Professor Stone writes in his 2015 report, “Not all who use the term use it in the same way, not even within the field of psychiatry, let alone within the much wider public sphere.” It’s also difficult to diagnose psychopathy. Note that psychopaths only make up about 1% of the population. The same with schizophrenics, just 1%. And sadism even among these conditions is rare.
The profile of a mass shooter is a male prone to grudges. Besides being an outcast and a likely victim of child abuse, he’s a substance abuser and lives in a violent place or has in the past. Usually paranoid and disgruntled, he takes time to plan and carries out his killing spree as an act of revenge against those he feels slighted him. The shooter never reflects on what he’s done wrong in his life, but instead harbors feelings of superiority over his victims and blames them for his woes. Still, there’s an overwhelming hopelessness in such an act, and most mass shooters commit suicide or are killed by police in the aftermath.
Without broadly limiting access to guns in the U.S., which is highly controversial, Dr. Swanson suggests that perhaps a better way would be to scan for those who have a history of violence. A restraining order, a DUI or DWI, or a conviction for a violent act would set off a red flag. Enough of these would trigger a firearm restraining order, which is when one's guns are taken away by the authorities. But such a system could only be effective if a constellation of community workers, such as police, teachers, social workers, and mental health professionals, and even federal authorities like the FBI, cooperate closely to notice someone with a series of red flags and take the appropriate measures.
To learn more about mass shootings and mental illness, click here.
An artist's depiction of Lola.
Five thousand and seven hundred years ago, "Lola" — a blue-eyed woman with dark skin and hair — was chewing on a piece of pitch derived from heating birch bark. Then, this women spit her chewing gum out into the mud on an island in Denmark that we call Syltholm today, where it was unearthed by archaeologists thousands of years later. A genetic analysis of the chewing gum has provided us with a wealth of information on this nearly six-thousand-year-old Violet Beauregarde.
This represents the first time that the human genome has been extracted from material such as this. "It is amazing to have gotten a complete ancient human genome from anything other than bone," said lead researcher Hannes Schroeder in a statement.
"What is more," he added, "we also retrieved DNA from oral microbes and several important human pathogens, which makes this a very valuable source of ancient DNA, especially for time periods where we have no human remains."
In the pitch, researchers identified the DNA of the Epstein-Barr virus, which infects about 90 percent of adults. They also found DNA belonging to hazelnuts and mallards, which were likely the most recent meal that Lola had eaten before spitting out her chewing gum.
Insights into ancient peoples
The birch pitch was found on the island of Lolland (the inspiration for Lola's name) at a site called Syltholm. "Syltholm is completely unique," said Theis Jensen, who worked on the study for his PhD. "Almost everything is sealed in mud, which means that the preservation of organic remains is absolutely phenomenal.
"It is the biggest Stone Age site in Denmark and the archaeological finds suggest that the people who occupied the site were heavily exploiting wild resources well into the Neolithic, which is the period when farming and domesticated animals were first introduced into southern Scandinavia."
Since Lola's genome doesn't show any of the markers associated with the agricultural populations that had begun to appear in this region around her time, she provides evidence for a growing idea that hunter-gatherers persisted alongside agricultural communities in northern Europe longer than previously thought.
Her genome supports additional theories on northern European peoples. For example, her dark skin bolsters the idea that northern populations only recently acquired their light-skinned adaptation to the low sunlight in the winter months. She was also lactose intolerant, which researchers believe was the norm for most humans prior to the agricultural revolution. Most mammals lose their tolerance for lactose once they've weaned off of their mother's milk, but once humans began keeping cows, goats, and other dairy animals, their tolerance for lactose persisted into adulthood. As a descendent of hunter-gatherers, Lola wouldn't have needed this adaptation.
A hardworking piece of gum
A photo of the birch pitch used as chewing gum.
Theis Jensen
These findings are encouraging for researchers focusing on ancient peoples from this part of the world. Before this study, ancient genomes were really only ever recovered from human remains, but now, scientists have another tool in their kit. Birch pitch is commonly found in archaeological sites, often with tooth imprints.
Ancient peoples used and chewed on birch pitch for a variety of reasons. It was commonly heated up to make it pliable, enabling it to be molded as an adhesive or hafting agent before it settled. Chewing the pitch may have kept it pliable as it cooled down. It also contains a natural antiseptic, and so chewing birch pitch may have been a folk medicine for dental issues. And, considering that we chew gum today for no other reason than to pass the time, it may be that ancient peoples chewed pitch for fun.
Whatever their reasons, chewed and discarded pieces of birch pitch offer us the mind-boggling option of learning what someone several thousands of years ago ate for lunch, or what the color of their hair was, their health, where their ancestors came from, and more. It's an unlikely treasure trove of information to be found in a mere piece of gum.
Dumpster-diving trash parrots
In a study about these smart birds just published in Science, researchers define animal culture as "population-specific behaviors acquired via social learning from knowledgeable individuals."
Co-lead author of the study Barbara Klump of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany says, "[C]ompared to humans, there are few known examples of animals learning from each other. Demonstrating that food scavenging behavior is not due to genetics is a challenge."
An opportunity presented itself in a video that co-author Richard Major of the Australian Museum shared with Klump and the other co-authors. In the video, a sulphur-crested cockatoo used its beak to pull up the handle of a closed garbage bin — using its foot as a wedge — and then walked back the lid sufficiently to flip it open, exposing the bin's edible contents.
Major has been studying Cacatua galerita for 20 years and says, "Like many Australian birds, sulphur-crested cockatoos are loud and aggressive." The study describes them as a "large-brained, long-lived, and highly social parrot." Says Major, "They are also incredibly smart, persistent, and have adapted brilliantly to living with humans."
(Research regarding some of the ways in which wild animals adapt to the presence of humans has already produced some fascinating results and is ongoing.)Clever cockie opens bin - 01 youtu.be
The researchers became curious about how widespread this behavior might be and saw a research opportunity. After all, says John Martin, a researcher at Taronga Conservation Society, "Australian garbage bins have a uniform design across the country, and sulphur-crested cockatoos are common across the entire east coast."
Martin continues, "In 2018, we launched an online survey in various areas across Sydney and Australia with questions such as, 'What area are you from, have you seen this behavior before, and if so, when?'"
Word gets around
Credit: magspace/Adobe Stock
Although the cockatoos' maneuver was reported in only three suburbs before 2018, by the end of 2019, people in 44 areas reported observing the behavior. Clearly, more and more cockatoos were learning how to successfully dumpster dive.
As further proof, says Klump, "We observed that the birds do not open the garbage bins in the same way, but rather used different opening techniques in different suburbs, suggesting that the behavior is learned by observing others." One individual bird in north Sydney invented its own method, and the scientists saw it grow in popularity throughout the local population.
To track individual birds, the researchers marked 500 cockatoos with small red dots. Subsequent observations revealed that not all cockatoos are bin-openers. Only about 10 percent of them are, and they are mostly males. The other cockatoos apparently restrict their education to a different lesson: hang around with a bin-opener, and you will get supper.
Thanks to the surveys, the researchers consider the entire project to be a valuable citizen-science experiment. "By studying this behavior with the help of local residents, we are uncovering the unique and complex cultures of their neighborhood birds."
