(Sept. 26, 2014) “Active shooter incidents” have more than doubled over the last 14 years, according to a report released by the FBI Wednesday. While the FBI did not collect data on the cause of such incidents, previous studies of mass shootings suggest approximately half are related to untreated severe mental illness
An average of six shooting incidents occurred in the first seven years that were studied, the FBI’s report shows. That average rose to more than 16 per year in the last seven years of the study, including high-profile tragedies in Newtown, Aurora, Tucson and last year’s massacre at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC – all involving severe mental illness. (The report excluded domestic violence, drug and gang-related shootings).
“At the heart of the problem is the sheer number of people being failed by our nation’s mental illness treatment system and left untreated,” said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and a leading research psychiatrist focusing on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Previous studies of mass shootings show:
• A 1999 University of North Texas study identified 30 mass killings for which extensive information was available. Even though the killings took place over a 50-year period, 70% took place in the 22 years before the study was conducted. Twenty of the 30 perpetrators had definite or probable psychosis.
• A 2000 New York Times survey of 100 “rampage killings” between 1949 and 1999 found that 73 occurred in the nine years before the newspaper conducted its study. Half the killers had histories of serious mental illness.
• A 2012 Mother Jones survey found that nearly half of the mass shootings from 1982-2012 (29 of 62) took place in the most recent nine years. Seven of the killings took place in 2012 alone. According to their research and analysis, “at least 38 of the perpetrators displayed signs of possible mental health problems prior to the killings.”
(Read the backgrounder, “Are Mass Killings Associated with Untreated Mental Illness Increasing?”)
“Mass killings by individuals with severe mental illness are just one tragic symptom of a much larger problem,” Torrey continued. “Other tragedies occur daily. People with mental illness comprise one-third of the homeless population and there are now 10 times more people with a psychiatric disease in jail or prison than receiving treatment in a hospital.”
“This is preventable," the founder said. "Removing legal and other barriers to treatment will pay dividends for people living with untreated severe mental illness and their communities. As long as these barriers remain, tragedy in all its many forms will continue.”
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