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It is a can worth opening, in no small part because Black people are 4x more likely to be schizophrenic. Schizophrenia in men leads to significantly higher rates of violent crime.
Thankfully, that psychosis does not translate to more mass shootings. Only about 10% of mass shootings are attributable to psychosis. It's possible that psychosis makes it harder to plan and execute a mass shooting. But that's my color commentary.
I'm not a fan of the 2nd amendment, and won't pretend to feel this conundrum as viscerally as you, or at all. But, 'crazy people shouldn't have guns' seems like an easy concession. I don't buy into slippery slope arguments. Afaik, 'First they came for the crazy people' isn't part of the original quote.
Guns aren't essential. They're somewhere between a hobby and a worst case backup if something crazy happens. For one, no one is entitled to a hobby. Second, if you've been institutionalized or are psychotic, then that 'something crazy' is YOU.
Psychosis does not equal schizophrenia. Men with schizophrenia are indeed more likely than the sane to commit violence - 4 to 7 times more likely depending on your source - but the absolute risk is actually very low - 1 in 4 schizophrenic men are likely to be involved in violent crime and schizophrenics make up about 0.3 percent of the population.
On top of that you have the fact that the vast majority of that 4 to 7 increase is by schizophrenics with substance abuse problems. Which makes sense when you understand the critical factors that separate schizophrenia from garden variety drug induced psychosis - the negative symptoms. It's actually really hard to summon the interest to violently assault someone when you spend most of your time in a state where you can barely summon the energy to give a shit about eating. When getting angry at a guy who cut you off in traffic feels like a lot of effort. When watching TV or doomscrolling feels like a chore.
That said, I agree with your overall argument, crazy people shouldn't have guns. But also, saying you don't buy into slippery slope arguments is like saying you don't go for this 'multiplication' the kids are doing, the world is shaped by patterns whether you buy into them or not.
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It may not be part of the quote, but it sure was part of the process.
In 19th century America, being a slave who did not want to be enslaved was considered to be a mental disorder called drapetomania. In modern society, this would mean that a desire to be a human and not property would cost you your right to bear arms.
Fast forward to the Soviet era, where disagreement with communist politics would lead to being diagnosed with sluggish schizophrenia, because no sane person would object to the Glorious Dialectic. In modern society, having misgivings about liquidating the kulaks would cost you your right to bear arms.
As late as the 1960s, police arrested Clennon King for having the audacity to try and attend college while black and confined him to a mental institution. In modern society, this would have cost him his right to bear arms.
Where do you think the line is? Do you find any of those acceptable? If not, how do you prevent those abuses under the framework that you espouse above?
None of these people had the right to bear arms anyways. Mental illness being used as a tool against those society has already decided to repress doesn’t affect the rest of us much; there’d just be some other weapon used.
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Your link is for 10% is broken.
Since there’s significant debate over the threshold for “mass shooting”, is it possible that statistic is using a pretty low minimum? I would expect the percentage involving psychosis to go up a lot with casualty count.
I also think there’s a categorical difference between spontaneous violence and ideological shootings.
I did find another paper by that org that says they were using a standard definition of 4 victims not including the shooter.
https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/nij-special-report-public-mass-shootings-research
Same paper: The 5-year running average for such events hovers around 5-6 incidents per year. And apparently the most common location is at workplaces, so more of a "going postal" situation.
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Do you think 10% of the population is psychotic?
No, but if all psychotic crazies magically disappeared, then then mass-shootings would only go down by 10%.
It implies that the primary reason for mass-shootings in the US is not schizophrenia. And therefore, black people's higher vulnerability towards Schizophrenia isn't significantly affecting mass-shootings in the US.
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