General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: MENTALLY ILL MENTALLY ILL MENTALLY ILL [View all]HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Both groups contain more than 70 million Americans.
The risk of 6 mass shootings among each of these groups is less than 0.0001% per individual
Literally scores of millions of people in both groups are fully law abiding decent people who are of no risk to society.
Since that argument works for both groups but is only seen as legitimate for gun owners, it appears something else is at work. Fear of the mentally ill? Need for a diversion?
Every mass shooting was done by a person with a gun. Something around 80% are done by the person who legally purchased the weapon.
About 54% of the mass shootings since 1982 are associated with a diagnosed or suspected mentally ill person.
The problem is that the above mentioned conditioned risks drawn from data associated with mass shootings are GREAT for profiling who did these terrible things and yet these conditioned risks are nearly worthless in terms of identifying who among scores of millions of people might do these things. There are HUGE numbers of false positives that will require sorting through.
If bringing gun deaths to zero is society's determined goal, LOTS of people are going to be treated with the suspicion that they are potential killers, not just the mentally ill.