“... if no one with a mental illness committed a 
violent act, we would still have 95-97 percent of 
the baseline level of violence,” Appelbaum said. 
“However you cut it, it looks as though we’re 
just talking about the tip of the iceberg in 
terms of problems of violence in our society, 
which raises the quite reasonable question as to 
why we’re so focused on the mentally ill?”

Not only is that focus a distraction, he adds, 
but it comes with the significant downside of 
further stigmatizing people with mental illness 
and confusing the public as to the notion that 
mental illness is a significant cause of violence in this country.

“To take an approach which has substantial costs 
­ the states are spending a lot of money on these 
databases ­ and implement it without any evidence 
suggesting that it’s likely to be effective, and 
in fact a good deal of inferential reason to 
believe that it’s not likely to be effective,” 
Appelbaum said, “is simply not good public policy.”

<http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/are-more-gun-laws-for-mentally-ill-off-target-26967/>http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/are-more-gun-laws-for-mentally-ill-off-target-26967/ 





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