James Dudley, MAS Criminology, retired after 32 years with the San Francisco Police Department as the Deputy Chief of Operations. He is a Lecturer in Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University and is a police practices and security consultant.

The gun lobby and the mental health community have teamed up to deny the obvious—that it’s reckless to allow the severely mentally ill to own firearms. There already are signs that Umpqua Community College shooter Chris Harper-Mercer, who killed 10 and injured nine others in Oregon last Thursday, suffered from mental illness. The first clue is the alias he used on some social media sites, “lithium_love.” The drug Lithium is commonly used to treat bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression. While that is far from hard proof, Harper-Mercer’s mother also admitted her son was “dealing with some mental issues,” according to a neighbor.

Though it’s too early to state definitively that Harper-Mercer was severely mentally ill, it would be unsurprising if he were. While the severely mentally ill commit only a tiny fraction of violent crimes, an FBI study from last year found that mental illness is frequently a factor in shootings with the highest number of fatalities. And all too often, the laws on the books fail to bar these individuals from purchasing weapons used to carry out their deadly acts. An outsized number of these high-casualty shootings have occurred in states like Ohio, Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia, where more lenient gun laws make it easier for the mentally ill to obtain firearms.


The link between mental illness and shooting sprees hasn’t been proven conclusively, but that’s arguably because Congress has severely limited research on the subject. The lack of scientific studies is the result of a 1996 act specifically intended to restrict research that could be used for gun control purposes. Since the 1996 congressional mandate, CDC funding for firearm-related violence studies has dropped from $2.7 million in 1995 to almost zero in 2013. Congress extended this ban in the wake of the massacre in a Charleston, South Carolina, church, that left nine people were dead.

It was only Mother Jones that directly investigated the connection between mental illness and gun violence. The article, “The Guide to Mass Shootings in America,” highlighted high-profile and prolific active shooters who suffered from severe mental illness. The study examined 62 mass shootings in America from 1982 to 2012. Of the 143 firearms used by the perpetrators, more than 75 percent of the guns were legally obtained. Of those who were active shooters, the article notes, “a majority was mentally troubled—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill.”

The National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration caution against creating special laws aimed at the mentally ill, including laws related to gun violence. SAMHSA indicated that subjecting the mentally ill to extra scrutiny perpetuates the misconception that the mentally ill are especially violent. This stigma, mental health professionals warn, increases the tendency of the mentally ill to avoid treatment and counseling. Though this is a valid concern, the safety of the public must be weighed against it.

NAMI President Ingrid Waldron admitted in a report that about “10 [percent] to 20 percent of all homicides are committed by people with major mental illness.” Waldron went on to estimate that, “for multiple-victim homicides in public locations, it appears that at least half are committed by people with major mental illness.” Waldron downplays these findings by noting that such shootings “account for only one of a thousand in all homicide deaths” and by pointing out that the vast majority of the mentally ill are nonviolent.

This is a common debate tactic used by mental health organizations. In essence, they say that increased stigmatization of the mentally ill is a bigger worry than addressing the few who should be denied firearms. That logic seems flawed in light of the recent spike in mass-casualty shootings—from one in 2000 to a high of 26 incidents in 2010. The number of casualties climbed as well, with reports of seven injured or killed in 2000 to 208 injured or killed in 2012. Mental illness played a significant role in several of these tragedies.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 restricts sales of firearms to mentally ill individuals, defined as “an individual who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution.” But there are loopholes and gaps within the act so that it effectively bars very few mentally ill individuals from possessing firearms. Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group founded by Gabrielle Giffords after a mentally ill gunman shot Arizona congresswoman, found that the law “required the prospective purchaser to, in effect, police his own eligibility.”

There also are gaps and problems with the 1993 Brady Law Act, which mandated a criminal and mental health background check before the purchase of a firearm. The number of individuals in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with a mental illness commitment is listed at 235,000 when FBI records estimate that there are 2.7 million involuntary mental health commitments. Having less than 10 percent of the mentally ill population in the database clearly is inadequate. Congress’ failure to require record submissions from all states, privacy objections by states and lack of funding, resources and technology support all exacerbate the problem.

In general, to deny access of firearms to the mentally ill, one must be “deemed mentally incompetent or those involuntarily institutionalized for mental illness.” This national standard is adhered to by more than half of the states. Due to the weakness of this definition, in many states nearly anyone can walk into a gun shop, purchase a firearm and exit the store almost immediately.



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On July 20, 2012, at a midnight showing of The Dark Night Rises in Aurora, Colorado, James Holmes used two Glock semi-automatic pistols, a semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun to kill 12 moviegoers and injure 70 others. It’s little surprise that this tragedy occurred in a state like Colorado, which has relatively lax gun-control laws—rather than in California, which has much stricter controls on firearm possession by the severely mentally ill.

Holmes, who was convicted recently of 24 counts of murder and 140 counts of attempted murder, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is serving a life sentence. But he faced no counts for unlawful possession of firearms. Despite his history of mental illness, no law prohibited Holmes from purchasing the guns he used to carry out his crimes. This is hardly unusual—studies show that most of the firearms used in rampages by mentally ill gunmen were legally obtained. For instance, the perpetrators of the Virginia Tech, Santa Barbara and Tucson shootings were all allowed to purchase guns.

California has had better success in rejecting documented sales to mentally ill gun buyers than most states, according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives statistics. The state has added an additional nine safeguards above the national standard to prevent mentally ill individuals from purchasing or possessing firearms. Those safeguards include a stringent background investigation, waiting period before purchase and guidelines on interstate sales purchase and transport. Undoubtedly these strategies create stumbling blocks for unlawful prospective gun purchasers including felons, gang members and the mentally ill.

Those laws earned California top honors on the 2014 Annual Gun Law State Scorecard, produced by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. California led all others in large part because of its ability to track gun sales and limit gun purchases by those ineligible to possess firearms (including the mentally ill, convicted felons and domestic violence convicted offenders). By comparison, 23 states received “F” grades for failure to provide adequate safeguards in preventing gun-related violence. Many of the states were criticized for their lack of background checks, a common gateway to firearms possession by the mentally ill.

Beyond gun-control laws, mental health-related laws such as “Laura’s Law” have allowed law enforcement and mental health professional to act before a violent incident involving a mentally ill individual. The law gives authority to relatives and caregivers to report unstable individuals and forced them into treatment. Most states detain individuals with mental illness for involuntary custody only if they exhibit signs of being a danger to self, a danger to others or are gravely disabled. California has successfully championed involuntary commitments beyond these minimum guidelines. Treatment of the mentally ill is also a high priority in California in comparison with several other states. Funding of total dollars in California for mental illness issues exceeds all other states except for New York.

The combination of stricter gun laws and an emphasis on treatment has saved lives in California. Studies by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show that states with better gun controls typically have lower gun-related death rates. In the report for 2014, California ranked 42 of the 50 states in gun-related deaths. Other states would do well to follow its example.



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In the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, 33 were killed and 15 injured. In the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, 27 were killed. In the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others in Tucson, Arizona, six were killed and 12 wounded. And in the 2012 movie theater shootings of several patrons in Aurora Colorado, 12 were killed and 70 were injured.

Certainly, in regards to these four shootings, something should have been done to keep the four men with previously diagnosed mental illness from obtaining firearms. By adopting the standards of California in regards to denying access to the mentally ill from legally acquiring firearms, the deaths of 80 individuals could have been avoided in those four incidents alone. Another 97 injured victims may have avoided trauma and anguish.

The way forward seems simple: Create a national database that lists those deemed to have severe mental illness, whether involuntarily detained or otherwise and require all firearms purchasers to be checked in the system. The system should apply to all purchases, including professional firearms dealers, private party sales and even sales between friends and family members. California employs such a system and the number of mass casualty incidents as a result of severely mentally ill offenders with legally obtained firearms is very low compared with the rest of the country.

The policy should be adopted by all 50 states with oversight and compliance checks conducted by the FBI. Annual reports should be mandatory with financial incentives and sanctions implemented to ensure compliance. The California policy should be adopted as the best practice model. Mental health professionals should be required to report all voluntary and involuntary commitments, including 72-hour crisis detentions. Patients making violent threats and those under the care of a psychiatrist for violent tendencies should be entered into the database as well. Finally, Congress should repeal the funding restriction and appropriate a budget to allow firearms related violence research to be conducted by the Centers for Disease Congrol and the National Institutes of Health with special attention given to firearms violence perpetrated by the severely mentally ill.

The opponents to such a national database are many. Several mental health professionals claim that any laws aimed specifically at the mentally ill will only create a worse problem in that those requiring mental health assistance in crisis will not seek services out of fear of stigmatization. Opponents of gun control of any kind often cite the United States Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment, as a rationale against new firearm restrictions.

Yet the shootings continue. After each heinous mass shooting by an unstable individual, there is speculation that change is coming. Let’s hope that the tragedy in Oregon is the event that finally makes America enact common sense laws keeping guns out of the hands of the severely mentally ill.