In recent years, gun violence has been on the rise, especially in the United States. There have been more cases of mass shootings, school shootings, and innocent people losing their lives in the crossfire. People everywhere are consumed by fear, not knowing if or when their lives will change due to gun violence. Along with these tragedies come heated debates regarding where they stem from and ways to avoid the issue. With more and more lives affected each day, more concerns emerge in the public regarding both personal and societal safety. Yet while many share these concerns and criticize others for the violence, officials sit back and do little to rectify it. Gun legislation and restrictions, or lack thereof, are the driving factors behind the monumental presence of violence. Legislation regarding guns began in 1934, when the National Firearms Act passed, encouraged by the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929. Since then, tragedies have shaped gun laws, yet recently it seems that all changes have halted. The United States has replaced beneficial change with prolonged arguments and debates, and has ceased moving forward. It is crucial that both U.S. citizens and legislation understand the effects of gun violence and with the new understanding, create stricter gun laws to more specifically cater to what the society needs. Everything in life grows and evolves, and it is necessary that gun laws do the same.

Similarly to gun violence, mental health is an aspect that guides personal and societal activities. Mental health is one's emotional, psychological, and social wellness. It can affect the way people think and act. Ties are often made between mental health and gun violence. Debates regarding the link are becoming more and more common as gun violence increases. However many of the links suggested are faulty or inaccurate. An investigation of mental health within gun violence and legislation illustrates that while these topics are often intertwined, mental illness is falsely accused as a leading cause of gun violence because of the wish to deflect public outrage regarding mass shootings, false diagnoses when there are a variety of factors involved with violence, and overemphasis through the media. These factors are detrimental to individual and community health, and the only way to avoid unnecessary violence is to tighten gun restrictions for everyone, not just the mentally impaired.

As citizens of the US, it is critical that everyone understand the true issues with regards to gun violence and the need for legislation to tighten gun restrictions. From today's politics to everyday conversations, gun violence is at the forefront of people's minds. Gun violence has been a long pressing issue in the United States, with the first gun legislation act enacted in 1934 and evolving since then. But it seems as though the country has hit a wall regarding change and is instead debating, arguing, and not moving forward. Yet incidences are still occurring, more than ever, and more and more blame is placed upon certain groups of people. Currently, the blame is held on people with mental illnesses. In reality, it began in 1968 when the first gun control act prohibited the sale of weapons to those “mentally incompetent”. It created a stronger definition of who could and could not possess firearms. But recently, the link between mental illness and gun violence has been blown out of proportion. Current approaches to gun violence serve to make individuals into scapegoats rather than addressing the complexities and societal causes regarding gun violence. It is crucial that all citizens of the US understands the true issue at hand and the need for stricter gun laws. In the article, Why Improved Mental Health Care Alone Will Not Stop Gun Violence, authors Jonathan Spiegler and Jacob Smith argue that while many link mental illness and gun violence as cause and consequence, evidence suggests that by only adjusting laws to prohibit those mentally impaired to purchase firearms will not solve the monumental issue at hand. Through much data analysis, researchers determined that “strict gun laws alone were strongly correlated with fewer gun deaths”, yet restrictions regarding mental illness and access to more health services “have no significant effect on the number of gun fatalities” (Spiegler and Smith). Furthermore, states that had both strict gun control laws and residents with easy access to mental health resources had far less gun related deaths than states with only easy access to health care (Spiegler and Smith). While access to mental health care is vital in many aspects of citizens lives, it does not have the power to stop gun violence. The issue at hand is far greater than taking away people with mental illnesses firearms. Legislation must be altered in order to provide the whole country with safety. The authors also assert that it is extremely difficult to cater to gun laws specific to mental illness. They acknowledge that in order to legally seize a person's guns due to mental illness, the person must be “committed to a mental institution or declared mentally incompetent by a court” (Spiegler and Smith). Even with the inaccuracy of creating laws specific to only mental illness within gun violence, laws are debated and passed which hope to take away any firearms in possession of those with mental illnesses. These laws are hard to follow through with as many people with these illnesses have not been “declared incompetent” in a court. Even if mental illness was a leading cause in gun violence, these specific laws to prevent deaths after guns are purchased are likely to fail in many cases. Mental illness has long been used to blame for gun violence. But as these false accusations become more and more common, issues worsen and become more pressing. If the US continues the current trend, more and more shootings will occur. It is clearly time for a change. Time for tighter gun restrictions. Citizens of the US deserve a new sense of safety.

When a tragic event of gun violence occurs, gun legislation is evaluated and argued upon often causing mental illness to be falsely accused to lessen the blame of lack of gun control and divert outrage. In the article, Mental Illness and Gun Laws: What You May Not Know About the Complexities, author Arash Javanbakht contends that mental illness is not the leading cause of gun violence and has been falsely used as the primary source to ease the minds of the masses. He argues that a negative mental health diagnosis is often used as an excuse for mass shootings, often before a legitimate diagnosis is even made. It has been “scapegoated to deflect public outrage about access to assault rifles that can kill tens of people in a matter of minutes”(Javanbakht). Words such as “crazy,” “nuts” and “maniac” circulate around the courtroom before even a visit to a psychiatrist (Javanbakht). As humans, when a tragedy occurs, people look to find an excuse, something to put the blame on. In court cases regarding gun violence, mental illness is used to lessen the blame of lack of gun control and downplay the immediate need for change. Even before an individual is evaluated to see if they have a mental illness, they are labeled, often inaccurately, to draw attention to an extremely minute area within gun violence, rather than combating the issue as a whole. The false blame dramatically takes the responsibility away from congress/legislation to alter gun laws for the public. Javanbakht further asserts his claim by providing statistics, unveiling the truth behind mental health and gun violence. He claims that “even among the 1 percent of the U.S. population with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, it is rare to find people who are a risk of harm to others or at risk of acting violently”(Javanbakht). Although there is a widespread belief that someone with serious mental illness is dangerous, less than 4 percent of all violent acts committed in a year in the U.S. are committed by people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness (Javanbakht). It is far too common for the blame of gun violence to be put on mental illnesses. When looking at the true statistics, it can clearly be seen that most people with presumed “dangerous” mental illnesses, are not a likely threat. Instead, anybody has the capability of using violence with their weapons, and is not something that can be so easily avoided. By falsely inculpating today's high numbers of gun violence on people with mental illnesses, the country attempts to minimize the amount of outrage among citizens and avoids finding and fixing the true root of these issues. Even though mentally ill act no more violently than others, it is a common belief otherwise, leading to ideas on tightening gun restrictions for just these people. However, gun legislation as a whole needs to be tightened in order to minimize the malicious effects.

There are numerous factors that play into gun violence and claiming that it primarily stems from mental illness is inaccurate. Through her article Mental Illness and Gun Violence: Disrupting the Narrative, Emma E. McGinty, with a PhD in psychiatry, asserts that there are a variety of factors that influence gun violence and that by placing the blame on mental illness is in most cases, far from the truth. The author provides statistics that proves mental illness does not always lead to gun violence: “the 12-month prevalence of any violent behavior was .8% among people with no mental illness, 1.7% among people with any mental illness, and 2% among people with serious mental illness”(McGinty). Yet all of these estimates excluded people with other contributing factors, such substance use disorder, which increases risk of violence among people with and without mental illness. In fact, the population-attributable risk of violence associated with mental illness is 4%, meaning 96% of all gun violence incidents in the United States are caused by other factors (McGinty). Mental illness if falsely framed for the leading cause of gun violence, when there are so many more factors currently ignored within legislation. Substance use is highly linked with violence, as well as anger, impulsivity, and past experiences of trauma. Poverty, low education, and issues regarding discrimination are also high contributors to gun violence in the US. With all these factors present, the chances of selling a firearm to a potentially dangerous person is extremely high. The reality is that it is impossible to eliminate all of these factors, but it is entirely possible to tighten legislation to make incidences of gun violence far less common. The one common risk factor between the previously listed components, that draws a clear line in the sand between life and death, is access to guns. McGinty further argues that these false assumptions prompt debates and once again divert attention away from the root issue. The gun rights group National Rifle Association (NRA) propagates mental illness focused messages in attempts to redirect public attention and distract them from the role that easy access to guns plays in gun violence (McGinty). Groups such as the NRA advocate for “improving the mental health system as an alternative to strengthening gun restrictions”(McGinty). As a society, people want to find quick fixes to issues, meaning often when there is not one available, they make up a way not to fix it, but to forget about it. Mental illness is a source of blame to divert public attention away from the true problem at hand, the faulty legislation. Groups which advocate the rights stated in the Second Amendment propose improving the mental health system and providing more accessible care as a way to combat gun violence. It is true that mental illnesses do not receive the amount of support it needs and that improving health care would be a step in the right direction, but for a completely separate issue. All that really happens is people working around the true issue of the necessity of gun law reformation and finds poor alternatives to lowering gun violence. The distinction between mental illness and mental wellness is often blurry which creates issues when regarding gun violence. Violence is commonly used as a way to falsely diagnose a person with a mental illness, when in fact, there are many factors that contribute to gun violence, and mental illness as a risk is low. It is nearly impossible to eliminate all of the factors, but it is entirely feasible to tighten legislation to make incidences of gun violence less common.

After incidences such as mass shootings, the media often overemphasizes negative effects of mental illness within the violence, harming both the individual and the community. Through his article, Mental Health and Gun Violence, author Patrick Ross argues that creating false narratives for those with mental illnesses is all to common through media expression when regarding gun violence. He states that regardless of attempts to disrupt the stigmatization of mental illness, “media coverage of general mental health issues has declined over time, instead highlighting stories that link mental illness and violence” (Ross). Additionally, in the past twenty years, news reports have become far more likely to discuss mental illness while reporting on gun violence stories. Furthermore, “reports mention mental illness as a possible cause for a mass shooting far more often than is actually the case” (Ross). Many aspects of people who have mental illnesses lives are ignored within society. Yet the moment a gun tragedy occurs, mental illness is seen in every newspaper headline. The media's exaggeration of role of mental illness within gun violence causes mental health to be cast in a negative light, and assumptions arise regarding people with these issues. Furthermore, Ross asserts that the media's portrayal of mental illnesses lessens support of both proposals to provide better mental health care as well as those to tighten gun laws within legislation. Casting mental health in such a negative light, associating it to deadly violence, “makes people less likely to support proposals to strengthen mental health care” as well as stricter gun laws. These castigations have even been codified: “the federal regulation prohibiting the sale of weapons or ammunition to people who are mentally ill uses the language ‘those adjudicated as a mental defective’” (Ross). The example of US Code § 922 proves the inaccuracy of gun legislation. By listening to false facts regarding the correlation between mental health and gun violence, some laws have been passed to restrict sales to people who are “mentally defective”. Yet it does not move legislation forward. While it may appease the public, it does not confront the true root issues, everyone's access to weapons, but instead provides a sense of false safety, discouraging gun laws to move forward. After a tragedy, people all over the country find a sense of peace in the idea that only a person with a mental illness could cause so much destruction. And through the media's overemphasis of that issue, stereotypes are created, drawing the country even further apart. Communities are torn apart and gun legislation does not move forward. These false accusations may seem like a solution to gun violence but it really worsens it, making it difficult for gun laws to evolve and actually benefit the country.

Many members of society believe that mental illness is almost exclusively at fault when it comes to gun violence, leading not only to ignorance, but faulty laws to be pushed. In a contrary article, Warning Shots, the author Patricia Smith argues that current gun restrictions are not strict enough when regarding mental health. Anyone with a mental illness, can simply walk into a store and purchase both guns and ammunition. Jared Loughner was an American who pled guilty to charges of murder and in connection with the Tucson Arizona mass shooting. It was later ruled that he had suffered from schizophrenia. Through his example, the author argues that it is a clear indication that something needs to be done about people with mental illnesses purchasing firearms. She states that he “was able to walk into a Sportsman's Warehouse store in Tucson on… and legally buy a semi automatic Glock pistol… he was also able to buy high-capacity ammunition clips at Walmart - perfectly legally” (Smith). The author argues that mental illness is a leading cause of gun violence and that these factors are not taken into account when purchasing firearms. The example of Jared Loughner is used to demonstrate that little is done to ensure the mental stability of those purchasing firearms, and that the process of purchasing these weapons is far too simple. If there had been stricter laws, the situation and death of 6 people would have been avoided. Smith encourages us to move forward and tighten gun control by creating tests to examine mental health. On the other hand, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has constructed a journal, Preventive Medicine, which asserts that mental illness does not lead gun violence, but rather, guns do. The journal clearly states that  of the limited research on gun violence and mental illness, most of it has focused on violence among individuals with severe mental illnesses or rates of mental illness among those who have been arrested for violent crimes. They have found that “the link between mental illness and gun violence is not there" (University of Texas Medical Branch). There has been close to no research done to clarify the often presumed relationship of gun violence and mental illness, and what has been conducted only focussed on people with illnesses who were acting violently, disregarding those who lead completely normal lives. Saying that mental illness is a leading cause of gun violence is gravely inaccurate. Furthermore, the article sheds light on the fact that those who have access to guns, compared to those with no easy access, were over 18 times more likely to have threatened someone with a gun, even with controlling a number of demographic and mental health variables. Most mental health symptoms were unrelated to gun violence (University of Texas Medical Branch). The real reason behind gun violence is easy access to weapons, for all people. Mentally ill or not, it is far too easy for one to purchase a weapon. People with easy access become a threat to society as they are far more likely to commit a violent act. People should not be concerned about someone with a mental illness owning a gun, but rather every member of the society owning a gun without proper background checks and restrictions. While author Patricia Smith was accurate when emphasizing the need for legislative change, she inaccurately narrowed the change onto people with mental health issues. Any person, mentally ill or not has the capability to purchase a destructive weapon. Legislation should be tightened for all people, not just those with mental imparities. It is common sense to limit everyone’s access to weapons with the potential of killing tens of people in a matter of minutes. Choosing who may or may not have access to them based on mental illness is extremely difficult and often ineffective in lowering rates of gun violence.

The presence of violence is all to common throughout the world. In every country, city, and town there is a form of violence, often undeniably harsh and unnecessary. But is violence ever necessary? Has there ever been an instance where violence has been able to accomplish more than good, than love? In my lifetime, there have been a number of deaths and injuries due to gun violence. And all that is caused is fear. No change, no alteration, just fear. Even legislation has seemed to halt, disregarding all acts of horror that have occurred thus far. I live in a country where gun violence is among the most prevalent in the world. And though I have never experienced gun violence first hand, I would be lying if I said it was not a long lasting concern, and not, more often than not, residing in my mind. Like most, I have been unaware, and honestly quite ignorant with regards to gun violence. I live in what people see as an urban paradise, nothing could go wrong right? It had never happened to me so why worry about it? But even living in a seemingly utopian society where everyone can nearly buy happiness, or at least what they perceive as happiness, an issue on its own, no one can buy safety. No one is immune to the current situation. Maybe you will not experience a death due to gun violence, but you will most definitely suffer with mental consequences. As a public school student, I have most definitely experienced these effects. I have been trained, as if a member of the military, to hide from possible threats. To push desks against the doors and windows, and hide without making a sound. And the procedure is not new. It has been a norm since I was in kindergarten. But should it be a norm? Of course not! Students should not expect that they will have to use these techniques in the future in order to to protect their own lives. And at age 5! To me that is absurd. I completely agree that if a tragic situation were to occur these practice runs would be extremely beneficial. Yet the prevalence of gun violence has made it seem as though it is a given that it will happen. My sophomore year of highschool, my class of 25 students and I were sitting in the yoga room in the center of campus. Relaxation soon turned to fear as a stern voice came over the loudspeaker informing us that we were entering lockdown and that students under no circumstances could leave. In reality, the situation was that a student was having a medical emergency, yet unknowing, I, including a majority of my class, assumed the worst. I expected to hear gunshots any minute. I feared for my life. The fact that gun violence is so present in today's society had so heavily ingrained itself in my mind that I was expecting it to occur. And many others feel the same way. Gun violence takes control of so many lives and even though I am lucky enough to not have had a direct experience with it, it still resides in my mind and the minds of many.

Gun violence must be altered for the benefit of the country. Through an accurate understanding of the intertwinement between mental illness and gun violence, one can see that while assumptions and accusations are made regarding these two areas, mental illness really poses a small threat with consideration of the issue of violence and instead slow the process of change. In order to minimize the negative effect that naturally go hand in hand with guns is to create stricter gun laws within legislation. It is necessary to put as many restrictions as possible on these weapons capable of such destruction. Nobody should have such easy access to something that can take so many peoples lives in just minutes. It is crucial that others understand and support the need for changes in order to ensure public safety. With so many terrorizing events and compelling evidence suggesting the need for change, why has our government hit such a wall? The public must come together and express their desire for change, for safety, for peace of mind. Nobody deserves to live in a state of fear, and with guns so easily accessible and such prevalent issue, everyone must encourage the change that the United States so desperately needs to see.

Works Cited

Javanbakht, Arash, and Arash Javanbakht. “Mental Illness and Gun Laws: What You May Not

    Know about the Complexities.” The Conversation, 6 Jan. 2019.

McGinty, Emma E. “Mental Illness and Gun Violence: Disrupting the Narrative.” Psychiatric Services, 20 June 2018.

Ross, Patrick. “Mental Health and Gun Violence.” Healthcare in America, Healthcare in America,19 Feb. 2018.

Smith, Patricia. "Warning Shots." New York Times Upfront, Feb. 2011, pp. 7+. SIRS Discoverer, Spiegler, Jonathan, and Jacob Smith. “Why Improved Mental Health Care Alone Will Not Stop

    Gun Violence.” Scholars Strategy Network, Scholars Strategy Network, 15 Oct. 2018,

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. "Mental illness not to blame for gun violence, study finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 February 2019