Terror Is Not A Mental Disorder

Once again, America is faced with an unfathomable act of gun violence — and once again, like clockwork, the pundits and politicians are eager to blame the problem on “the mentally ill.”

“Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger. Not the gun,” Trump said this week.

This is factually and ethically wrong. I know this because of the plethora of available statistics on the issue, and because I have ADHD — a mental disorder— and a gun license in Massachusetts, which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country.

“The Mentally Ill” — aka, people with actual, diagnosable disorders of the brain — make up about 20% of the population. But they’re responsible for less than 5% of gun-related killings, which means they’re actually less violent than the average neurotypical (aka “normal”) person. In fact, they’re more likely to be victims than perpetrators of gun violence in the United States.