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Dozens of CA events this weekend honor Latino Conservation Week; Kamala Harris joins Oprah Winfrey in emotional campaign event; Report finds poor working conditions in Texas clean energy industry; AI puts on a lab coat, heads to technical schools.

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Rising threats of political violence, a Federal Reserve rate cut, crypto industry campaign contributions and reproductive rights are shaping today's political landscape.

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A USDA report shows a widening gap in rural versus urban health, a North Carolina county remains divided over a LGBTQ library display, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz' policies are spotlighted after his elevation to the Democratic presidential ticket.

Psychologist: Small Percentage of Gun Violence Linked to Mental Illness

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Tuesday, November 28, 2017   

SEATTLE – The latest mass shootings have led to calls for enhanced reporting of mental-health records, but mental-health experts say that would have little if any, impact.

News coverage of the November 14 shootings at a school in Rancho Tehama, California, focused on the shooter's mental history. President Donald Trump called the church shootings in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the week before "a mental-health problem."

But, according to Doctor Larry Davidson, a psychology professor at Yale University Medical School, only two-percent of gun violence is committed by people with a serious mental illness.

"The vast majority of people who commit such acts are very much in touch with reality; it's just a very painful reality that they're in touch with," he says. "It's not that they've lost their grounding in reality."

Advocates in the mental-health treatment community fear that statements linking mass shootings to mental health only serve to further stigmatize people with mental illness.

A 2016 report by the American Psychiatric Association suggests that focusing on behavior, coping skills and conflict resolution would be more effective. Davidson points out that people with serious mental illness are more "in danger" than dangerous.

"People with psychosis are much less likely to commit violence and are, in fact, much more likely to be victimized than to be perpetrators," he notes.

He says studies have shown that people with mental illness are 14 times more likely to be victims of violence than the average person.

Davidson notes that the incidence of mental illness is consistent from country to country, but there are far more mass shootings in the U.S. than any other developed nation.

"It's not that there are 40 times as many people with mental illness in the U.S. as in the U.K.; it's just that there's that much more easy access not just to guns but to military-style guns," he explains.

Following a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted strict gun-control laws. There hasn't been a single mass shooting in that country in 21 years.


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