Brains, Bullets

I was on a UC Santa Cruz public forum panel last week, where we were discussing gun control (myself, Adam Winkler from UCLA Law, some out-gunned chap from the Brady Campaign, and a co-founder of the Liberal Gun Club (yes, they do exist).

While running through the various sources of gun deaths (62% of which are suicides and thus clearly a mental health issue) it occurred to me that your garden variety street gang member isn't mentally stable ... at very least a sociopath, and in many instances an utter psychopath.

So this link is to my opening investigations into this. If valid, then mental health becomes the common thread between suicides, rampage killings and even street crime. Might refocus the discussion.

Shooting someone for no good reason is crazy.

Insanity is the point.

Pouring through the statistics concerning gun deaths in America, we find that they all fall in several interesting groups, mainly suicides, rampage killings and criminal activities. These groups come to the fore because they either occur a lot, or the randomness of the events scares us to the point of requiring impromptu BVD exchanges.

sociopath gang tattooMost suicidal people are not mentally well. I say most because a few terminally ill folks, or those with debilitating medical conditions, decide with a clear mind that their daily physical torture is less desirable than a permanent dirt nap. A few more spontaneously exit the world under serious short-term stress. The rest typically suffer from some form of clinical depression. Many legally acquire a handgun (or already own one) and apply a single dose of rather effective lead-based medication.

As everyone – even Mother Jones Magazine – has observed, rampage killers are universally nuts, or damn close to being so. According to the Jones tally, about two thirds of rampage killers had histories of mental illness. The rest may have as well, but privacy laws and incomplete journalistic efforts keep us from knowing all details. Thankfully rampage killings are statistically rare, and the annual body count is tiny compared to suicides …

… or criminal homicides.

After suicides (62% of all gun deaths) criminal homicides (35%) are the most prevalent source of gun deaths. Statistics from our own government show that gang activity is disproportionately responsible for firearm deaths and woundings. Gang members and other criminals have near zero regard for anyone else, displaying a wide range of psychologically suspect conditions. You have to be nuts to want to murder strangers in other gangs and innocent bystanders, as is the recreational habit of modern day gangsters.

Since mental instability runs through the minds of suicidal people, rampage killers and gang members, we may have found the common key to gun deaths.

According to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, garden variety sociopathy is classified as an “antisocial personality disorder.” Characterized by a “pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.” The diagnostic manual goes into greater detail, itemizing tendencies to be irresponsible, liking booze and drugs, and that sociopaths “may be indifferent to, or provide a superficial rationalization for, having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from someone.”

In other words, thugs.

My research has only started, but already we find interesting tidbits, like one study that claims over 50% of gang members score moderate to high for psychopathy, the rest being merely sociopaths. This explains a bit about gang culture in that sociopaths – despite having little regard for anyone – still have a desire to form relationships, namely fraternal ones with other sociopaths. These groups have a subpopulation composed of people who even average gang members view as extraordinarily dangerous, namely the psychopaths. Differing degrees of dementia notwithstanding, the fact is gang members are by definition mentally abnormal, and the literature appears to statistically support such.

Diving into how inner-city culture may drive denser sociopath populations is more than I care to cover at this moment. But it does bring to the foreground a singular point for all humans to consider, and even for those non-human mammals called politicians. If mental illness is the common denominator in the three most prevalent and notorious forms of gun deaths in the country, then the policy needs to be based not on bullets, but brains.

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