#8 The Link Between Mental Illness and School Shooting.

    What is the link between school shooting and mental illness?

            Do you think a normal person would just gun down innocent kids without a reason? No. Therefore, a school shooter is also a mentally challenged person since a normal person is incapable of doing such crime. In connection, I read an article entitled “Violence and Mental Illness: Is there a link?” by SerenaCareaga at the website of KUOW.             

            She interviewed Dr. Jennifer Stuber to ask some questions and Dr. Jennifer Stuber was able to answer questions concerning the link between school shooting and mental illness. Some examples of the questions and their answers are:

What are the connections between violence and mental illness?

 One symptom that carries the potential for increased violence is threat override, which is a hallucination that can tell a patient to do something that could potentially be violent.  More important than mental health status is the past history of the individual or how the person was raised as a child.

When is it important to a story to report on a person’s mental state?

            Media organizations should expand coverage to contextualize mental illness to the scope of the individual's experience. One relevant topic about mental illness that the media should include in coverage is about the mental health system, particularly when there is a system failure.

            Dr. Jennifer Stuber was also asked about”What stories would you like to see coming from the press?”She answered and said that,” We have found that very sad, tragic incidents like the one in Newtown, Connecticut, become an opportunity for learning. It is an important opportunity for news organizations to take a look at their coverage for ways to tell more positive stories or to use a more balanced approach.”

             To conclude this matter, I want to quote a phrase from Ms. Kate Donovan’s article “Here is a terrible thing. The only thing that could possibly cause someone to do such a terrible, tragic thing is to have This Disorder…” I just want to say that, we just have to make a balanced approach to this kind of person to avoid violence.