The Republican narrative that gun violence is caused by mental illness is sometimes true, much as a broken analog clock is right two times a day. On November 20, 2014, Myron May shot three people on the FSU campus in Tallahassee, Florida. He was shot to death after firing at the police. I did not know May, but I know people who did. That is the sort of place Tallahassee is: if you don’t know someone, you know someone who does.
May can be seen as a fourth victim. May had been a cross-country runner who graduated from FSU and went to law school. During most of his life, May seemed to be the last person who would hurt anyone else—he was well regarded and interested in doing good for the community. But he showed signs of mental illness that culminated in his death on the campus he loved. As would be expected, while the Republican narrative blames mental illness, the party is not inclined to do anything to address the mental health crisis in America. While the Democrats do talk about gun control and helping Americans with health issues, they have largely proven ineffective. But this essay isn’t about criticizing our two awful political parties, but to discuss mental illness and gun violence.
As I learned many shootings ago, a person can usually only be involuntarily detained for mental health issues when they present an imminent danger. Because of this high threshold, authorities often cannot act until it is too late.
It can be argued that the threshold should be lower so a person can be helped before they engage in violence. The practical challenge is determining the extent to which a person presents a danger to himself or others. The moral challenge is justifying lowering the threshold.
Oen approach is using a utilitarian argument: helping someone before they engage in violence will help prevent such violence. That said, there is a moral concern with allowing authorities to act because someone might do something. It must be noted that mentally ill people are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence.
It could be countered that certain mental issues are adequate evidence that a person is reasonably likely to engage in harmful behavior, even though they have done nothing to reach the imminent danger threshold.
This has some appeal. By analogy to physical health, if certain factors indicate a high risk of an illness, then it is sensible to treat that condition before it manifests. Likewise, if certain factors indicate a high risk of a person with mental issues engaging in violence, then it makes sense to treat for that condition before it manifests.
An obvious objection is that people can refuse medical treatment for physical conditions and hence they should be able to do the same for mental issues. A reply is that if a person refuses treatment for a physical ailment, they are usually only endangering themselves. But if someone refuses treatment for a condition that can result in her engaging in violence against others, then she is putting others in danger without their consent and she does not have the liberty or right to do this.
To use another analogy, some forms of mental illness can be seen as analogous to infectious diseases. The analogy is not that mental illness can be caught, but that an infected person presents a serious risk to others and, likewise, a person with a certain sort of mental illness can also present a serious risk to others. Provided that there is adequate evidence of the danger, then the state could be warranted in acting against the individual’s will. The practical challenge is determining what conditions warrant acting. The infectious disease analogy does make this even more political, given the ideological battles over COVID-19.
One practical concern is that mental health science is far behind physical health sciences and the physical health sciences are still relatively primitive. Because of this, predictions about mental health can be unreliable. Using the coercive power of the state on such a tenuous foundation would be morally problematic. After all, a person can only be justly denied liberty on adequate grounds, and such a prediction is not strong enough to warrant such action. Also, as noted above, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims than perpetrators. As such, focusing on preventing mass shootings by policing mental health does not seem like a good approach. But addressing the health issues in the United States would be good.
A counter to this is to argue that preventing a mass shooting is worth the price of denying people their freedom. An obvious worry is that without clear guidelines and limitations, this principle could be extended to anyone who might commit a crime—thus justifying locking up people for being potential criminals. This would be wrong.
It might be countered that there is no danger of the principle being extended and that such worries are worries based on a slippery slope. After all, one might say, the principle only applies to those deemed to have a certain sort of mental issue. Normal people, one might say in a calm voice, have nothing to worry about.
However, it seems that normal people would have reason to worry. After all, it is “normal” for people to have mental issues (such as depression) because our society is a stressful nightmare. There is also the concern that the application of the fuzzy science of mental health might result in people being subject to coercion without real justification.
Considering these considerations, it might be worth reconsidering the threshold for applying the coercive power of the state to people with mental issues. However, this reconsideration needs to involve carefully considered guidelines and should be focused on helping people rather than merely locking them away in the hope of protecting others. Or yet another example of ineffective political theater. Obviously, some would argue that the best way to address gun violence is to focus on guns.
The situation at FSU also illustrated another point of moral concern. If we take the claim that some mass shooters are mentally ill seriously, then using lethal force against them would be morally problematic. While police have some less-than-lethal options like Tasers and nightsticks, these are not very effective against someone armed with a gun. There have been some efforts to produce less-than-lethal options that are as or nearly effective as guns, but these options have not proven successful, and police have generally not adopted them.
From a moral perspective, it would be preferable if officers had better less-than-lethal options. In the case of May’s situation, if he had been rendered unable to act rather than shot to death, he might have been able to benefit from medical help and return to a normal life. In the case of criminals who are not suffering from mental illness, it would still seem morally preferable to subdue them without shooting them. As such, there is a good moral reason to develop an effective less-than-lethal weapon.
It is also important to note that such a weapon would need to be effective enough to morally justify its use in place of a gun. Such a weapon could be less effective than a gun and still be acceptable, but there is an important question about how effective the weapon would need to be. In practical terms, of course, there is the question of whether such a weapon is possible. After all, while something like the stun setting on a Star Trek phaser would be ideal, it is likely to always be science fiction.
In closing, some might argue that this essay is misguided. Debating about mental illness and discussing less-than-lethal options is a distraction from the real problem, which is the horrible society that is inflicted upon us. The real solution, one might argue, is fixing the nightmare in which the rest of us are ruled over by the cruel, the ignorant and the wicked.
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