LANSING, Mich. — We’ve heard the same themes over and over as we deal with the aftermath of the mass shooting at MSU. One side says mental health is to blame while the other calls for gun reform. But two experts FOX 47 talked to say the issue is a lot more complicated.
“To me, it's not this or that. It's a both and," said Marc Zimmerman, co-director of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention.
He likens gun violence in the United States to car safety before seat belts.
“The all-wheel drive, the anti-lock brakes, the you know, there aren't cars built without airbags. I mean it's this cultural shift," he said. "That's the same kind of cultural shift that I think we need for firearms that we haven't had."
One solution he says is reducing access to firearms, but other solutions could come from advancement in gun safety measures and improvements in social life, which brings us to the other side of the argument.
“People with a diagnosed mental illness are responsible for less than 4% of all violent crime in the United States," said Kevin Fischer, executive director of Michigan's chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). "That is documented. So it is stigmatizing and unfair to people who live with legitimate mental health diagnoses to have that associated with them.”
He tells FOX 47 there’s a difference between a person with a high likelihood of violence and mental health.
“There are people who have a high propensity to act violently. That does not necessarily mean that they have a mental illness," Fischer said.
Fischer said NAMI is supportive of meaningful gun legislation, especially red flag laws, also called extreme risk protection orders, with an important caveat. They can’t specifically target those with mental illness.
“There's a lot of language in red flag law that leads to responsible gun legislation," he said. "We do need to make sure, for example, we don't have guns in the hands of people who have a high propensity to violence, who have a history of violence. We just don't think, again, that red flag laws should single out people with mental illness when the evidence doesn't support that.”
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