wandering stars

The false linkage between violence and mental illness is damaging and stigmatizing for mentally ill people, in addition to being incorrect. And it’s troubling to see it coming up again and again with mass shootings, because it steps around the really serious issue here. Innocent people are dying in the United States not because the country is filled with crazed maniacs armed with automatic weapons, but because of the free and poorly regulated ability of very dangerous weapons. It is this we need to focus on, rather than the distancing tactic of pretending that no one “normal” could do something this awful.