Mental Health and Firearms

Allyson K. TysingerVirginia Office of the Attorney

General

Virginia’s Reporting Laws

• Virginia Code § 37.2-819– Requires clerk to report to CCRE• Involuntary inpatient commitment – no later than COB

on next business day• MOT – no later than COB on date of order• Anyone TDO’d who agreed to voluntary admission - no

later than COB on next business day

– State Police then forwards to NICS

What else can we do??

Columbine - 1999

• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold– Harris kept journal for a year focused on blowing

up school and shooting survivors with high-powered rifles, taking anti-depressant

– Klebold kept a journal for two years grappling with suicide, depression, angst

– Friend knew they had been experimenting with explosives

Virginia Tech - 2007

• Seung-Hui Cho– In middle school diagnosed with social anxiety

d/o, selective mutism, and major depressive d/o (single episode)

– Middle school writings mentioned Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, homicidal and suicidal ideations

– Therapy in high school, graduates with honors– Sophomore year of college family notes he seems

depressed

Virginia Tech - 2007

– Junior year stabs at carpet with a knife at a party, violence in writing, removed from class, refuses counseling, screened by counseling center, threatens suicide and is TDO’d but released less than 24 hours later on outpatient commitment

– Two female students complain about Cho, told by police to stay away from one of them

– Writes paper about killing students and himself in spring 2006

Arizona political event - 2011

• Jared Lee Loughner– Suspended from community college because of

bizarre behavior and disruptions in class and library

– Use of marijuana and hallucinogens– Researched famous assassins

Aurora, CO Movie Theater - 2012

• James Holmes

– Was in treatment for a mental health disorder– Use of LSD and other hallucinogens– Wanted to kill people “when his life was over”

Oikos University - 2012

• One Goh– Financial difficulties– Mother and brother died in same year– Problems with anger management reported– Expelled from nursing school

Seattle - 2012

• Ian Stawicki– Arrested for violence twice – not convicted– Family described as “angry at everything”, thought

he had a mental illness– Had been kicked out of the café where the

shooting started several times in the weeks leading up to the incident

Newtown – 2012

• Adam Lanza– Reported to have Asperger’s syndrome– Isolated– Made fun of– Video games– Access to many guns– Found clippings about other killers, picture of a

corpse

Common Threads

• With the exception of Holmes, none were receiving treatment at time of incident

• Friends or family members reported noticing something off

• Problems noted in school• Isolation, anger, rejection• Suicidal ideation

Virginia School and Campus Safety Task Force

• Governor established after Newtown

• Three workgroups– Education– Public Safety– Mental Health

First ideas

• Let’s figure out who will be violent and then notify the police

• Expand duty to warn to mandate more people to report and require reporting to police

• Increase criminal penalties for individuals who possess guns wrongfully

• Allow armed volunteers to protect schools

Education

• Over 90% of people with SMI are not violent• Only about 4% of violence in US can be

attributed to people with MI• Suicide accounts for 61% of gun-injury deaths

in the US in 2010• Over half of people with diagnosable SMI do

not receive tx and don’t have a commitment that would show up in a background check

Education

• Psychiatrists cannot accurately foresee which individual patients will engage in violent behavior– Studies have shown accuracy is only slightly better than

chance

• Demographic variables such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status are more reliable predictors of violence than MI

• Substance abuse among individuals with MI increases risk of violence

Education

• No accurate profile of a mass shooter– “You can profile the perpetrators after the fact and

you’ll get descriptions of troubled young men – which also matches the description of thousands of other troubled young men who would never do something like this. We can’t go out and lock up all the socially awkward young men in the world.” Jeffrey Swanson

Education

• Recovery is possible

What We Did

• Added funding to expand a statewide program aimed at suicide prevention

• Added funding to expand child/adolescent outpatient services

• Added funding to implement a public awareness campaign – Mental Health First Aid

What We Did

• Pushed threat assessment teams and violence prevention committees down to K-12 schools

• Added funding to increase the number of school resource officers (no armed volunteers)

• Did not expand duty to warn or require reporting to police

What’s Left

• An individual already in possession of firearms is committed. – Do we remove his firearms?– Who does it?– Should we do it in all cases?