Mass shootings akin to suicides

Mass shootings are not a gun control issue or a mental health issue. Mass shootings, typically murder-suicides, are a public health issue that may best be prevented by considering the part of the equation focused on suicide.

Since 1982, there have been 72 mass killings that have tragically resulted in more than 1,100 dead and wounded. Approximately 70 percent of the perpetrators died at or near the scene of the crime, most by suicide, the remainder killed by law enforcement (in what some term “suicide by cop”). There is no way to diminish the heartbreak of those losses and that what we have been doing is not working. People are dying, families are shattered and communities are devastated. A new approach is required.

Dr. Eric D. Caine, co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide in Rochester, N.Y., observes that researchers may be stumped about profiling perpetrators because they are viewing mass shootings through the “homicide lens.” When viewed through the “suicide plus homicide lens,” however, the situation becomes clearer.

Suicide arises from interrelated and overlapping risk factors including, as may be the case with the Roseburg, Ore. shooter, previous suicide attempts. Additional risk factors include health problems (mental and physical), interpersonal violence, a history of trauma, relationship challenges and financial problems, among others. While these risk factors provide a broad understanding of who may be at heightened risk of suicide, each on its own fails to identify which person will attempt suicide.

For example, for any individual diagnosed with major depression, there is a 99 percent chance he or she will not die by suicide. It is more helpful to consider suicide, including gun suicide, as a developmental process where risk and protective factors — factors that buffer risk — contribute to increasing or lessening the risk of suicide over time. In other words, suicide does not typically arise spontaneously.

To help understand the patterns and conditions contributing to gun violence and hence inform prevention efforts, from 1986 to 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored and conducted research. The CDC has not touched gun violence research since 1996, when the National Rifle Association accused the agency of promoting gun control and Congress threatened to strip the agency’s funding.

Ironically, the very person who first proposed banning CDC gun violence research, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, had a change of heart following the 2012 Aurora, Colo. massacre. Dickey recognized CDC-funded research was crucial to understanding and preventing gun violence, stating, “The same evidence-based approach that is saving millions of lives from motor-vehicle crashes, as well as from smoking, cancer and HIV/AIDS, can help reduce the toll of deaths and injuries from gun violence.” To date, CDC funding has not been restored.