More Dangerous: Mental Illness or Access to Guns?

A new study examines potential predictors of gun violence.

Gun violence (including mass shootings) is a public health crisis, affectingthousands of people every year. What causes gun violence and how can we prevent it? Specifically, is gun violence more strongly linked to gun access/ownership, mental illness, or personality traits like impulsivity or hostility? Impulsivity refers to a tendency to make premature decisions or act hastily. Hostility is defined as a tendency toward anger and verbal/physical aggression, devaluation of others, and negative assumptions about other people’s intentions.¹

In an article published in the April issue of Preventive Medicine, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch propose that the narrative that is promoted by some people or the media² and says “mental health is at the root of gun violence…especially mass shootings” is simply not true. In their study, among “all the mental health symptoms considered, only impulsivity was associated with gun carrying and only hostility was associated with threatening someone with a gun” (p. 5).³ Let me remind you again that hostility and impulsivity are not mental illnesses but general personality traits.article continues after advertisement

Study of gun use in young adults

Data for this investigation came from the sixth and eight waves of a longitudinal study of high school students. The final sample used in the statistical analyses included 663 participants (62% female; average age of 22 years; 34% Hispanic, 27% Black, 26% White).

Weapon-related variables measured included questions about gun access (“do you have access to a gun if you needed or wanted one?”), ownership (“do you or does someone living in your home own a gun?”), and making threats (“have you ever threatened someone else with a gun?”). Another gun-related variable was a question posed at both the sixth and eighth waves: “Within the past 12 months, about how often would you say you’ve carried a gun with you when you were outside your home—including in your car? Do not count the times you’ve carried a gun for hunting or target shooting” (p. 2).³

Also measured at Wave 6 were demographic, personality, and mental health variables—anxiety, depression, stress, hostility, impulsivity, borderline personality disorder (BPD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and mental health treatment.article continues after advertisement

Descriptive statistics showed that at Wave 8, 14% of individuals had received mental health treatment during the previous year. As for gun-related variables, 26% of the sample reported access to guns, 24% owned one, 9% carried one, and 1.5% had threatened a person with their gun.

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Access to guns, impulsivity, and hostility

Additional statistical analysis (logistic regressions and multivariate logistic regression tests) revealed several correlations, as explained below.article continues after advertisement

The decision to carry guns or threaten another individual with a weapon did not differ based on the participants’ current life situation, race, gender, or age. However, after controlling for other demographic characteristics, males were three times more likely than females to have threatened another person with a gun.

Gun access, gun ownership, and impulsivity were correlated. After statistically controlling for other factors, access to weapons was associated with 4.7 times—and ownership with 5.2 times—greater likelihood of carrying a gun.

More impulsive individuals, compared to less impulsive, were almost two times more likely to carry guns.

Using a gun to threaten another person was 3.5 times more likely in individuals who scored high on the hostility measure, but more than 18 times more likely in those who had access to guns.

The authors concluded:article continues after advertisement

Most predictive of future gun carrying are gun-related variables: access, ownership, and prior gun carrying.

Furthermore, the majority of mental health conditions appear to have no significant relation to potential for gun violence; only hostility (which is not specific to mental illness) predicted using weapons to threaten others.

Concluding thoughts on gun access vs mental illness

As noted above, the authors came to the conclusion that those “who had access to guns, compared to those with no such access, were over 18 times more likely to have threatened someone with a gun, even after controlling for a number of demographic and mental health variables.” Of course, threatening others with a gun is not the same as injuring or killing with a gun, but “it is an adequate proxy or precursor to actual gun violence.”

Therefore, based on the current analysis, “limiting access to ﬁrearms, regardless of demographic characteristics [current life situation, age, race], mental health status, and prior mental health treatment, would likely reduce threats made with a gun and gun violence”