Gun Violence and Mental Illness

Gun Violence and Mental Illness looks beyond the inflammatory social and political rhetoric that all too often surrounds discussions of gun violence in the United States. This important, multidisciplinary volume presents evidence-based analyses and risk assessment strategies for mental health clinicians, trainees, and those interested in finding more effective interventions to decrease the costs of the serious public health problems of gun violence and mental illness. -- Jason Matejkowski Readers of this text will learn that commonly held beliefs about the relationship between mental illness and gun violence are overstated or simply wrong. Following high profile mass shooting events, there is a rush to develop policies aimed at preventing these tragic events from recurring. Gold and Simon's assemblage points out that this expediency belies the fact that much remains to be discovered about which (if any) practices and policies can effectively prevent such events. Firearm violence committed by people with mental illness and mass shootings are such rare events that current research methods preclude effective identification and testing of interventions. The text highlights the potential of prevention efforts at the individual, community, and broader national policy levels that have been tested outside the United States or, on a limited basis, within the United States. -- Jason Matejkowski PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 61, No. 19, Article 2 This book is a major achievement edited by two leading and well respected forensic psychiatrists. It was copyrighted in 2016 and is an excellent compendium of the current state of our knowledge in the area of the relationship of gun violence and mental illness. The playing field is ever changing. I hope that new editions will be issued with regularity. The questions it addresses are complex, difficult, and emotionally charged, but critical. This book is also an invaluable resource for all mental health professionals, general physicians, public health officials, politicians, reporters, and others, in understanding the complex connection of mental illness and gun violence. It is a very timely analysis of these subjects. -- Elissa P. Benedek, M.D. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Dr. Gold and her coeditor Dr. Simon have produced a wonderful reference that summarizes (largely statistical) information already well known to many mental health and law enforcement professionals, but far too often ignored by politicians, the media, bloggers, and Internet trolls. The book is a fine addition to the professional literature, a well-written and well-organized arrow for the quivers of psychologists and psychiatrists who strive to place our patients in an accurate context amid public clamoring for scapegoats and easy targets. -- William H. Reid, M.D., MPH Journal of Psychiatric Practice Vol. 23, No. 1