A major mental health advocacy group blasted the National Rifle Association today for calling for a national database on people with mental illnesses.
In a brief aside at a press conference this morning, the NRA’s chief executive officer blamed the elementary school shootings in Newtown, Conn, in part on the “nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill.”
The National Alliance on Mental Illness, a grassroots advocacy group representing families affected by mental illness, said that such a database would be overly broad.
In a statement, executive director Michael Fitzpatrick noted that one in four Americans have been treated for such things as depression or anxiety and few are at risk of being violent.
He argued that the existence of a database would only discourage people from getting much-needed help.
“We must address the fact that less than a third of Americans who have a diagnosable mental illness are able to get treatment,” he said. “The NRA’s proposal to create a bigger ‘active’ national database will only discourage people reaching out for help. Stigma will be imposed. Stigma will be internalized. Stigma will turn into prejudice and discrimination.”
Mental health is already a factor in the federal background checks done before many gun purchases, which include information on whether people have been involuntarily committed or found in a court to be severely mentally disabled.
Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said the NRA’s suggestion was “unbelievably offensive.”
“Not everybody with a mental illness is in the national instant background check system – with good reason,” he said. “The vast majority of people with mental illness will never be dangerous.”