Armed and Angry: Almost 1 in 10 Adults Have Rage and Gun Access
DURHAM, N.C., April 8 (UPI) — Law-abiding doesn’t mean rational or even-keeled. According to a new study, nearly 1 in 10 U.S. adults have a history of anger and have access to firearms.
The new study, conducted by researchers at Duke, Harvard and Columbia universities, also revealed that 1.5 percent of adults who carry guns outside the home admitted to impulsive anger.
The newly analyzed data was gleaned from 5,563 face-to-face interviews conducted as part of the National Comorbidity Study Replication, a mental health study led by Harvard researchers the early 2000s.
“As we try to balance constitutional rights and public safety regarding people with mental illness, the traditional legal approach has been to prohibit firearms from involuntarily-committed psychiatric patients,” lead study author Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke Medicine, said in a press release. “But now we have more evidence that current laws don’t necessarily keep firearms out of the hands of a lot of potentially dangerous individuals.”
The data showed that adults who own six or more guns are more likely to report anger issues and to take advantage of concealed and open carry laws. There was no correlation between serious mental illness, impulsive anger and gun access.
“Gun violence and serious mental illness are two very important but distinct public health issues that intersect only at their edges,” Swanson explained.
Researchers say the minimal overlap between the two issues — in addition to the fact that most people with anger issues and access to guns are not treated at hospitals or psychiatric institutes — is proof that current gun ownership regulations will do little keep guns out the hands of potentially “dangerous persons.”
“Very few people in this concerning group suffer from the kinds of disorders that often lead to involuntary commitment and which would legally prohibit them from buying a gun,” said Ronald Kessler, the Harvard healthcare policy professor who led the analysis of the survey data.
Studies like this, Kessler and his colleagues say, could be used to justify gun removal or restraining laws that empower family members and law enforcement to seize guns or keep firearms and ammunition away from those who exhibit signs of impending violence.
Mass killings have inspired lawmakers in states like California, Connecticut and Indiana to pass such laws.
“If both of these laws had been in place on May 23, things could have been very different,” Peter Rodger, whose son killed six people in a rampage in Santa Barbara, said in a statement last year. “California, today, is a safer state because of this legislation. Let’s hope other states follow.”
The new study was published in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law.
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