Identifying mentally ill only small part in gun debate

Identifying mentally ill only small part in gun debate: Federal law prevents people from legally purchasing guns if they have been judged "mentally defective" or if they have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, Wintemute says. Such patients are supposed to be reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and barred from purchasing a gun.

That casts a wide but porous net — identifying lots of people with mental disorders who are not violent, while often missing the few who do pose a significant risk, says Jeffrey Swanson, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine.
Research shows that most mentally ill people aren't violent, although they are more likely than others to become the victims of crime. Only 3% to 5% of violent crime is due to mental illness, says Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

In spite of horrific events such as Newtown, the nation's overall "problem of gun violence is not due to mental illness," Appelbaum says.

"What's likely to be the most helpful intervention of all is likely to be the one that we seem least able to consider, which is to reduce the number of guns in circulation in this country, particularly those weapons that seem designed to kill large numbers of people," Appelbaum says.