Dangerous minds.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING AT WINDMILLS - Mental health problems and violence - Brief article

I am a supporter of stringent gun control, but I am troubled by the conviction of some pro-control advocates that their position is somehow weakened by conceding that serious mental health problems contribute to the violence. The Gabby Giffords shooting in Tucson, the shooting at the Aurora movie theater in Denver, and the shooting at the primary school in Newtown were all committed by men who were quite obviously mentally ill.

Years ago, after we had been shocked by movies like The Snake Pit, we decided to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill, but as the psychiatrist Fuller Torrey pointed out in these pages...