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NBC tries, dishonestly, to remove mental illness as factor in school shootings

NBC News published an article Saturday in which they used straw man arguments to remove mental illness as a factor in mass shootings – solidly claiming the throne as the #1 liberal propaganda outlet.

In the article, they imply that because only a small percentage of homicides are committed by people diagnosed with a mental illness, there is no correlation between mental illness and mass shootings.

As Fox asserts, the belief that the mentally ill are more likely to take part in a mass shooting appears to be a misleading. There were 198,760 homicides committed by a firearm in the United States between 1999 and 2015, according to the National Center for Health Statistic. Despite the high number, the APA report from 2016 says that fewer than 1 percent of firearm homicides are committed by a person diagnosed with a mental illness.

The perfect straw man. No one,  that I’ve noticed, is claiming that most homicides are committed by people diagnosed with mental illness. Even the government’s National Institute of Justice reported that most firearms homicides happen due to gang involvement and/or during the commission of a crime.

Gun-related homicide is most prevalent among gangs and during the commission of felony crimes. In 1980, the percentage of homicides caused by firearms during arguments was about the same as from gang involvement (about 70 percent), but by 1993, nearly all gang-related homicides involved guns (95 percent), whereas the percentage of gun homicides related to arguments remained relatively constant. The percentage of gang-related homicides caused by guns fell slightly to 92 percent in 2008, but the percentage of homicides caused by firearms during the commission of a felony rose from about 60 percent to about 74 percent from 1980 to 2005.

NBC’s statement that only a small percentage of gun violence occurs due to mental illness is correct but misleading. Sure, a tiny percentage of firearm homicides are committed by someone diagnosed mentally ill, but a huge majority of mass shootings are committed by those diagnosed with mental health problems. There is one commonality in mass shootings ranging from Columbine to Las Vegas to Parkland, Florida – mental illness. Most were also prescribed drugs to deal with their conditions.

While network and cable news continue to push the narrative that the guns are the problem, not the murderers, a quick look into mass shooting tragedies that they feature shows that not only was mental illness a factor, it may have been the key:

  • Columbine, Colorado – April 20, 1999: 18-year-old Eric Harris and his accomplice, Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights reported that Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox.  Klebold’s medical records remain sealed. Both shooters had been in anger-management classes and had undergone counseling.  Harris had been seeing a psychiatrist before the shooting.
  • Newtown, Connecticut – December 14,  2012: Adam Lanza killed his mother, took her rifle and stole her car to go to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary and kill 26 people. According to The New York Times, Lanza was “completely untreated in the years before the shooting” for psychiatric and physical ailments like anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and was also deprived of recommended services and drugs.”
  • Las Vegas, Nevada – October 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music festival wounding 851 people and killing 58. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that “The investigation report officially confirms an Oct. 4 story in the Review-Journal indicating that Paddock had been prescribed the anti-anxiety drug diazepam — often called Valium. The story said the drug was prescribed on June 21. Studies have shown that diazepam, a sedative-hypnotic drug, can trigger bouts of aggressive behavior, and chronic use can lead to psychotic experiences, according to drugabuse.com.”
  • Parkland, Florida – February 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz entered the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killed 17 people and injured 15 more. NBC News reported that “Lynda Cruz, his adoptive mother who died from pneumonia in November 2017, told mental health investigators in 2016 that her son suffered from ADHD, depression and autism but insisted he received his necessary medication as prescribed, according to the report.”

Check the Parkland reference…  So NBC News, the same outlet implying that mental illness is not a factor in mass shootings, earlier reported that the Parkland, Florida shooter had several diagnosed mental illness being treated by medication.

In NBC’s post they also claim that the cure for mass shootings is to end non-mass shootings:

Mass shootings are horrific and terrifying,” he said. “But if we really want to stop gun violence in this country, everyday gun violence is predictable and could be stopped. Ending everyday gun violence would help end mass shootings as well.

The link between gang violence and mass shootings is weak at best and more-likely contrived. Nikolas Cruz, Adam Lanza, Stephen Paddock and Eric Harris had no gang ties nor did they stick up convenience stores. What was this guy thinking? With that said, if policy-makers want to go after gangs and criminals, I’m all-in, but I’m pretty sure that Democrats aren’t onboard with fighting violence in areas with large minority populations. So there’s nothing about this argument that’s going to happen and even if it did, would do nothing to end mass shootings.

They deny the cause and therefore deny the cure.

NBC News, the liberal mouthpiece, has beclowned themselves by printing a misleading, leftist propaganda piece that they themselves debunked.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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