A popular explanation for mass shootings is that the assailant “must have been mentally ill.” A popular policy solution is exceptionalist—enter more gun‐disqualifying psychiatric records into the background check system to keep guns away from identified people with mental illness. We synthesized research on the connection between mental illness and common violence, gun violence, homicide, and mass violence. We focused on serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, which are not the same as emotional distress from life circumstances and problematic personality traits. We found an association between serious mental illness and violence, but it is weaker than the public imagines or the media portrays, and rarely causal. Serious mental illness plays a limited role—it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for mass violence.

中文翻译：

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严重的精神疾病在大规模枪击事件中起什么作用，我们应该如何解决？

关于大规模枪击事件的一个流行解释是，袭击者“必须患有精神疾病”。一种流行的政策解决方案是例外主义者-在后台检查系统中输入更多不符合枪支资格的精神病学记录，以使枪支远离已确定的患有精神疾病的人。我们对精神疾病与普通暴力，枪支暴力，凶杀和大规模暴力之间的联系进行了综合研究。我们专注于严重的精神疾病，例如精神分裂症，躁郁症和重度抑郁，这与生活环境和有问题的人格特质造成的情绪困扰不同。我们发现严重的精神疾病与暴力之间存在关联，但它比公众想象的或媒体所描绘的要弱，并且很少有因果关系。