SAN DIEGO — The string of mass shootings and cruel acts of violence has many Americans raising questions. Questions like; can mass murders be stopped? Can the mental health system stop gun violence when mental illness is the cause of it?
Since it's become so common to assume a mental health illness of certain shooters, Tage Rai, a psychologist at UC San Diego who is an expert on violence and conflict resolution said that in most cases the nation wants to identify what is broken about the shooter.
This is an approach that Rai believes fails and doesn’t necessarily help.
“Psychology isn’t going to get us through here. These are structural problems, there are always going to be people who slip through. The only way to stop that, is to prevent them from getting the tools that engage in mass murders,” said Rai.
Whether authorities could target shooters by catching early warning signs, Rai says it's difficult to target an actual shooter and predict that the person will actually commit a violent crime.
“Then we are going to start including a lot of people in that, because these shooters are part of online communities that are supportive of these behaviors,” said Rai.
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, mental illness contributes to only 4% of all violence and the contribution to gun violence is even lower. Proving that mental health should not be the main focus.
“The vast majority of mass shootings are going to be committed by people who have no diagnosable mental health illness, the vast majority who have been diagnosed with a mental health illness are never going to engage in a shooting. This makes sense because the vast majority of people are not diagnosed with a mental health illness,” said Rai.
Rai said not all shootings should be tackled in the same approach, but if it's not mental illness, then what drives a killer to commit mass shootings?
Rai says shootings don’t happen arbitrarily, instead, there’s a deeper meaning and often-times race is involved.
That means mass shooters have motivation by thinking that their social communities are going to praise them.
Through years of research, Rai wants to get across that the reason behind a horrific mass shooting is more than mental illness and adds that there should be stricter gun laws.
WATCH RELATED: Highland Park parade shooting suspect charged with 7 counts of murder