Donald Trump continued with his usual style of “leadership” yesterday by scapegoating people with mental illness. White men don’t cause any problems. It’s the immigrants, it’s women with whatever coming out of their hoo-has, it’s the sun in their eyes, and it’s people with mental illness. He even brought out some of his tried and true “Lock ’em up” tropes with language about compelled treatment. Oh goodie.

This is one of the most convenient tropes for the right because it’s pretty tempting to believe that anybody who walks into a crowd and kills strangers is mentally ill. But men have been killing en masse for a very long time. It’s just that they have usually had the cover of war or colonial control to justify it. What was Wounded Knee if not a mass killing serving bloodlust? I could give one example after another.

From the US government’s site on mental illness:

The vast majority of people with mental health problems are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Most people with mental illness are not violent and only 3%–5% of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. In fact, people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. You probably know someone with a mental health problem and don’t even realize it, because many people with mental health problems are highly active and productive members of our communities.

Let me repeat that: people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population.

To me, the part that should be challenged is binary between somebody who is mentally healthy and somebody who isn’t. It’s like a light switch. For years, Mr. Mass Shooter Guy can swank around threatening women and abusing their spouses, but they aren’t mentally ill until they unleash their violence on other people.

Just like “bodily” health, people exist in varying levels of mental health–we all do–and some of us just have mental illnesses that are visible and socially unacceptable so that those get the label and the stigma. I have no doubt that the shooters struggle understanding their need for power and control. But just because we don’t know how to treat them, and America surrounds them with images of violent men getting what they want, and parenting is often sadly violent, and schools are violent, and guns are everywhere, and we just wonder how golly wolly this happened.

Cars and guns are a lot alike. They can be a useful tool in the right setting. In the hands of responsible people, they can also be fun. They are often beautifully made. But lots of people can’t use them safely, and thus centering them over people–as in Donald Trump’s language–is wrong.