Dear Editor:
You might think that after a mass shooting I join the rest of the country in anger over another one having happened and nothing having been done to stop it. I do not. I prepare myself for these events to be blamed on the mentally ill. The fact is, the American Journal of Public Health found that less than 5 percent of 120,000 firearms-related killings in America between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people with a diagnosed mental illness. I can support a limited number of people, such as family and law enforcement, being able to employ the services of a social worker to evaluate a specific case and escalate, if necessary, to a court of law when they find that someone is dangerous. But I can't support the wholesale vilifying of the mentally ill.