“A backlash against the 25% of American adults with diagnosable mental illness”

Jared Loughner deserves no sympathy. The same cannot be said about the 2.4 million adult schizophrenics in America or the roughly 55 million other adults with mental illness. In the wake of mass killings there is always the danger of a fear-fueled backlash against the innocent—remember the Sikhs attacked after 9/11? Amid generalizations and misstatements of fact, there is now a danger of such a backlash against the 25% of American adults with diagnosable mental illness.

Massimo Calabresi, “Fear-Mongering and the Mentally Ill”