David Harbour has strong words for those blaming mental illness for mass shootings

"When you brand us the cause of societal ills, I bristle."
 By 
Sam Haysom
 on 
David Harbour has strong words for those blaming mental illness for mass shootings
The 'Stranger Things' star has been tweeting about mental illness. Credit: Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Netflix

Alongside video games, another thing Donald Trump blamed for the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio was mental illness.

"Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger," he said during a press conference. "Not the gun."

In the days since, many people have taken to Twitter to share their own experiences with mental health, using the hashtag #IAmNotDangerous.

On Thursday morning, Stranger Things star David Harbour shared his own Twitter thread.

Over five tweets he spoke about his personal experience with mental health — "I'm a card carrying member" — before going on to share his views on the way society treats those that suffer.

"In times of cultural strife to focus rage, hatred and deep uncertainty on a weak, already ashamed and outcast group seems, at best cowardly, and at worst calculated evil," Harbour wrote.

Harbour, and the people of Twitter, aren't the only ones who've spoken out in the wake of Trump's comments.

Various mental health experts have warned that stigma can be created when mental illness is blamed for mass shootings.

"As we psychological scientists have said repeatedly, the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent,” Arthur C Evans Jr, CEO of the American Psychological Association, told the Guardian. "And there is no single personality profile that can reliably predict who will resort to gun violence.

"Based on the research, we know only that a history of violence is the single best predictor of who will commit future violence. And access to more guns, and deadlier guns, means more lives lost."

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Sam Haysom

Sam Haysom is the Deputy UK Editor for Mashable. He covers entertainment and online culture, and writes horror fiction in his spare time.

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