A review of all mass shootings happened since 1982 showed that almost 58% of the shooting were by people with mental illness. Although several high-profile acts of mass violence by people with serious mental illness gets public attention, the experts focused on the untreated serious mental illness and their families.

Researchers during the review found that despite of almost 112 programs spending $130 billion annually on mental health, at least 164,000 of the most seriously mentally ill are homeless, and 365,000 are incarcerated. It was found that 770,000 people with mental health issues are on probation or parole and 95,000 are regularly denied a hospital bed because of the bed shortage.

It was found that of 41,000 suicide cases almost 90% of people had mental illness. It was also found that people with a serious mental illness are more likely to be victimized and also die earlier.

Researchers found that families of such victims have heartbreaking toll. Subcommittee members found that federal laws that prevent doctors from telling parents the diagnosis, treatment and pending appointments of their children make families of patients powerless to help prevent their deterioration; patients had also to wait for more than a week because of shortage of beds.

There are federally funded conferences where people with mental illness were taught how to go off violence-preventing medicines. But law bans to provide care to those who get violent even after medication and rather force them into restrictive inpatient care or incarceration.