Are Mass Shootings A Contagion? NYPD's Intel & Counterterror Chief Says Yes
NEW YORK (CBSNews) - The mass shootings in Texas and Ohio add to the country's troubling statistics on gun violence.
There have been at least 255 mass shootings this year that killed 273 people and injured more than a thousand others.
NYPD deputy commissioner John Miller testified before Congress in 2016 about law enforcement support for new gun laws. He joined "CBS This Morning" to talk about law enforcement's assessments of the recent massacres.
"One [mass shooting] doesn't make the next shooter think of, 'I'll do that, too.' One makes the next person who's already thinking about it accelerate their plans," Miller said.
Miller says mental health problems have only been medically diagnosed in a quarter of mass shooting suspects.
"What you see here, though, is a phenomenon where we -- and here on television, there's a distinctive role in it -- have given people a chance to rewrite their life histories. The stressors are I got thrown out of school, I lost my apartment, I'm not making it work, I got fired from my job," Miller said. "Now, in half of these cases there are four of these stressors or more."
Miller says there's a growing crossover between mental health themes, political themes and terrorist -- both right-wing and other extremism -- themes in suspects.