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Chapter Two: Identify Crisis

How do we identify someone in crisis?

Throughout these recommendations, we emphasize the importance of recognizing when a person is “in crisis.”  That language is carefully chosen and very important.  Having a mental illness and being in crisis are two different things.  There is a public perception that gun violence is related to mental illness – that someone who commits gun violence is probably mentally ill, and that someone who is mentally ill is more likely to become violent.  Those things are not true.  Suicide and other gun violence are more likely to happen when someone is angry or despondent (or both), overwhelmed, and when they don’t have sufficient coping mechanisms – when they are in crisis.  Which is why firing or expelling someone who is in crisis can make it more likely that they will, in fact, perpetrate violence.

Unlike a mental illness, anyone can learn to identify a person in crisis.  Which means that we do not have to rely on therapists or psychiatrists to help prevent gun violence – we (employers, co-workers, parents, teachers, faith leaders, and first responders, among others) can all learn to recognize a person in crisis. We need to educate ourselves about the early warning signs of a person in crisis, many of which we already know intuitively, like changes in behavior or dropping grades, and then to know where to turn once we recognize those signs.

Based on recommendations from the Sandy Hook Promise, here are ten warning signs that can signal an individual may be in crisis or need help:

  1. Suddenly withdrawing from friends, family, and activities (including online or social media)
  2. Bullying, especially if targeted towards differences in race, religion, gender or sexual orientation
  3. Excessive irritability, lack of patience, or becoming angry quickly
  4. Experiencing chronic loneliness or social isolation
  5. Expressing persistent thoughts of harming themselves or someone else
  6. Making direct threats toward a place, another person, or themselves
  7. Bragging about access to guns or weapons
  8. Recruiting accomplices or audiences for an attack
  9. Directly expressing a threat as a plan
  10. Cruelty to animals

Many individuals who hurt themselves or others display one or more of these warning signs before they carry out an act of violence. Missing these signs can have serious consequences. We know that nearly all mass shooters exhibit such signs.  And we know that in 4 out of 5 school shootings, at least one other person had knowledge of the attacker’s plan but failed to report it.

In this section, we outline various screening tools, reporting systems, and other community-based programs designed to help identify and report an individual who may be in crisis. These recommendations are based on a range of possible programs and provide resources and education on the topic, which is designed to be comprehensive but not exhaustive. We also acknowledge the evolving nature of the field and emphasize that recommendations are provided to aid readers in strategic decision-making within their specific contexts.

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