Thursday, July 13, 2023

Are gun owners mentally ill?

 Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners are not more likely to have ever suffered from some sort of mental health problem.



Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Which race has the most people with antisocial personality disorder?

 

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 36,309 respondents in the 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions–III. I was surprised that this study published the percent of each racial/ethnic group that has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Having ASPD is closely related to being a psychopath. 

Natives have the highest rate -- 11.9%. Blacks are second with 5.3%. Asians are at the bottom with 1.9%. So the Native rate is 6.3 times that of Asians. 

The heritability of ASPD is around 50%.

This CDC table shows that the Native homicide rate is high (the victim rate is a proxy for the offender rate) but the Black rate is higher. Why would that be if ASPD is more common among Natives?


  







It could be that Blacks tend to live in urban settings, while Natives are more likely to be rural. Urban life seems to be conducive to crime. Cities enable a critical mass of antisocial individuals to come together and form gangs that produce more crime than would be committed by solitary individuals. 

The high Native rate seems consistent with Harpending and Cochran hypothesis that groups with weak histories of agrarian life, which selects for submissiveness, will tend to be more disagreeable.

Are gun owners mentally ill?

  Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...