Beth McGinty, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, just completed a study showing that most people with mental illness in the U.S. are not violent toward others and that mental illness is not a factor in most gun violence in the United States. “Even if we had a perfect mental health system that treated everyone when they needed it, and gave them effective treatment, we would probably only prevent between 3 and 5 percent of gun violence, and 95 to 97 percent of gun violence would remain untouched,” McGinty said in an interview with VOA.