Your link is from an advocacy group! But even that advocacy group suggests that people with a mental illness are not violent. If you're going to ignore their summary you probably need to have read the studies they link to. Being polite, you haven't had time to read the studies they link to. Some of those studies will include things that you find surprising, and that don't support your point about violence. For example, sometimes studies include self harm as an example of violent behaviour. Some of them include violence against objects. And some of them don't correct for multiple violent events committed by one person.

Here's one example of a well run meta analysis that includes self harm in the list of "violent behaviour": https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/depts/hspr/research/ciemh/mhn/pr...

(Note that the UK part of that paper is not talking about mental illness in the general population, but is restricting itself to a tiny subset of that population. Not just inpatients (about 8% of the people under specialist care) but people in a forensic unit. Those people are there because of a criminal justice involvement in their care. Even in this group of violent people we see a small group of people are responsible for most violent events.

This narrowing of focus - not all people with mental illness, but smaller and smaller sub-groups is why saying "crazy people are dangerous" is just dumb. You have to (using the link you provided) say "crazy people, with this particular diagnosis, when they're not getting treatment, are a little bit more dangerous than the general population, but less dangerous than parents, and less dangerous than poor men, and less dangerous than people with a substance addiction."

And even then you've failed to distinguish between "people who are violent because they have mental illness", and "people who are violent and co-incidentally have mental illness".

The group at most risk of homicide is children under one, and the people doing the killing are parents or step-parents. Why aren't you calling all parents dangerous?

http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandj...

Focussing on mental illness and violence is sub-optimal because it focuses on a very small risk and it focuses on something which provides no predictive value. When you have someone in front of you and you want to know whether they're going to be violent or not knowing that they have a mental illness, even a severe and enduring illness, doesn't help you. Knowing that they are (various combinations of) male; poor; addicted; a (step)parent or (ex)partner; are all more useful to you.

But this ignorance about the minimal risks of violence from people with mental illness causes actual measurable harm. About half the people shot and killed by US police each year have a mental illness. (Although it's hard to get accurate numbers because the US doesn't collect this data).

http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic...

Sorry for the long and complex report, but it's best quality evidence that the UK has about homicide by people with mental illness. Page 30 is homicide in England. Most homicide is committed by people without mental illness; most people with mental illness have no connection with violence. People with mental illness are not over-represented in the group of people convicted of homicide.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandj...

> I'm not at all convinced that that's true. I think it promotes stigma against the behaviour characterized as "crazy". And I think it's pretty clear that that's what is happening in TFA's title: online harassment is being implicitly characterized as so inappropriate that it brings into question the health of the brain that committed it. I'm in favour of that implicit characterization.

Well, this feels like a contradiction. You start by saying it's not promoting stigma; you end by saying crazy people do hateful things. Why use the word "crazy", why not use the word "asshole"? There are so many other words you could use it seems a shame to marginalise an already marginalised group.

(Also, it's against HN rules to call other people assholes. Your ignorant first post is you being an asshole, but I didn't call you an asshole. You should probably stop doing that.)