Jeffrey Swanson

Jeffrey W. Swanson (born March 24, 1957)[1] is an American medical sociologist and professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine.

"[6] Swanson first became interested in the intersection between mental illness and violence when working at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston shortly after finishing graduate school.

[3] In 1990, he led a study that found that, when excluding substance abusers, 33% of adults with mental illness reported having behaved violently at any time in the past, as compared with only 15 percent of non-mentally-ill people.

[10] In 2015, he led a study that found that 8.9% of those interviewed, which would equate to roughly 22 million Americans, had both impulsive anger issues—meaning they developed "explosive, uncontrollable rage" when provoked—and easy access to guns in their homes.

[11][12] In 2016, he led a study analyzing data from two Florida counties that found that 72% of mentally ill people who committed suicide with a gun purchased it legally.