It is true that, sometimes, a mentally ill person, usually a paranoid schizophrenic or a bipolar disordered person who suffers from psychotic symptoms, will become violent and even kill another person.

What most people may not know is that, of all the fatal shootings in the United States, a very small percentage are committed by the mentally ill. Most mentally ill people are far less violent than the rest of us.

However, that having been said, it is critical that society find a way to mitigate the effects of mental illness in our culture.

During my many years of working with the mentally ill, it became apparent to me that when the patient was appropriately and effectively prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, there was rarely evidence of violent behavior.

Typically, any problems arose when patients were discharged from the hospital, returned to the community and stopped taking their medication. Unfortunately, many mentally ill people do not have good judgment about continuing their medications, in part because of troublesome side effects.

The solution to that problem is an outpatient commitment law.

For many years, it has been the custom to legally commit a very sick mentally ill patient to a mental hospital so he or she will receive the treatment needed. An outpatient commitment law would enable a psychiatrist to prescribe a medication when the patient leaves the hospital with a mandate that he or she continue the medication with supervision in the community.

There are a minority of states with that outpatient commitment law, but it should become a federal law throughout the country. The consensus from those states has been uniformly positive.

I suspect that enactment of such legislation at the federal level would not mollify or ameliorate the executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre.

It seems that he believes that a majority of the violence in the United States is due to mentally ill people. He does not appear to understand the difference between mentally ill people and those with personality disorders, such as sociopathic and psychopathic disorders, or those with anger, rage and impulse control disorders.

I wonder if he realizes that more people are killed as a result of domestic-related issues than any other cause.

He also seems to believe that a nice, loving, caring and attentive first-grade teacher could whip out his or her handgun and shoot down a practiced killer who is firing in a classroom with a rapid-fire weapon with extended magazine.

I wonder if he realizes that the all-American family is not an armed family. In fact, I understand that only 21 percent of American families own guns.

Ronald Melendy is a licensed clinical social worker. He lives in Auburn.