Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said at the Capitol Tuesday that in the wake of Newtown and other deadly shootings, it’s time to study whether mass shooters share common behaviors or patterns.
“As a result of the deinstitutionalization of mental health over the last 30 years, there are a significant, small group of people who are on the streets who clearly would have been judged dangerous 20 or 25 years ago,” Gingrich said, according to ABC News. “When you talk mass murders…that we’ve seen with Newtown and others, Virginia Tech, for example or Aurora, I think that’s a limited enough number of cases. You could actually put together a study that asks what are the common behaviors, what are the common patterns because that’s a very specific number of people.”
Gingrich also said the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which ensures patients’ health records are kept private, has made it too difficult to identify potentially dangerous people.
“HIPAA clearly went too far,” Gingrich said. “The question is if you have information and you have a reason to believe this person is dangerous, should there be a way to surface that?”
