Last week, a tragic shooting happened at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, where seven students and two faculty members were killed and many more were injured. The Roseburg community has been torn apart by this tragedy. Many politicians are trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again; conservative politicians, who are often against gun control, pit the blame on mental illness, saying that it is the problem – instead of guns. However, presidential candidate Chris Christie went beyond what other politicians have stated. On ABC's Sunday show "This Week," he stated that he supports making it easier for doctor's to involuntarily commit a mentally ill patient to the hospital. He claims that this is for the protection of others, and thinks it would help stop gun violence.

Involuntary hospitalization, while it may help some mentally ill people over the long run, is something that is feared by many mentally ill people. This can result in high hospital bills and job losses as people who already face stigma struggle with being forced to give up everything because somebody else fears they may be violent or suicidal. Making it easier to hospitalize them takes away their choices and makes it even scarier for them to speak up or ask for help.

What Chris Christie said not only angered me, but it also indicated a bigger problem with the way mass shootings are handled. The mental health system is incredibly flawed, however, the only time politicians tend to bring it up is when they're using mental illness as something they can blame gun violence on. Doing this not only deflects blame from the real problem, but it contributes to the poor mental health stigma and hurts mentally ill people, who, in fact, make up about 20 percent of America's population.

The mental health stigma impacts how people see the mentally ill, and typically they are thought of as violent, or it is assumed that because we cannot see symptoms, they do not exist. A huge result of this is that it's difficult to get help, due to fear of speaking up and increasing mental health care costs. Forty-one percent of mentally ill adults don't receive healthcare, and 50 percent of young people don't receive help. These percentages are lower for non-white people. The serious and often deadly consequences of not receiving help are losses in workplace productivity, drug abuse and suicide.

Mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence themselves than be violent. There are many different types of mental illness, and oftentimes the people suffering are just like you and me. In fact, well-known celebrities like Demi Lovato and Jared Padalecki have admitted to having mental illnesses. While it is accurate that mental health care is difficult to receive, only mentioning it after a mass shooting makes the problem worse, not better. Mental illness is a serious problem that impacts millions of Americans; it is not an excuse to avoid gun control.