UVALDE, Texas - Governor Greg Abbott said Wednesday that a school shooter from Uwalde had a “mental health challenge” and that the state should “do a better job with mental health” - but cut $ 211 million from the mental health department in April. health health programs.
In addition, Texas ranked last out of all 50 states and counties of Columbia in the overall approach to mental health care, according to the report on the state of mental health in America for 2021.
“We as a state, we as a society, need to do a better job with mental health,” Abbott said during a news conference at Rob Elementary School, where an armed man shot and killed 19 children and two teachers on Tuesday.
His remarks came just a day after an outraged Connecticut senator called out lawmakers who oppose gun control and who are trying to blame mental illness for the latest school shooting and others before it.
Rejecting suggestions that stronger gun control laws could prevent the tragedy, Abbott admitted that the murdered 18-year-old suspect had no known mental health problems or criminal histories, but said: “Everyone who kills someone else has a mental health problem. .
His allegations sparked reprimands from public health experts and scientists studying mass murderers, as well as his Democratic gubernatorial rival, Beta O’Rourke, who was ousted from a press conference after he stormed the scene and accused pro-gun Republican to “do nothing” to stop gun violence.
“There is no evidence that the killer is mentally ill, he is just angry and full of hatred,” said Lori Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University School of Medicine. “Although it is understandable that most people cannot understand the slaughter of small children and want to attribute it to mental health, it is very rare for a mass shooter to be diagnosed with mental health.
David Ridman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, said: “All in all, mass shooters are rational. They have a plan. It’s something that takes months or years to develop, and there’s a clear path to violence. “
A much bigger problem, they said, is Texas and many other states flooded with weapons.
“Texas has more weapons per capita than any other state,” the Post said. “After the tragic mass shooting in 2019 in El Paso, the governor signed several laws on the suppression of mass shootings; Unfortunately, most of these laws involved arming the public to stop mass shootings. “
The post pointed out that on Monday, injured police officers were trained for active shooting. She and others said that even if mental illness was the main cause of the shooting in elementary school, local officials have historically shortened programs to help people with mental health problems.
Last year, The Houston Chronicle published a three-part series that showed that Texas leaders had failed to adequately fund or manage the state’s disrupting mental health system.
In addition, conservative parent groups in Texas and elsewhere have targeted mental health initiatives in schools, including programs designed to help students manage their emotions. Critics claim that the “Trojan horse” programs for critical race theory are a separate and rarely taught academic concept that examines how systemic racism is embedded in society.
In Uwalde County, a mostly rural area where a fifth of the 24,456 mostly Latin Americans live in poverty, budget money for “health and well-being” has ranged from $ 2.8 million to $ 3.8 million in recent years, records show.
“I hesitate to comment on how much the district should spend, because mental illness cannot be honestly blamed as the main driver of the mass shootings,” said Greg Hansch, who heads the Texas branch of the National Alliance for Mental Illness. “People with mental illness will be victims of mass shootings more often than perpetrators of mass shootings. Less than 10 percent of the shootings involved a suspect who had mental health problems. “
Dr Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor at Northwestern Feinberg University School of Medicine, said that although mental health programs needed more funding, “it will not eliminate the need for gun control”.
“All it takes is one person to get one gun to destroy hundreds of lives,” she said. “Our children’s lives depend on gun control.
Tamar Mendelssohn, a professor in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins University, said that while it is difficult to give a dollar figure of what will be needed to alleviate the country’s mental health crisis, it is clear that the United States is “not investing enough in mental health.” health. “
“Also, we do not use a preventive approach,” Mendelssohn said. “We are not doing enough in schools, where we can provide critically needed care for young people. And we lack “culturally competent” care, such as Spanish-speaking therapists. “
On Tuesday, after learning about the massacre in Texas, Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Begged his Republican colleagues to reject the old excuses.
“Spare me the shit about mental illness,” Murphy said. “We have no more mental illnesses than any other country in the world. You can’t explain this through the prism of mental illness. “
Hickenbaugh reported from Uvalde and Siemaszko from New York.