After the shootings in Buffalo, New York and Yuvalde, Texas, the conservative response to gun control demands was to blame mental illness. At a press conference following a terrible school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said: Challenge, period. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has expressed similar feelings. “There seem to be two major categories that emphasize the problem: mental illness and school safety.”
This is a ridiculous but familiar analysis by the Republican Party, ignoring why the United States is suffering from mass shootings on its own. It’s probably true that many of the people who commit these horrific crimes aren’t mentally healthy, but mental illness is global. But the United States is unusual. Because people suffering from mental illness, and everyone else, can easily get powerful weapons like those used in mass shootings. Unlike other countries, the United States now has more guns than humans.
Immediately after the shootings, Republican leaders (pretending to be) seem to understand the importance of tackling this reality, but while talking about it and approving funding for such services. Somewhere, memory loss begins.
But if Republicans intend to reveal the fact that they have already had more than 200 mass shootings this year about mental illness, rather than the lack of federal gun law, that’s fine. It creates opportunities for Democrats to support groups of vulnerable and underserved people in the United States by demanding significant increases in funding for mental health-related programs.
This is especially important in a timely manner, as many mental health professionals claim. Because the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated US mental health problems, especially among young people who had to miss important and valuable face-to-face learning and social periods. life.
Support programs to help pay for mental health interventions, such as treatment, evaluation, and affordability of medicines, if Republicans truly believe that mental illness is the driving force behind powerful weapons murder assaults. You should be anxious to do it. A study of the causes and potential ways to improve mental illness, supportive living facilities for people with mental illness, and the rest of the program that the country is in desperate need of.
But it’s doubtful that Republicans really care about how GOP tried to severely restrict access to Medicaid, the country’s largest payer of mental health services. And after all, this is the party that has been cutting spending on mental illness for decades. This most famous practitioner was Ronald Reagan. As Governor and President of California, Ronald Reagan funded support for people with mental illness.
Given how many people need additional help, that is, those with illness and the families who care for them, programs to properly deal with this crisis are expensive, but large. Will make a difference.
According to 2020 data from the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, one in five adults in the United States has some form of mental illness. That’s about 53 million people. More than 14 million of these adults suffer from serious mental illness, and the Institute states that “mental, behavioral, or emotional disorders cause serious dysfunction and one or more major life activities. Substantially obstruct or limit. ” And there are millions of children dealing with diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disabilities. Experts are warning about how heavily the country’s mental health system is fragmented due to lack of funding.
Immediately after the shootings, Republican leaders (pretending to be) seem to understand the importance of tackling this reality, but while talking about it and approving funding for such services. Somewhere, memory loss begins.
When Abbott commented following the shooting at Yuvalde’s school, many soon noticed in April that they had cut more than $ 200 million in funding from the Texas Health and Welfare Committee, the department that oversees mental health programs. Pointed out to.
How could he do that in 2019 after the shootings at Wal-Mart in El Paso? Many laws have been enacted and funded the state to better address that challenge. The bill he was promoting was passed after the 2018 school shootings and aimed to increase children’s access to mental health resources and make the school safer. That’s great, but as detailed in the Houston Chronicle survey, how far does it go in a mental health crisis? If mental health is such a factor in mass shootings, why did Abbott cut back on funds that could help deal with it?
If Congress or state-level Democrats, or President Joe Biden, push for increased funding for mental health, they will force Republicans to support their mental illness statements with policies and funding. Alternatively, Republicans must admit that they do not believe that mental illness is the cause of gun violence (or the party does nothing about gun violence by helping improve mental health care. plug).
For the Democrats, there is no downside to calling it a Republican mental illness bluff. They either reveal Republican hypocrisy or pass a law to help a group of people whose poor treatment and lack of support from the government should be a source of shame for all of us. Still, no matter how much money you put into mental illness, mass shootings won’t stop unless gun control changes.
