“Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the Uvalde school shooter had a ‘mental health challenge’ and the state needed to ‘do a better job with mental health’ — yet in April he slashed $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs,” NBC News reported on May 25, 2022 (read story here).
“In addition,” NBC News said, “Texas ranked last out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care.”
Beyond the rank hypocrisy of this, and its further demonstration that Republicans like Abbott are nothing but empty suits, experts are disputing that the Uvalde shooter was mentally ill.
“There is no evidence the shooter is mentally ill, just angry and hateful,” an expert at Northwestern University’s medical school said, adding, “While it is understandable that most people cannot fathom slaughtering small children and want to attribute it to mental health, it is very rare for a mass shooter to have a diagnosed mental health condition.”
Another expert who studies mass shootings said, “Overall, mass shooters are rational. They have a plan. It’s something that develops over months or years, and there’s a clear pathway to violence.” The problem, he says, “is Texas and many other states are awash in weapons.”
Their assessment was echoed on the Senate floor by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CN), who said, “We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness.”
Related stories: (1) There might be enough Republican support to pass a “red flag” law in Congress (read story here). (2) Child gun deaths in Texas have nearly tripled since Abbott became governor (read story here).