“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,'” NBC News reported on Monday, June 20, 2022. Then added, “— yet in April he slashed $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs.” See story here.
This leaves Texas ranking dead-last “out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care.” And just a year ago, Gov. Abbott signed 7 legislative bills further loosening gun restrictions in Texas, already one of the least restrictive states for guns. Read that story here.
By the way, for what it’s worth, experts who study school shootings agree the shooters are rational, not deranged or even mentally ill. One such expert, at Northwestern University School of Medicine, said “it is very rare for a mass shooter to have a diagnosed mental health condition.” The real problem, “is Texas and many other states are awash in weapons.”
So, how will more guns and fewer mental health resources prevent Texas school shootings? Simple. Parents will move from Texas to states which are safer for kids. When Texas has no school-age children left, there’ll be no more school shootings there.