Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is looking for extra sources for psychological well being following a mass capturing at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday by which a gunman killed no less than eight individuals. Abbott offered these sources as the answer for the gun violence that has wracked the state in recent times. But there’s little proof elevated funding for psychological well being companies will cut back gun violence.
“What Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence but going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it,” Abbott mentioned throughout an interview on Fox News Sunday. “People want a quick solution. The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue.”
It’s considered one of many occasions since Abbott took workplace that the Republican governor and his occasion have invoked psychological well being points as the basis reason behind mass shootings within the state, together with final yr’s capturing at an elementary faculty in Uvalde, the 2019 El Paso Walmart capturing, the 2019 Midland-Odessa capturing, the 2018 Santa Fe High School capturing, and the 2017 First Baptist Church capturing.
President Joe Biden, then again, reiterated his calls Sunday for extra federal gun management, together with laws banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, enacting common background checks, requiring protected storage of weapons, and ending immunity for gun producers.
Though the Texas legislature has allotted greater than $1.5 billion towards psychological well being companies in the previous couple of years, these companies stay inaccessible to many in Texas, which faces a essential scarcity of psychological well being professionals.
What’s extra, it’s not clear that addressing the state’s psychological well being disaster could have any significant influence on stopping gun violence, given the massive physique of analysis that reveals most people with critical psychological well being points by no means turn out to be violent. Rather, Republicans’ rhetoric round psychological well being points — a playbook lengthy practiced by gun-rights advocates — serves to distract from discussions that they’re unwilling to have round gun management.
There is a psychological well being disaster in Texas
Many states are struggling to satisfy the demand for psychological well being sources within the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, however Texas is faring worse than most. About 37 p.c of Texas adults reported signs of nervousness or a depressive dysfunction, in comparison with the nationwide common of about 32 p.c, in a February 2023 US Census Bureau survey.
Texas has additionally fallen behind different states when it comes to entry to psychological well being care. Mental Health America, a nonprofit advocacy group, discovered that Texas had the worst entry to psychological well being companies general as of 2022 when contemplating “access to insurance, access to treatment, quality and cost of insurance, access to special education, and workforce availability.” As of 2023, 98 p.c of the state’s 254 counties have been no less than partially designated as “mental health professional shortage areas” by the federal authorities.
Another February survey by the Episcopal Health Foundation, a Texas-based public well being nonprofit, discovered that greater than half of Texans say that increasing funding for psychological well being packages must be the state’s prime well being care precedence. More than 1 / 4 reported {that a} member of their family had bother accessing psychological well being care due to value — the best share that the group has ever reported in 5 years of conducting the ballot.
The Texas legislature is taking steps to handle the state’s psychological well being disaster with a $34 million bipartisan bundle to fund psychological well being companies, particularly for minors. That invoice, which handed the state senate final month and is predicted to turn out to be regulation, is a big step, however may nonetheless not be sufficient to handle historic funding shortfalls.
Though the governor promised to fund psychological well being companies following the Uvalde capturing final yr, he diverted $211 million from the division that oversees psychological well being points — greater than from every other state company — to fund his border enforcement program. The new invoice gained’t even come shut to creating up for that diversion.
Why gun rights advocates speak about psychological well being over gun management
Gun rights advocates have lengthy pushed the narrative that psychological well being points, relatively than weapons, are the basis reason behind gun violence.
Both former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence repeated that declare on the National Rifle Association annual assembly final month. “This is not a gun problem,” Trump mentioned. “This is a mental health problem, this is a social problem, this is a cultural problem, this is a spiritual problem.”
But that simply doesn’t appear to be borne out by the analysis. A 2016 literature assessment by the American Psychiatric Association discovered that mass shooters with critical psychological sickness account for lower than 1 p.c of annual gun-related homicides. It additionally discovered that solely about 3 p.c of violent crimes and an excellent smaller share of these involving a firearm are dedicated by people with critical psychological sickness.
Blaming America’s gun violence epidemic on psychological well being points, as Republicans have performed, obscures the a lot stronger hyperlink between gun possession and gun deaths. One 2013 Boston University-led research, for example, discovered that for every share level improve in gun possession on the family degree, the state firearm murder charge elevated by 0.9 p.c. More weapons are purchased in Texas than every other state, and it additionally has a higher-than-average variety of gun deaths.
There can also be concern {that a} Republican deal with psychological well being and violence might really result in much less remedy as a result of linking the 2 can reinforce the stigma round psychological well being points.
“Gun restriction laws focusing on people with mental illness perpetuate the myth that mental illness leads to violence, as well as the misperception that gun violence and mental illness are strongly linked,” write James L. Knoll IV and George D. Annas of their literature assessment. “Stigma represents a major barrier to access and treatment of mental illness, which in turn increases the public health burden.”
