Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is looking for extra sources for psychological well being following a mass taking pictures at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday during which a gunman killed a minimum of eight individuals. Abbott introduced these sources as the answer for the gun violence that has wracked the state lately. However there’s little proof elevated funding for psychological well being companies will scale back gun violence.
“What Texas is doing in a big-time method, we’re working to deal with that anger and violence however going to its root trigger, which is addressing the psychological well being issues behind it,” Abbott mentioned throughout an interview on Fox Information Sunday. “Folks desire a fast answer. The long-term answer right here is to deal with the psychological well being situation.”
It’s one in all many occasions since Abbott took workplace that the Republican governor and his social gathering have invoked psychological well being points as the foundation reason behind mass shootings within the state, together with final yr’s taking pictures at an elementary faculty in Uvalde, the 2019 El Paso Walmart taking pictures, the 2019 Midland-Odessa taking pictures, the 2018 Santa Fe Excessive College taking pictures, and the 2017 First Baptist Church taking pictures.
President Joe Biden, alternatively, reiterated his calls Sunday for extra federal gun management, together with laws banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, enacting common background checks, requiring secure storage of weapons, and ending immunity for gun producers.
Although the Texas legislature has allotted greater than $1.5 billion towards psychological well being companies in the previous few 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 can have any significant impression on stopping gun violence, given the big physique of analysis that reveals most people with severe psychological well being points by no means turn into violent. Somewhat, 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’s a psychological well being disaster in Texas
Many states are struggling to fulfill 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 anxiousness 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. Psychological Well being America, a nonprofit advocacy group, discovered that Texas had the worst entry to psychological well being companies total as of 2022 when contemplating “entry to insurance coverage, entry to remedy, high quality and price of insurance coverage, entry to particular schooling, and workforce availability.” As of 2023, 98 p.c of the state’s 254 counties have been a minimum of partially designated as “psychological well being skilled scarcity areas” by the federal authorities.
One other February survey by the Episcopal Well being Basis, a Texas-based public well being nonprofit, discovered that greater than half of Texans say that rising funding for psychological well being packages ought to be the state’s prime well being care precedence. Greater than 1 / 4 reported {that a} member of their family had bother accessing psychological well being care due to price — the very best share that the group has ever reported in 5 years of conducting the ballot.
The Texas legislature is taking steps to deal with the state’s psychological well being disaster with a $34 million bipartisan package deal to fund psychological well being companies, particularly for minors. That invoice, which handed the state senate final month and is predicted to turn into legislation, is a major step, however would possibly nonetheless not be sufficient to deal with historic funding shortfalls.
Although the governor promised to fund psychological well being companies following the Uvalde taking pictures 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 brand new invoice received’t even come shut to creating up for that diversion.
Why gun rights advocates discuss psychological well being over gun management
Gun rights advocates have lengthy pushed the narrative that psychological well being points, moderately than weapons, are the foundation reason behind gun violence.
Each former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence repeated that declare on the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation annual assembly final month. “This isn’t a gun downside,” Trump mentioned. “It is a psychological well being downside, it is a social downside, it is a cultural downside, it is a non secular downside.”
However that simply doesn’t appear to be borne out by the analysis. A 2016 literature evaluation by the American Psychiatric Affiliation discovered that mass shooters with severe 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 a fair smaller share of these involving a firearm are dedicated by people with severe psychological sickness.
Blaming America’s gun violence epidemic on psychological well being points, as Republicans have carried out, obscures the a lot stronger hyperlink between gun possession and gun deaths. One 2013 Boston College-led examine, as an example, discovered that for every proportion level enhance in gun possession on the family stage, the state firearm murder charge elevated by 0.9 p.c. Extra weapons are bought in Texas than every other state, and it additionally has a higher-than-average variety of gun deaths.
There’s additionally concern {that a} Republican deal with psychological well being and violence may really result in much less remedy as a result of linking the 2 can reinforce the stigma round psychological well being points.
“Gun restriction legal guidelines specializing in individuals with psychological sickness perpetuate the parable that psychological sickness results in violence, in addition to the misperception that gun violence and psychological sickness are strongly linked,” write James L. Knoll IV and George D. Annas of their literature evaluation. “Stigma represents a serious barrier to entry and remedy of psychological sickness, which in flip will increase the general public well being burden.”
