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 wherein a gunman killed a minimum of eight folks. Abbott offered these sources as the answer for the gun violence that has wracked the state in recent times. 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 manner, 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 stated throughout an interview on Fox Information Sunday. “Individuals desire a fast answer. The long-term answer right here is to deal with the psychological well being difficulty.”
It’s one in every of many occasions since Abbott took workplace that the Republican governor and his celebration 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 Excessive College capturing, and the 2017 First Baptist Church capturing.
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 could have any significant influence on stopping gun violence, given the massive physique of analysis that exhibits most people with critical psychological well being points by no means turn into violent. Moderately, 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 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 by way of 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 training, and workforce availability.” As of 2023, 98 p.c of the state’s 254 counties had 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 applications ought to be the state’s high well being care precedence. Greater than 1 / 4 reported {that a} member of their family had hassle accessing psychological well being care due to price — the 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 anticipated to turn into regulation, is a major step, however may nonetheless not be sufficient to deal with historic funding shortfalls.
Although 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 some 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 basis 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 stated. “This can be a psychological well being downside, it is a social downside, it is a cultural downside, it is a religious downside.”
However that simply doesn’t appear to be borne out by the analysis. A 2016 literature assessment by the American Psychiatric Affiliation 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 a good 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 accomplished, obscures the a lot stronger hyperlink between gun possession and gun deaths. One 2013 Boston College-led examine, as an illustration, discovered that for every proportion level enhance in gun possession on the family degree, the state firearm murder fee elevated by 0.9 p.c. Extra weapons are bought in Texas than some 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 folks 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 assessment. “Stigma represents a serious barrier to entry and remedy of psychological sickness, which in flip will increase the general public well being burden.”
