As Gov. Abbott places shooting blame on mental health, what has Texas done to address it?
The shooter did not have a diagnosed mental health condition, police said.
2022-05-27 17:30:11 - VI News Staff
During a press conference this week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde on mental health issues.
Abbott explained that law enforcement believes what's behind these types of attacks is a growing prevalence of people with mental health issues and the need for more mental health support, not lax gun laws.
"We as a state, we as a society need to do a better job with mental health," the Republican governor said Wednesday. "Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and to do something about it."
However, advocates said the state has missed plenty of opportunities to address mental health.
The governor has diverted money away from agencies in Texas that oversee mental health programs and recent reports have found Texas is the worst state in the nation when it comes to providing access to mental health care, they say.
"Based on what we know about [the shooter], we cannot come to a formal conclusion that he had a mental illness," Greg Hansch, executive director of the Texas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told ABC News.
Abbott admitted during the conference that the 18-year-old suspected gunman in the Uvalde shooting, Salvador Ramos, did not have a diagnosed mental illness or a known criminal background, but rejected the idea that stricter gun laws would have prevented the shooting.
Debbie Plotnick, executive vice president for state and federal advocacy at the nonprofit Mental Health America (MHA), said officials and the public often blame mental health when there is violence in a community.
"When we have a situation like this where people end up dead, it's very easy to point fingers at mental health, in particular," she said. "It's a historic scapegoat and it's still the case. But hate is not a mental illness … Having a mental health condition does not make someone violent."
In fact, some critics said the state has not supported efforts to expand mental health care.