Abbott blames the Uvalde shooting on a mental health issue. But a month ago he cut funding to fight it.

By Mike Hixenbaugh and Corky Siemaszko -

UVALDE, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott claimed Wednesday that the Uvalde school shooter had a “mental health issue” and that the state needed to “do a better job with mental health” — yet in April he cut 211 million dollars from the department that oversees mental health programs.

Additionally, Texas ranked last out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care, according to the 2021 State of Mental Health in America report.

[The Texas school killer was bullied as a child and became increasingly violent.

He thus acted during the shooting with 21 victims]

"As a state and as a society we need to do a better job with mental health," Abbot said during a news conference at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers on Tuesday.

His remarks came just a day after an outraged senator from Connecticut denounced anti-gun control lawmakers who seek to blame mental illness for the latest school shooting and others before it.

Rejecting suggestions that stricter gun control laws could have prevented the tragedy, Abbott admitted the slain 18-year-old suspect had no known mental health issues or criminal history, but said: "Anyone who shoots another person He has a mental health problem."

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His statements drew criticism from public health experts and academics who study mass murderers, as well as from his Democratic rival for governor, Beto O'Rourke, who was ejected from the press conference after bursting onto the stage and accusing the pro-gun Republican to “do nothing” to stop gun violence.

“There is no evidence that the shooter is mentally ill, he is just angry and hateful

,” said Lori Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Economics and Policy at Northwestern University School of Medicine.

[Irma García, Annabell Rodríguez, Xavier López... Here's what we know about the 21 victims of the Texas school shooting]

“Although it is understandable that most people cannot understand the killing of young children and want to attribute it to mental health, it is very rare for a mass shooter to have a diagnosed mental health pathology,” he added.

David Riedman, founder of the Center for Defense and Homeland Security's K-12 school shootings database, explained: “In general, mass shooters are rational.

They have a plan.

It is something that develops over months or years, and there is a clear path to violence.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks during a news conference in Uvalde, Texas, United States, on Wednesday, May 25, 2022. Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The much bigger problem, they said, is that Texas and many other states are awash in guns.

"Texas has more guns per capita than any other state," the Post noted.

“After the tragic 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, the Governor signed several bills to curb mass shootings.

Unfortunately, most of those bills involved arming the population to stop mass shooters,” he recalled.

The Post noted that police officers trained in active shooting were injured on Tuesday.

She and others said that even if mental illness was the primary cause of the elementary school shooting, local officials have historically neglected programs to help people with psychological problems.

[The Texas school killer was bullied as a child and became increasingly violent.

He thus acted during the shooting with 21 victims]

Last year, The Houston Chronicle published a three-part series showing that Texas leaders had failed to adequately fund and manage the state's eroding mental health system.

In addition, conservative parent groups in Texas and elsewhere have targeted mental health initiatives in schools, including programs aimed at helping students manage their emotions.

Critics claim the shows are a "Trojan horse" for critical race theory, a separate and rarely taught academic concept that examines how systemic racism is embedded in society.

In Uvalde County, a largely rural area where a fifth of the 24,456 mostly Latino residents live in poverty, money budgeted for “health and wellness” has ranged in recent years from $2.8 million to $3.8 million. dollars, according to records.

“I hesitate to comment on how much a county should spend because mental illness cannot be blamed as the primary driver of mass shootings,” said Greg Hansch, who heads the Texas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

[The partner of the murderer's mother says that the young man argued "for anything"]

“People with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of mass shootings than to be the perpetrators.

Less than 10% of shootings involved a suspect who had mental health issues,” she added.

Dr. Sadiya Khan, an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that while mental health programs need more funding, "that won't eliminate the need for gun control."

“It is enough for one person to get a gun to ruin hundreds of lives

.

Our children's lives depend on gun control,” he stated.

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Tamar Mendelson, a professor in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins University, said that while it's hard to put a dollar figure on what it will take to alleviate the nation's mental health crisis, it's clear that the United States is "not investing enough in mental health”.

"We also don't take a preventative approach," Mendelson said.

“We don't do it enough in school settings, where we can provide critically needed care to young people.

And we lack 'culturally competent' care, such as Spanish-speaking therapists," he noted.

[An NBA coach erupts in anger over the Texas massacre: “When are we going to do something!?” he demands of Republicans]

On Tuesday, after learning of the Texas massacre, Senator Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, pleaded with his fellow Republicans to drop the old excuses.

“Save yourself the mental illness shit,”

Murphy declared.

“We have no more mental illness than any other country in the world.

You can't explain this through the prism of mental illness,” she concluded.