Like many of you, in the hours, days since Uvalde, I have veered from heartbreak to fury. Yet another senseless massacre. Quickly followed by Tulsa. On and on. This past weekend even more slaughter. The Washington Post dispassionately described the official Texas response: “Amid a spate of mass shootings in recent years, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) responded by focusing on promoting mental health services and convening a task force that produced a 40-point plan centered on ‘hardening’ school campuses and identifying threats.” Yes, mental illness. School safety.
No doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist I. More client than therapist. So I defer to the prestigious Mayo Clinic: “Signs and symptoms of mental illness can vary, depending on the disorder, circumstances and other factors. Mental illness symptoms can affect emotions, thoughts and behaviors … Detachment from reality (delusions), paranoia or hallucinations … Trouble understanding and relating to situations and to people.”
I believe Abbott and other Republican politicians are the wrong people to be talking about these critical issues. Having the wrong conversation. I say this because, in a very unique American way, they are afflicted. They have lost the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Sadly, they are almost always lying. And I can’t really consider it healthy (not to mention moral) to make things worse for those desperately hoping that the tiniest meaning might come from the grotesque deaths of these children. Taking at least a step to save others in the days to come.
Instead, by deflecting, worse mocking, efforts to actually make a difference when it comes to murder by firearms they make things so much more painful. How? By refusing to honestly and adequately address the way in which the children of Uvalde, the shoppers of Buffalo, the health care professionals in Tulsa were slaughtered.
By refusing to acknowledge the guns which brought death to them, these politicians reveal how unable they are to honestly relate to the reality of those in the affected communities. To their loved ones. And to what all empathetic Americans are experiencing.
So more and more we are split apart. The adherents of GUNS-R-US America, the true believers, and those seduced by the contributions of the gun lobbies, as opposed to the growing majority, even those careful deer-hunters, who are just sick of purposeless death and destruction.
As a boy, then a young man, I felt the power of imaginary gunfights, Have Gun Will Travel, a man seeking justice with the help of his six-shooter. Later in life, I could too easily imagine the power of the gun to inflict almost irreparable damage. Imagining myself the shot more than the shooter. Today I’m puzzled that so many still need to ignore the reality of so many innocents slaughtered, of still forming lives lost for no reason. the never-ending pain of the parents and loved ones and their young classmates, the survivors.
I say these politicians are afflicted. Because such profound pretense requires a certain kind of madness. What does it do to the soul to pretend that openly carrying weapons designed to rip through human flesh in such a way as to make survival near impossible is somehow okay. To pretend it’s normal for an 18-year-old or even a 21-year-old to want or need a weapon whose only function is to obliterate.
Their excuses are beyond embarrassing. Senator Cassidy: AR-15s are needed to kill feral pigs. Senator John Thune said they’re necessary to kill prairie dogs. Representative Ken Buck, insists the AR-15 is the gun of choice to get the raccoons before they get the chickens. How in the hell did Washington and Jefferson protect their chickens before assault weapons?
How pathetic to pretend that our Founding Fathers who won our independence with muskets in militias against an army of British invaders had always intended for ordinary citizens to purchase multiple weapons capable of firing bullets that rip through the body armor of policemen charged with protecting the public.
Based on who they’re voting for, it seems that many adults are willing to live in an America where going to the doctor’s office, to a country music festival, church or synagogue, or the supermarket, and in some urban areas just walking the street or taking the subway, can arbitrarily end in death by gunfire.
But, in small part, I’m still hopeful. And, yes, I know handguns kill far more than assault weapons, but nevertheless, while Americans have somehow accustomed ourselves to a single fatality, we are still horrified by mass murder. Which affords us yet another opportunity to take stock of where we are.
Everything about Uvalde is horrifying but one thing that hurts so much is the fact that children aren’t allowed to choose. They don’t vote. We don’t ask them about the kind of world they want to live in. Most haven’t come to accept that guns are a necessary part of life; that open carry is an expression of freedom, that buying a semi-automatic gun is an appropriate purchase on your eighteenth birthday.
That American children haven’t, but adults have surrendered to this way of living explains why we’re living in a land where more children die from firearms than cars. Axios tells us: “The firearm death rate among children is steadily rising, as more kids are involved in gun-related homicides like Tuesday’s mass shooting in Uvalde … Nearly two-thirds of the 4,368 U.S. children up to age 19 who were killed by guns in 2020 were homicide victims, per the CDC. Motor vehicle crashes, formerly the leading cause of death for kids one and older, killed nearly 4,000 children.”
Whatever tolerance for differing opinions we might have accumulated over the last many decades has gone down the drain. So, it probably won’t help at all to say I have friends who have guns, who hunt, who love target shooting. But given the death toll, it might be time to think about the proliferation of guns much like we think about combining the pleasures of alcohol or marijuana or other drugs with driving a car on crowded highways and city streets. It’s dangerous enough when you’re not under the influence.
Still, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz insist on talking about mental illness rather than guns. So, I’m going to talk about it too, perhaps in a slightly different way.
Governor Greg Abbott was on shaky mental grounds way before Uvalde. I mean given the reality of mass killings in Texas, beginning with the 1966 University of Texas shooting in Austin, on through the Dangerfield Church shooting in 1980, the mass killing at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, with 23 dead and 50 wounded, and more recently the 13 killed and 30 wounded at Fort Hood, and on and on, who in his right mind would be embarrassed by the fact that some people in Texas were finally showing some restraint and buying fewer guns, then think it a good idea to share this stupidity with the entire world:
According to Pew Research, “In 2020, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (24,292), while 43% were murders (19,384) …” Personally, I believe people have the right to end their own lives. Frankly, I’m troubled that they pick such a violent way to opt out. But murder is something else. And we owe it to each other to do everything in our power to prevent murder. For me, if it requires some adjustments to the Second Amendment, I truly believe the Founders would be on board with the efforts to make it less easy rather than more easy to commit murder.
When talking about the Uvalde shooting, Governor Abbott conveniently deleted the shocking history of gun-toting Texas mass murderers:
“So the ability of a 18-year-old to buy a long gun has been in place in the State of Texas for more than 60 years and think about during the time, over the course of that 60 years we have not had episodes like … what I do know in talking to the leaders here, as well as leaders in other locations around the state, and that is one thing that has substantially changed is the status of mental health in our communities. What I do know is this, that we as a state, we as a society need to do a better job with mental health. 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 do something about it.” (Emphasis added.)
Yes, we in America fail when it comes to tackling mental illness. The lack of affordable treatment options is deplorable. Yes, it is reasonable to want to explore the connection between mental illness and mass murder. But given his admission that “we as a state, we as a society need to do a better job with mental health,” you might be stunned to learn that in April 2022, Governor Abbott cut $211 million from the Texas budget for Health and Human Services, the agency that provides mental health services and children’s mental health. Including crisis intervention. [Emphasis added]
What does it say about a man who tells a grieving community that he believes mental illness is the real reason their loved ones have died, while he knows full well that when he had the power, the opportunity, and most importantly, the responsibility, he made it far more difficult for mental health professionals to actually provide critical services to the mentally ill?
Yes, he cut funding, then he’s also encouraged an ongoing culture war in Texas taking aim at already inadequate mental health services in local schools. As Tyler Kingkade and Mike Hixenbaugh reported for NBC News “Parents protesting ‘critical race theory’ identify another target: Mental health programs. Groups have voiced opposition to suicide prevention programs, mental health coordinators and social emotional learning, claiming they are being used to indoctrinate students.” [Emphasis added]
Take Tara Eddins from Southlake who complained the Carroll Independent School District was paying counselors $90K to give students lessons on suicide prevention. “‘At Carroll ISD, you are actually advertising suicide,’ Eddins said ‘Some of these kids, they’re just trying to get through the day, get through compacted math, get through algebra, go to cotillion on Sunday … They are not thinking about these issues.’
“Two days after Eddins made the remarks, Southlake Families PAC — a group that has fought to stop a diversity plan at Carroll — sent an email to supporters calling on the school district to ‘Leave mental health and parenting to parents.’” [Emphasis added]
First, we’re told that mental illness is the problem, then informed we shouldn’t pay and support those trained to address mental health issues. Then, that untrained parents, often in denial about the problems their children are experiencing are best able to take care of them. So how exactly do you think that’s working?
If “anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge,” maybe consistently making it super easy for them to get the guns they need to shoot somebody also has a mental health challenge?
Meanwhile, the National Institute for Mental Health reveals: “Mental illnesses are common in the United States. Nearly one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (52.9 million in 2020). Mental illnesses include many different conditions that vary in degree of severity, ranging from mild to moderate to severe .”
But anyone with open eyes can see it has always been about the guns.
The most recent report of Mental Health America notes: “A growing percentage of youth in the U.S. live with major depression. 15.08% of youth experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, a 1.24% increase from last year’s dataset. In the bottom-ranked states, up to 19% of youth ages 12-17 experienced major depression.
“Over 60% of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment. Even in states with the greatest access, nearly one in three are going without treatment. In Texas, the bottom-ranked state for this indicator, nearly three-quarters of youth with depression did not receive mental health treatment.” [Emphasis added]
So why is it John Cornyn, that nearly three-quarters of Texas youth with depression did not receive mental health treatment? Yet you insist the last thing we should do is prohibit untrained, irresponsible 18 year olds from purchasing assault weapons designed to kill.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also addressed these issues: “Mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders begin in early childhood: 1 in 6 U.S. children aged 2–8 years (17.4%) had a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder. Prevalence of mental disorders change with age: Diagnoses of ADHD, anxiety, and depression become are more common with increased age. Behavior problems are more common among children aged 6–11 years than younger or older children.”
Sadly, while championing the unfettered right to own guns, Governor Abbott, Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn have failed to provide for the mental health of their citizens. They could easily have found federal funding for increased diagnostics and treatment services. Mental Health America uses a variety of factors, including adults with any mental illness, substance use, thoughts of suicide, etc. to ranks our states’ success dealing with mental illness:
“An overall ranking 1-13 indicates lower prevalence of mental illness and higher rates of access to care. An overall ranking 39-51 indicates higher prevalence of mental illness and lower rates of access to care.” [Emphasis added]
Its “Access to Care Rankings” indicate “how much access to mental health care exists within a state.” The access measures include access to insurance, access to treatment, quality and cost of insurance, access to special education, and mental health workforce availability. A high Access Ranking (1-13) indicates that a state provides relatively more access to insurance and mental health treatment.
With Texas last in access to mental health care, they all nevertheless were committed to repealing the Affordable Care Act. On June 22, 2015, Governor Abbott announced: “Today I am calling on my fellow governors across the country, and on members of Congress in Washington, to show some political spine and just say no to Obamacare. Now is not the time to throw Obamacare a lifeline — it is time to sound its death knell.”
On January 12, 2017, Senator Cruz announced he had: “reintroduced his legislation to fully repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare … Early Thursday morning, Sen. Cruz voted in favor of the Senate’s budget resolution, which provides a critical step toward fully repealing Obamacare.”
As for Senator Cornyn, on February 2, 2017, he announced:
“Obamacare created a board of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to make health care decisions on behalf of American families and seniors. The American people have made clear they are tired of expensive care that continually fails them—and it’s well past time for change,” Sen Cornyn said.
Why spend so much time on Obamacare? Well, because it is the one American health care program that actually does some of what Republicans are asking for – providing support for those with limited incomes to get treatment for mental illness. The Department of Health and Human Services explains:
Mental Health America explains how critically important this is: “Both adults and youth in the U.S. continue to lack adequate insurance coverage. 11.1% of Americans with a mental illness are uninsured … 8.1% of children had private insurance that did not cover mental health services, totaling 950,000 youth … Rates of substance use are increasing for youth and adults, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 7.74% of U.S. adults and 4.08% of youth had a substance use disorder in the past year. Substance use increased 0.07% for adults and 0.25% for youth over last year’s report.”
Don’t Abbott, Cruz, and Cornyn’s bear some responsibility for the failure to identify Uvalde’s undiagnosed and untreated mentally ill shooter? Failing time and again to fund and support the necessary mental health programs. Calling for the action you steadfastly refuse to take sounds a lot like delusion to me. Perhaps as the Mayo Clinic warns us, Abbott, Cruz, and Cornyn are detached from reality. Certainly, from the real lives and heartbreak and fury their Uvalde constituents are experiencing. Clearly, they have “trouble understanding and relating to situations and to people.”
Fast forward just a few days after the massacre in Uvalde to the NRA 2022 Convention in Houston, Texas. After assuring the audience that he had prayed and cried and mourned, Senator Cruz chose this as the most important thing he had to tell the world:
“The elites who dominate our culture, tell us that firearms lie at the root of the problem. By elites, I refer to some of the most powerful politicians and their allies in the media, the leaders of the largest corporations and many of the most famous celebrities and those who echo and amplify them. Their resources are limitless, their megaphone is enormous, and their voice can be deafening. Many of these same people make their accusations from behind great bulwarks of safety, from gated communities equipped with private security or, at the very least, from safe and expensive neighborhoods protected by high home prices and low crime rates. Such people can afford an indulgent ideology that ignores reality. As is so often the case, those furthest from the halls of power are the most dependent on the ability to defend themselves.”
You pick: grand delusion or monumental dishonesty? Does Cruz truly believe he’s not one of one hundred ultra-powerful Senators but working at Walmart for minimum wage. Because Senator Cruz neglects to mention he graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, is now a multi-millionaire with his Goldman Sachs wife living in the luxurious neighborhood of Houston’s River Oaks “protected by high home prices,” with its own private security force, River Oaks Patrol. Maybe he’s forgotten that his kids go the prestigious private school, Georgetown Day in Washington, D.C.:
“For millions of Americans, the right to keep and bear arms is not theoretical. It’s not abstract. For a single mom in a dangerous neighborhood, it is a matter of basic security. Taking guns away from these responsible Americans will not make them safer, nor will it make our nation more secure. In an age where elites embrace defunding the police, when homelessness runs rampant, when gangs dominate entire communities, and when radical district attorneys refuse to prosecute violent crime in cities across America, rarely has the Second Amendment been more necessary to secure the rights of our fellow citizens.
“But many would still tell us that the evil on display in Uvalde or in Buffalo derives from the presence of guns in the hands of ordinary American citizens. It’s far easier to slander one’s political adversaries and to demand that responsible citizens forfeit their constitutional rights than it is to examine the cultural sickness giving birth to unspeakable acts of evil.
“Tragedies like the events of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing, looking at broken families, absent fathers, declining church attendance, social media bullying, violent online content, desensitizing the act of murder in video games, chronic isolation, prescription drug, and opioid abuse and their collective effects on the psyche of young Americans is both complicated and multifaceted. It’s a lot easier to moralize about guns and to shriek about those you disagree with politically, but it’s never been about guns.” [Emphasis added]
As for the mirror Cruz wants to hold up – well how about holding it up to himself. Because pretty much everything Senator Cruz said at the NRA Convention was an outrageous lie. And the most egregious lie of all: it’s never been about guns.
Senator Cruz loves to go on about those ordinary people, those real folks the elites just don’t get, who need to walk around Walmart open carrying their Glocks. But the thing is, Senator Cruz knows all too well it is about the guns. And he wants no part of it. And so he has something none of the children and teachers of Uvalde had, what ordinary folks don’t have: his personal bodyguards from Atlas Glinn.
According to Roger Sollenberger of The Daily Beast: “Since October 2020, the Cruz campaign has paid Houston-area executive protection firm Atlas Glinn nearly half a million dollars to protect himself and his family—$499,661, almost all of it in monthly lump sums averaging around $30,000, according to federal disclosures.”
Can you stand just a bit more hypocrisy? The people who say focus on mental health aren’t doing anything to make it harder for those with mental health problems to kill, they’re actually making it easier.
As CNN reported on September 1, 2021:
“A new pro-gun law in Texas that went into effect Wednesday allows most Texans who legally own a firearm to carry it openly in public without obtaining a permit or training, a measure that experts say will make it more challenging for law enforcement to protect the public from gun violence.”
Abbott later signed a series of other bills further loosening restrictions, and said: “Texas will always be the leader in defending the Second Amendment, which is why we built a barrier around gun rights this session.”
The bills include: Senate Bill 19 (Schwertner/Capriglione) which prohibits any governmental entity from contracting with any business that discriminates against firearm and ammunition businesses or organizations.
House Bill 957 (Oliverson/Springer) which repeals the criminal offense of possessing, manufacturing, transporting, or repairing a firearm silencer. It also ensures that any firearm suppressor manufactured in Texas, and that remains in Texas, will not be subject to federal law or federal regulation.
House Bill 1927 (Schaefer/Schwertner) which authorizes Constitutional Carry in Texas, meaning law-abiding Texans can legally carry a handgun without a license to carry.
House Bill 2622 (Holland/Hall) makes Texas a Second Amendment Sanctuary State by protecting Texans from new federal gun control regulations.
Lastly, from Uvalde and the New York Times of June 8, 2022:
“Miah, 11, was among several people who testified at the hearing on gun violence. In the pre-recorded video, she said she had been watching a movie with her classmates when one of her teachers got an email and then moved to lock the door. The teacher had told students, ‘Go hide,’ she said, and they hid behind backpacks and their teacher’s desk.
“He shot my friend that was next to me,” Miah said. “And I thought he would come back to the room.”
“She took blood from her friend and rubbed it over herself so that she would appear dead, and she then called 911 from her teacher’s phone, asking for the police.
“I said we needed help,” she said. In the video, she was asked what she wanted to come from the mass shooting.
“To have security,” she told members of Congress. She shook her head when she was asked if she felt safe at school. “I don’t want it to happen again.”
You tell me: who is more in touch with reality. Eleven-year-old Miah or the powerful yet pathetic political leaders of Texas. Not surprisingly, Abbott, Cruz, and Cornyn, along with so many other politicians who insist again and again that it’s never been about guns are insulated from their mental illness, self-absorbed, willing to lie and lie again, and because of that won’t listen to Miah, will close their hearts to her, and to the grieving of Uvalde and Buffalo and the new Uvaldes that will surely come.
But anyone with open eyes can see it has always been about the guns.
