GOP solution school shootings? Mental health. GOP response to mental health help to schools? No
Ask any Republican lawmaker what their solution to gun violence is and they’ll say “mental illness,” particularly when it comes to school shootings. Here’s Mitch McConnell after the Uvalde, Texas, massacre, saying that Congress needed to “target the problem,” and the problem isn’t guns, it’s “mental illness and school safety.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott specifically argued that a lack of mental health care resources was the cause of the Uvalde massacre. “What I do know is this: 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.”
Okay, say Democrats. Let’s do something about mental health in school. On Thursday, House Democrats passed the Mental Health Matters Act, written specifically to try to address the mental health crisis in schools to help students, families, and teachers who have all been harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. One Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), voted with Democrats to pass the bill.