I’ve lived my entire life in The Great state of Texas – as politicians like to say. My state is renowned for many things not the least of which are ten-gallon hats, longhorn cattle, the second most stupid Governor in the country (Ron DeSantis out-stupids Gregg Abbott) and the one of the highest (or maybe the highest) per capita gun ownership rate in the country. I mean, shit, I think we’re right up there with Yemen!
Our mentally defective governor trots out the mental illness trope with every mass shooting, and we have one of those several times every week. I call it a trope because it is pure nonsense, of course. Of America’s 40,000+ annual gun deaths, about 26,000 are suicides. So, there is a connection between mental illness (affective disorders like Major Depression being the most common) and gun deaths, but it isn’t the connection that Abbott would have you believe. His answer to gun violence? More guns (because that’s supposed to make us safer)!
I read a medical item a few days ago reporting that ~75% of Texas children with diagnosable depression had not been evaluated by a healthcare professional. Today, I read another item that reported that suicides among Texas children doubled from 2008 to 2018. In just shy of half of these deaths, the means of suicide was a gun. This means was more common in rural areas of the state than in the cities – rural Texas has a thriving gun culture. The majority of gun suicides were among adolescent males, of course.
So, what are the Texas legislature and Governor doing to address the issue of gun violence and mental health in the Lone Star State? Resisting common sense interventions like raising the age for firearm purchases from 18 to 21, promoting a culture of guns everywhere as an answer to mass shootings, and doing diddly-squat about mental health services.
I mean, depressed adolescents don’t need any intervention, right? It’s just a phase, I suppose. 🙁