Gov. Abbott’s Mental Health Cuts Under Scrutiny After Deadly School Shooting

NBC News: Abbott Calls Texas School Shooting A Mental Health Issue But Cut State Spending For It
Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the Uvalde school shooter had a "mental health challenge" and the state needed to "do a better job with mental health" — yet in April he slashed $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs. In addition, Texas ranked last out of all 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. (Hixenbaugh and Siemaszko, 5/25)

The Washington Post: Weakened Gun Laws Put Texas Gov. Greg Abbott On The Defensive
Authorities have identified the gunman as Salvador Ronaldo Ramos, 18, who they said shot his grandmother before entering Robb Elementary School. Ramos had legally purchased a pair of semiautomatic rifles recently, they said. Ramos, who was killed by police at the school, had no criminal record. ... Gov. Abbott speculated that Ramos probably suffered from mental illness — although he said authorities found no mental health record — and he called on political leaders to do more to address mental health. (Nakamura and Brulliard, 5/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Texas Gov. Abbott Dismisses Calls For Stronger Gun Laws, Points To Chicago Violence
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott dismissed calls for more gun regulation following Tuesday’s deadly school attack in Uvalde, stating that cities with stronger gun laws aren’t safer.  ... “I hate to say this, but there are more people shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas,” Mr. Abbott said Wednesday. (De Avila, 5/25)

Bloomberg: O’Rourke Disrupts Massacre Briefing As Abbott Hits Mental Health
Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, interrupted a press conference held by Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, who blamed Tuesday’s mass school shooting on a mental health crisis amid a national debate over gun control. As Abbott turned the microphone over to his lieutenant governor after delivering his remarks, O’Rourke approached the stage. A loud back-and-forth ensued, with Senator Ted Cruz telling O’Rourke several times to sit down and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick telling O’Rourke he was a disgrace. (Sherman, 5/25)

On gun legislation —

Politico: Senate Begins Search For Bipartisan Gun Deal After Schumer's Green Light 
Chuck Schumer is giving long-shot gun safety negotiations a chance. Kyrsten Sinema is reaching out to Republicans on a path forward. And GOP senators are answering Chris Murphy’s call for new bipartisan talks. Betting on a 50-50 Senate to cut a deal responding to the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school just five months before the midterms is still a long shot. But there’s enough will among Senate Democrats to at least give it a go, rather than force sure-to-fail votes intended to put Republicans on defense. (Everett, 5/25)

The New York Times: Where Senate Republicans Stand On Gun Legislation 
The New York Times reached out on Wednesday to all 50 Republicans in the Senate to see whether they would support a pair of House-passed measures to strengthen background checks for gun buyers. Within hours of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Senate Democrats moved quickly to clear the way for possible votes on the two bills. The legislation would expand criminal background checks to would-be purchasers on the internet and at gun shows and give the F.B.I. more time to investigate gun buyers flagged by the instant background check system. (Cochrane, Leatherby, Parlapiano, Montague, Kavi, Cameron and Edmondson, 5/25)

Also —

NBC News: The Uvalde, Texas, School District Had An Extensive Safety Plan. 19 Children Were Killed Anyway.
School officials in Uvalde, Texas, promised to do everything they could to protect students from a mass shooting. Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had doubled its security budget in recent years, according to public documents, in part to comply with state legislation passed in the wake of a 2018 school shooting in which eight students and two teachers were killed. The district adopted an array of security measures that included its own police force, threat assessment teams at each school, a threat reporting system, social media monitoring software, fences around schools and a requirement that teachers lock their classroom doors, according to the security plan posted on the district’s website. It happened anyway. (Khimm and Schuppe, 5/25)

The Boston Globe: How Mass Shootings Traumatize Even Those Miles Away
“It’s not uncommon that folks feel shock, anxiety . . . based on a trauma that may occur far away and doesn’t have an immediate connection to their lives,” said Amanda Baker, director of the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It can be very personal even if it’s a distant experience.” Mass shootings “add fuel to the fire” of the uncertainty and fear already rampant amid the pandemic, Baker said. It’s part of being human, added Dr. Christine Crawford, a psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center. “Your thoughts automatically go to the horror those kids experienced. Your mind goes to profound sadness and loss. And you place yourself in that parent’s shoes, and you think about how you would react and respond,” she said. (Freyer, 5/25)

NPR: A Child Trauma Expert Explains How Parents Can Support Kids In Uvalde, Elsewhere
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is deeply traumatic for survivors, their families, and the faculty and staff at the school. It also may be emotionally affecting other students across the country. American children regularly practice active-shooter drills and consider the possibility of a crisis in their own classrooms from a young age, making school shootings like the one in Uvalde very upsetting news for some, says Melissa Brymer, the director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. (Clark, 5/25)

CNN: Supreme Court May Soon Loosen Gun Laws As Nation Reels From Massacres 
While the Supreme Court has been working behind closed doors on its first major Second Amendment opinion in more than a decade, three mass shootings have broken the country, including Tuesday's massacre of 19 schoolchildren in Texas. Closed off from public view, the justices are penning opinions and dissents in a dispute that targets one concealed carry law in New York that is more than a century old. A narrow ruling could impact only a handful of states with similar laws, but a more expansive ruling could open a new chapter in constitutional challenges to gun safety laws across the country. (de Vogue, 5/25)

The Boston Globe: As Governor McKee Signed The Marijuana Legalization Bill Into Law, The Lawmaker Behind The Bill Called For Gun Reform
For more than a decade, Senator Joshua Miller has been advocating the legalization of recreational marijuana in Rhode Island, and on Wednesday that moment had finally arrived. Television camera crews were set up on the sun-splashed south steps of the State House, focused on the table where Governor Daniel J. McKee would put pen to parchment to sign the Rhode Island Cannabis Act. Miller, a Cranston Democrat, stepped to the podium to talk about the legislation that he and Representative Scott A. Slater, a Providence Democrat, had introduced, amended, and shepherded to passage. But then he went off script. (Fitzpatrick, 5/25)