In case you missed it, yesterday Texas gubernatorial candidate (and U.S. Senate candidate and presidential candidate and former Congressman) Beto O’Rourke disrupted Texas governor Greg Abbott’s press conference on the school shooting in Ulvade:
Watch:
In addition to Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is present. So is U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.
A few thoughts:
Beto is right in principle and I respect him for what he did. Did he march to the stage out of a sincere sense of moral outrage, or as a political stunt? I can’t answer that question.
If you watch the entire press conference (start listening after about eight minutes or so), Abbott downplays gun laws and spends most of his time talking about the need for better mental health services. It is precisely at this point that Abbott stopped comforting victims and dispensing information and started offering a political solution to the problem of mass shootings in Texas and America writ-large. So let’s be careful about saying that Beto O’Rourke was the only one “being political” here.
Abbott’s call for improved mental health care is ironic in light of the fact that in April 2022 he cut $211 million from the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, the very branch of the state government that deals with mental health issues. NBC News has it covered. Here is a taste of a recent piece by Mike Hixenbaugh and Corky Siemaszko:
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.
“We as a state, we as a society, 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.
And this:
Last year, The Houston Chronicle published a three-part series that showed Texas leaders failed to adequately fund or manage the state’s eroding mental health system.
In addition, conservative parenting groups in Texas and elsewhere have targeted school-based mental health initiatives, including programs meant to help students manage their emotions. Critics claim the programs are a “Trojan horse” for critical race theory, a separate and rarely taught academic concept that examines how systemic racism is embedded in society.
Read the entire piece here.
Watch Ted Cruz’s response below. For him, the answer is to fight guns with guns. He wants kids to go to school in armored fortresses. Cruz says that we need to stop the “political posturing” even as he himself politically postures. What a hypocrite. Cruz is speaking this weekend at the NRA national convention and is one of the many GOP Senators standing in the way of sensible and reasonable gun control.
By the way, you and other Democrats constantly refer to “sensible and reasonable” (or “common-sense”) gun control. When asked for specifics, we usually get something like banning certain kinds of semi-automatic guns or banning “ghost guns” and the like. Do you believe you would eliminate all mass shootings if those specific measures were passed? Because you blame all Republicans for every mass shooting, do you believe, then, that the only reason there are mass shootings is because people can purchase AR-15s or AD-47s?
Both New York and California have very strict laws on the books, but both have had mass shootings, most recently in Buffalo. Of course, in that one you also blamed Republicans and specifically Tucker Carlson. But there is no Republican presence statewide here in California and the mass shooters here clearly did not get their cues from Carlson, yet do you still believe that if we simply can eliminate Republican politicians and the Tucker Carlson show, that we no longer will have mass shootings?
You write as though you have THE answer, that “everyone knows” how to stop mass shootings but the Republicans apparently want them to continue. So, what is the answer? Do you have a failsafe, absolute method to stop these terrible events that would not require a total dictatorial lockdown of a society?
Even if he wasn’t grandstanding (and I’m pretty sure he was), the fact that he is running for governor gives MAGA the reason they need to ignore his charge.
That being said, Tweedle Dee and Dumb were totally posturing as well…but that’s their default setting. Cruz, in particular, has never shown a real conviction in his entire life. I’m convinced he’d be a raging progressive if he lived in California.
Kevin: Yes, I am afraid that Beto just fired-up the MAGA base.
I don’t have THE answer, William. But I do feel we need to do something. I hope red flag laws and background checks could help (close the gun show loophole). I don’t know for certain if these will help, but what is the alternative–celebrating our “God-given” right to own an assault rifle? If I had my way, I would support everything Obama proposed after Sandy Hook and/or restoring the 1994 Clinton assault rifle ban.
Here are the steps my state (Washington) has already taken.
A ban on high capacity magazines, ghost guns, and bump stocks
Universal background checks
Extreme risk protection orders
21+ minimum age to purchase semi automatic weapons
Creation of the Office of Firearm Safety & Violence prevention
Open carry regulations
Unsafe storage liability.
Of course they don’t guarantee no more mass shootings. But if more guns was the answer we’d be the safest country on earth instead of the one with the highest number of gun deaths.
Doing nothing is not working.
I like what Washington is doing on this front, Barbara. Thanks for sharing this.