On Sunday, Fox News presented Gov. Greg Abbott (A-Butt) with a poll that showed Americans overwhelmingly favored background checks and raising the minimum age to buy firearms. But the governor shunned gun safety options in Texas and instead pointed to the need to increase mental health funding.
Spoiler Alert: Not even a month before the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, A-Butt slashed $211 million from the state agency that oversees mental health services.
As of yet, no public indication from investigators that mental illness played a role in the shooting Saturday, but WFAA reported, citing unnamed sources, that the gunman was removed from the U.S. Army “due to mental health concerns.” What we do know is the suspected shooter “posted pro-white supremacist and neo-Nazi materials on social media, according to an FBI bulletin, and his fascination with the beliefs are now being investigated as a motive for the attack.”
A-Butt’s Full Interview:
Texas has had the highest number of mass shootings of any state in the country so far this year.
The governor has faced fierce criticism from Democrats, who have pointed to GOP-led efforts to make gun purchases even easier in Texas.
And a blast from our recent past:
Trump made it easier for the mentally ill to get guns when he rolled back Obama regulation
In 2017, Trump quietly rolled back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy guns.
