Blunt turns to mental health amid slow Senate gun talks
This week, amid slow-moving talks between Republicans and Democrats about how to address mass shootings, Sen. Roy Blunt said he wanted to focus on mental health.
In his weekly address to the press gathered outside of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, the Missouri Republican talked about how the country’s mental health system has allowed people to slip through the cracks ever since former President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act, which closed many asylums across the country (many of which lacked resources and were rife with abuse).
“We went through the Community Mental Health Act and when we did that, it was obvious that that act was designed to close a lot of facilities that probably needed to be closed,” Blunt said. “But it was also designed to create a lot of alternatives that never quite got completed. And so for most of that 50 years, the local police and the emergency room have become the de facto mental health system for the country.”
The conversation about mental health often follows mass shootings, even though mental health experts are always quick to point out that people with mental health issues are more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetrate it. Blunt, too, pointed this out, saying he didn’t want to make anyone afraid of coming forward and saying they had a problem.
He is pushing for an expansion of a pilot program he created with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan. The program, which was signed into law in 2014, created Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics in 10 states, including Missouri. There is currently one in Kansas City. The health clinics offer round the clock crisis services, immediate screenings, risk assessments and diagnoses.
They introduced a bill that would expand the program in 2021, but it has not yet made it through the Senate.
An effort to boost resources for mental health would cast a wide net.
Mass shootings are major news events. Reporters travel across the country to try and figure out what happened and tell the stories of the victims. But those shootings, which are defined as events in which four or more people are shot, only accounted for around 2.6% of the gun murders in the U.S. in 2020, according to Pew Research.
The majority of gun deaths in the United States aren’t even from murders — they’re from suicide. In 2020, around 24,000 people killed themselves with a gun. Gun suicide has accounted for more deaths than gun murders ever since Pew has been tracking the data starting in 1968.
People are more likely to die if they attempt suicide with a gun. Even though only 5% of life threatening suicide attempts involve a gun, they make up 50% of suicide deaths, according to Giffords, a gun control advocacy group.
Blunt said the country needs to invest more in mental health in the hopes that more robust mental healthcare in the country may help prevent all forms of violence.
“Whether it’s suicide or homicide, we need to be stepping in there,” Blunt said. “But we also need to have a mental health system that people aren’t afraid to be part of, and the balance of that in this discussion, I think, is really an important balance to be sure we try and achieve.”
More from Missouri
The Missouri Court of Appeals issued a blow to government transparency groups Tuesday when they ruled that former Gov. Eric Greitens and his staff did not break the law when they communicated with self-destructing text messages. The ruling has the potential to weaken Missouri’s open records law, enabling government officials to communicate in a way where the public won’t have access. The ruling can still be appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Here are headlines from across the state:
▪ Missouri Sunshine Law faces multiple threats, Kacen Bayless and Jonathan Shorman
▪ Schmitt targets student surveys in Kansas City area and across Missouri, Kacen Bayless and Sarah Ritter
▪ Missouri law protects doctors, bars pharmacists from questioning controversial drugs, Kacen Bayless
▪ Democrats think they can win the MO Senate seat. Depending on who can beat Greitens, Daniel Desrochers
▪ Why southwest Missouri plays a big role in the GOP Senate race, Jonathan Shorman
And across Kansas
Kansas state Sen. Dennis Pyle recently left the Republican Party. Now he says he’s running for governor as an independent. If he collects the signatures necessary to get on the ballot, he may cause a problem for the likely Republican nominee, Attorney General Derek Schmitt, in November.
▪ Dennis Pyle launches independent campaign for governor, Jonathan Shorman and Katie Bernard
▪ Jan. 6 hearings have started. Will they make a difference to Kansas voters, Daniel Desrochers
▪ Kansas water crisis through eyes of a Liberal farmer: ‘This drought is real’, Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
▪ Kansas wheat crops are failing when the world needs them most, David Condos, High Plains Public Radio
▪ Did you hear tornado sirens but didn’t get an alert in Johnson County? Here’s why, Natalie Wallington
The latest from Kansas City
In Kansas City …
▪ Kansas City Public Schools’ longtime superintendent to leave in August, Sarah Ritter and Glenn E. Rice
▪ Trusted but greedy, these Kansas City area people wanted more, Eric Adler
▪ KC startup is shutting down. Its founder blames a St. Louis corporate giant, David Hudnall
Have a news tip? Send it along to ddesrochers@kcstar.com
Odds and ends
Cleaver’s done with silence
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives held a moment of silence and prayer for the 19 children and two teachers who were murdered in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the Democrat who represents Kansas City, walked out.
“I’m not doing this anymore,” he said.
He cited Exodus 14:15, the chapter in the bible where Moses parts the Red Sea. As the Egyptians overtook them, Moses prayed to God. God asks him “why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.”
Cleaver wants Congress to move on and pass gun control legislation. On Wednesday, he voted for a bill that would raise the minimum age in which someone can buy a semi-automatic weapon to 21 and would limit the sale of high-capacity magazines. Members of the Kansas and Missouri delegations voted along party lines — Democrats for, Republicans against.
Despite the bill’s passage in the House, it will likely fail in the U.S. Senate where it needs 60 votes and there’s little Republican appetite to raise the legal age to buy a semi-automatic rifle. Instead, talks in the Senate have been focused on giving money to states to implement red flag laws.
Cleaver said it gives him discomfort that the bills to address shootings are being held up in the Senate.
“I think the House is listening to Americans,” Cleaver said. “The Senators are listening to something altogether alien to what we’ve done.”
School safety
Amid pressure from parents to do something about school shootings, two Kansas Republicans turned to what has become the standard Republican response — school safety bills.
On Thursday, Sen. Roger Marshall unveiled a plan that would use unspent COVID-19 relief money on strengthening security at schools. It would be allowed to pay for things like locks, panic buttons, individual room security systems, video surveillance, and hiring and paying the salaries of armed school resource officers.
The day before, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is the likely Republican nominee for governor, unveiled a plan of his own. His plan would increase funding for Kansas’ safe and secure schools program, hire more armed school resource officers, provide more mental health services to schools and enact a bill that enhances penalties for former felons who illegally use a weapon in a new violent felony crime.
Greitens shows off women supporters
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens put out a list of more than 215 Missouri women from 61 counties who support his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. At least two non-Missouri women were listed as co-chairs of the coalition — Kimberly Guilfoyle, who serves as Greitens national chairwoman, and Wendy Rogers, a far-right member of the Arizona state senate.
The list comes as Greitens has faced backlash among some prominent Republican women in Missouri because of the sexual abuse allegations that led to his resignation in 2018 and the domestic abuse allegations that surfaced recently in a dispute with his ex-wife.
Polls this week continued to that show he’s leading in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, but Sen. Josh Hawley, who has called on Greitens to withdraw from the race, has said he’s not concerned about the former governor’s frontrunner status.
“I think the air war on television will begin,” Hawley said. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of advertising this race, somewhat strangely. So you can see a blitz of it at the end and I think people move up and down.”
Happy Friday
The lavender I’ve been growing has finally bloomed, which feels appropriate this month. Here’s an article about Joel Kim Booster. It’s D.C. Pride this weekend, so I will again be having a gin and tonic. And here’s a song by the disco icon Sylvester.
Enjoy your weekend.
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This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 9:27 PM.
