The Right's cynical mental illness diversion.

As if Governor Abbott cared about those with mental illness.

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Now on to my topic of the day.

A talking point that has emerged from the Right-wing in the wake of the daily - yes, daily - mass shootings is that it is a mental health issue, not a gun issue.

We hear this a lot from Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports:

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 to the 2021 State of Mental Health in America report.

Abbott’s use of mental illness, typical of those of those with his politics, is both a diversion and scapegoating those who suffer from mental illness and receive little in the way of help or support.

Those with a mental illness are way more often the victims of violence than the perpetrators of violence.

Katelyn Jetelina, Your Local Epidemiologist, explains the actual relationship between mental illness and violence in her substack column.

For more than a decade in a 30 year career as a public school teacher, I worked with many students on the autism spectrum. During that period our school functioned as a full inclusion learning center for all children in the district whose parents agreed to have them attend.

Every class I taught, 25 classes a week, had students identified as being on the autism spectrum.

I understand that many in the autism community might disagree about whether Autism is a mental illness.

However, autism is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The DSM-5 also classifies autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder (a subcategory of mental disorders).

However one chooses to define autism, support is required and often denied.

I know this first hand.

Each year our district would cut the number of classroom assistants who work with students on the autism spectrum and each year as union president I would battle, usually with only partial success, to get back to full staffing.

Sunday’s New York Times has a lengthy story about a family with a child with autism which illustrates the problem.

In New York State, there are around 50 residential schools, mostly private and expensive, that specialize in working with children with disabilities ranging from autism to traumatic brain injuries. But the demand for spots is great, and these institutions are generally able to pick and choose whom to accept.

Each year, to meet this need, New York will pay, often grudgingly, for around 300 children with disabilities to attend out-of-state programs. Autistic children make up the largest share.

The stories are heart breaking.

Decades after deinstitutionalization, some autistic children remain stuck in hospitals for lack of other options, and their parents are afraid or unable to bring them home.

Summer Ward, the 10-year-old girl who fell from the window, has been living on the seventh floor of Albany Medical Center for more than 100 days. According to her mother, Tamika Ward, as well as several others who have visited, Summer rarely leaves the hospital, which costs the county close to $3,000 a day. Summer’s broken arm has healed, but she remains in a hospital room because no residential school has yet cleared a bed for her and going home is no longer an option.

On May 14, a racist in Buffalo murdered ten people and left more injured.

Ten days later a killer went after a 4th grade class in Uvalde, Texas, killing 21 kids and two teachers.

Among the at least 11 mass shootings over last weekend, 14 people were shot near a Chattanooga nightclub, 14 were shot in Philly and 8 were shot at a graduation in Summerton, South Carolina.

Sunday was day 156 of the year, and the country has already experienced at least 246 mass shootings so far.

At least 246 in just over 22 weeks.

This averages out to just over 11 a week.

More funding and support for those with mental illness is real.

Pointing the finger at those with mental illness for the epidemic of gun violence is nonsense and, worse, scapegoating those who are most vulnerable.