Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in the wake of the massacre Saturday in a shopping mall in Allen, Texas that claimed at least 8 lives, on Sunday called for a focus on mental health as a "long-term solution" to stop the growing number of mass shootings in the United States.
"People want a quick solution," the Texas Republican told "Fox News Sunday." "One thing that we can observe is there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence taking place in America. And what Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it."
Saturday afternoon, a gunman opened fire at the Allen Premium Outlets, located outside Dallas, killing at least eight people and injuring at least seven others before a police officer, working in an unrelated nearby assignment, shot and killed him.
The mall shootings took place just over a week after a gunman fatally shot five people at a Cleveland, Texas, home on April 28.
Abbott, when asked if there should be federal gun control laws, pointed out that on the federal level, some laws have been passed, and on the state level in Texas, "this is something we have been grappling with over the past year."
State lawmakers are working on laws "to get guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and to increase penalties against criminals who possess guns," said Abbott, but he pointed out that there has been an increased number of shootings in both red states and blue states.
"We've seen an increased number of shooting in states with easy gun laws and states with strict gun laws," said Abbott. "I think the state in which the largest number of victims this year is in California. They have very tough gun laws."
The governor, though, acknowledged that Texas had been lagging in mental health legislation and spending for years.
"That's why over the last three sessions and we've added almost $25 billion to address mental health," Abbott said, adding that the state legislature plans to spend another $3 billion by the end of the current legislative session to address mental health issues in the state, particularly for children in schools and for people in rural parts of the state.
"It truly seems today that America is more divided than we have been in decades," said Abbott. "We've gotta find a way in this country where we can once again reunite Americans as Americans and come together as one big family and in that regard find ways to reduce violence in our country."
He added, though, that the priority is to help and support families in the Allen community who have lost people or who have had people injured.
"I know that those families need answers as quickly as possible," said Abbott. "I want to reiterate my gratitude for the swift response to just a single police officer had, to confront that dangerous gunman. He did the right thing and we are grateful for that officer's heroism."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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