By Michael Hong

Staff Writer

On Feb. 14, the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, left 17 students and faculty members dead and a further 17 injured. In turn, it has revitalized the debate over whether our leaders ought to first address the issue of gun control or mental health reform. Addressing both issues is the most optimal method to reduce school shootings, as Florida has done in response to the Parkland massacre, but many states lack the bipartisan support necessary to pass such a bill. As a result, states should prioritize mental health reform to better prevent another school tragedy.

 Although guns give people the ability to mass murder, mental illness gives them the urge to do so, and should not be ignored. The Los Angeles Times found that almost 60 percent of all 185 mass shootings in the past 28 years had a perpetrator with a mental issue, while less than a third sought or received mental health care.

 The Washington Post emphasized this impact, stating that untreated mental illness plays a particularly significant role in homicides, while reiterating that while mental hospitals have dwindled, prisons and jails are only expanding. This punish first, help later mentality will only continue to exacerbate the frequency and magnitude at which these crises happen.

 In the case of Florida, the shooter was 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who had been expelled from school for disciplinary reasons. Even though he had a therapist, hasty actions like expulsion generate feelings of hatred and insignificance, further alienating him from any useful help. Instead, consistent therapeutic aid might have been able to circumvent the disaster.

 The first step is to increase the quantity of school therapists and counselors, in order to increase accessibility and decrease workload. The National Public Radio identified that counselors, on average, manage about 482 students each, but in California, they manage about 760 students each, the second highest figure in the U.S. This number of students makes it hard to develop a sense of attachment, pushing authorities to just go through motions and do the minimum, rather than give every individual student the care and attention they need.

 The second step is to increase and utilize mental health facilities. As the Atlantic elaborated, the U.S. can fully fund comfortable, therapeutic centers for the mentally ill, rather than ship them off in the masses to asylums where they are mistreated instead of rehabilitated. Having a dedicated nursing staff and good living conditions provide the concentrated care that people need.

 States have more than enough individual funding to do both of these steps, and can cooperate with federal entities if needed. Immediately after the Parkland shooting, Florida Governor Rick Scott passed a bill that included $90 million for mental health care with $69 million specifically for schools. Additionally, Iowa recently passed a bill to create short-term access centers and increase access to psychiatrists, while individual Nevada counties are advocating for more mental funding in their state budgets.

 Mental Health America, a community-based nonprofit, ranked Florida 37th and 33rd in youth and adult access to mental health facilities, respectively, while ranking it 10th in mental health prevalence, contrasting states like Massachusetts that rank 1st and 4th in youth and adult access, and 33rd in prevalence. In turn, the Center for Disease Control ranked Massachusetts 1st with just over three gun-related deaths per 100,000 people and 242 deaths total, while Florida ranked 25th with almost thirteen deaths per 100,000 and over 2,700 deaths.

 Crises like the one in Florida should never paralyze us with fear. Instead, it should act as fuel for the American people to push our leaders to make some change. In this case, we ought to prioritize for mental health reform and then gun control, if not both, to best address the root cause of school shootings.