Gun owner, teacher and mom condemns Trump’s cuts to school mental health

WASHINGTON — A Texas gun owner, mother and longtime teacher responded to the Trump administration’s cancellation of $1 billion in school mental health grants that had been passed into law, with bipartisan support, following the 2022 Uvalde school shooting. Yesterday, GIFFORDS, the national gun violence prevention organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, released a statement decrying cuts to the grants included in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), Congress’s response to the Uvalde shooting and other incidents of gun violence.  

The legislation’s mental health grants allowed schools to hire psychologists, counselors and mental health workers in an effort to prevent school shootings, and the law’s Republican backers celebrated this achievement in recent months. President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s latest round of needless cuts comes on the heels of $881 million in grant cancellations to violence prevention programs and other essential initiatives across the country. GIFFORDS is tracking these and other disastrous gun violence moves by Trump here. 

“As a Texas mom, gun owner and longtime teacher, I know that strengthening mental health support for students is critical to improving outcomes and reducing youth suicides and school violence. Parents and survivors of multiple school shootings fought for this important funding so they could prevent other families from knowing their pain—these cuts are extremely dangerous,” said Shannon Flores, Senior Coalition Manager of GIFFORDS Gun Owners for Safety. “School mental health services are supported by parents, teachers, counselors, Republicans and Democrats. Just like last week’s attack on violence intervention funding, literally no one was asking for these dangerous cuts.”

Gun violence is the number one killer of children and young people in the United States. School shootings continue to be an ever-present threat, despite the fact that these tragedies are preventable. In addition to improving access to mental health care, policymakers must take action to keep guns from falling into the wrong hands by passing safe storage, red flag laws and background checks on all gun sales.