GOP presidential hopefuls call for mental hospitals following Maine shooting

Mental health or guns?

That issue has rushed to the fore yet again in the wake of a mass shooting, this time in Maine, where at least 18 people are dead from the gun of a suspect with a history of mental health problems.

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While Republicans have long pointed to mental healthcare rather than gun control as a solution, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has taken it a step further in calling for the return of mental institutions.

“We must remove these violent, psychiatrically deranged people from their communities and be willing to involuntarily commit them,” Ramaswamy said Thursday. “That includes reviving mental health institutions: less reliance on pharmaceuticals, more reliance on faith-based approaches that restore purpose to people’s lives. We know from the 1990s how to stop violent crime. The real question is if we have the spine to do it.”

Republicans often talk about mental health following mass shootings. But Ramaswamy has been more overt than most in his calls to bring back mental hospitals and to revive the controversial practice of involuntary incarceration.

Mental institutions were a feature of 20th-century American life before being mostly shuttered in the 1980s. Calls have been growing on the Right in recent years to bring them back.

The mental health aspect is particularly relevant in the Maine shooting. Top suspect Robert Card had recently reported hearing voices threatening him and even purchased hearing aids to capture them better. Card was admitted to a mental institution over the summer, though he was released after just two weeks.

Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, reacted to the shooting by calling for greater gun control measures.

“I urge Republican lawmakers in Congress to fulfill their duty to protect the American people,” Biden said in a prepared statement. “Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers.”

In that sense, both parties are making the same calls they’ve made following other mass shooting tragedies.

GOP front-runner former President Donald Trump has said shootings are “not a gun problem” but “a mental health problem.” Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said, “We need to acknowledge the cancer in America that is mental health.”

“Right now, 80% of our mass shootings are mental health related,” Haley told Fox News personality Sean Hannity. “So think about that: 70% of those shootings, the shooter is suicidal. We’ve got to start acknowledging what this all means. There’s a lot we can do.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has in the past questioned whether or not the closure of mental hospitals was a wise choice, though he hasn’t directly called for bringing them back.

The idea of reviving mental institutions isn’t without its detractors. Mental health advocates oppose statements such as Ramaswamy’s, which referred to the suspect as a “deeply sick individual,” as stigmatizing against anyone struggling with their mental state.

From a practical standpoint, Democrats control the White House and Senate at the moment, and they are much more focused on gun control measures than mental hospitals.

However, the Democrats are unlikely to get their way either, thanks to the GOP House majority and new conservative speaker, Mike Johnson (R-LA). White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Republican opposition during Thursday’s press briefing.

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“Speaker Johnson and all of the members on the Hill, Republicans in Congress, they have the ability to stop this,” Jean-Pierre replied. “They have the ability to put forth legislation to deal with this issue. They can change this. They can help save lives.”

Whether the two parties can agree on what that legislation should look like remains to be seen.