More firearm dealers than mental health providers in Uvalde

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The small Texas town of Uvalde has more federally licensed firearm dealers than New York City.

Uvalde also has more places where people can legally purchase guns than it does mental health providers.

It was at one of those dealers, Oasis Outback, that the suspect in Tuesday's shooting purchased two AR-15-style rifles and killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

"(In Texas), they have easy access to firearms. They sell assault weapons to anybody who wants them, anybody over 18. You're creating the conditions where it's so easy for somebody who is at risk of violence to get that weapon and then create havoc," said Josh Horwitz, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. "We do not have to live this way. We've made choices to allow people who are 18 years old to get assault weapons, high capacity magazines, no permit. These are things that we could do better and as long as we don't, as long as we keep making these choices, more people are going to die."

Our investigation found Texas has the most school shootings and mass shootings across the U.S.

There were 4,164 firearm-related deaths in Texas in 2020, meaning one person died, on average, every two hours from a firearm-related incident, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although this mass shooting - like dozens of others before it - has prompted calls for stricter regulations, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said when he talked to community leaders and deputies in Uvalde about the shooting, he said their answer was "straightforward and empathetic."

"(They said), 'we have a problem with mental health illness in this community,' and then they elaborated on the magnitude of the mental health challenges that they're facing in the community and the need for more mental health support in this region," Abbott said.

Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan said when the Legislature reconvenes, lawmakers will have a "very robust discussion about mental health like we always have and will continue to support mental health in this state and especially rural mental health."

"Every community has mental health needs and they must be addressed and this crisis is another reiteration of a mental health crisis we have in this state," Phelan said.

Our investigation found Uvalde is not alone in its lack of mental health resources.

Statewide, about 80 of Texas' 254 counties have zero mental health providers, according to our ABC13 data analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.

Uvalde County also has more firearm dealers than mental health providers. There are seven mental health providers for the town's population of about 26,900 residents, according to federal data.

Meanwhile, the City of Uvalde has 12 federally licensed firearm dealers, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The small Texas town of Uvalde has more federally licensed firearm dealers than New York City.

After the Santa Fe shooting in 2018, where 10 people were killed and 13 more were injured at a high school, Abbott signed a bill into law that established a collaborative task force to study public school mental health services.

But four years later, our investigation found mental health services aren't any better at Texas public schools.

A 13 Investigates analysis of state data found 81% of public school districts in Texas do not meet the American School Counselor Association's recommended ratio of a maximum 250 students for every counselor.

Our analysis looked at Texas Education Agency data on the number of individuals listed as a counselor or psychologist in relation to that district's enrollment for the current school year.

We also found nearly 8% of all Texas public school districts do not have a single counselor or psychologist on staff. About 12% of districts only have a part-time counselor or psychologist.

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District is just shy of the recommended ratio and has about 15 counselors for its 4,116 students, according to the TEA data. That's about 274 students per counselor.

INTERACTIVE: Want to know how many counselors and psychologists your child's district has? Search the map below. The districts in red do not meet the recommended requirements. On mobile device? Click here for a full screen experience.

Although Abbott announced a list of agencies providing short-term mental health services for the community in the aftermath of the shooting, he did not announce any specific plans on how he would increase mental health access or availability statewide.

Although access to mental health is an important part of the conversation, Horwitz said there's no question that access to firearms leads to more gun-related deaths. He said as firearms sales increase, it creates a greater risk of gun violence.

While some states have passed legislation to make it more difficult for certain individuals to access firearms, Abbott last year signed seven pieces of legislation protecting gun rights, including authorizing "Constitutional Carry in Texas, meaning law-abiding Texans can legally carry a handgun without a license to carry."

Abbott also signed a law that protects Texans from federal gun control regulations.

"California still has shootings, but what California has done is a comprehensive system of firearm regulations, so they have a lower suicide rate, lower homicide rate, lower school shootings than Texas. Texas on the other hand has said, 'we're going to make it easy for anybody to get a firearm,'" he said. "We can do better across the board, but Texas is absolutely failing when it comes to the families they need to protect."

Horowitz said it's not fair to argue that certain gun regulations would not have made a difference in mass shootings like Tuesday's because they could still make a difference in preventing potential future shootings.

"We know right now that we can save lives and when you put a number of policy policies together, you have the ability to increase your life-saving potential. There are always opportunities to say, 'well, that law wouldn't have worked here,' but it would've worked in many other circumstances and what we really want is not (to stop) one shooting, (to stop) many shootings," he said. "We need a sweep of policy and programs that will work across the board and save many lives. We can't save every life, but we can save a lot more than we're doing today."