To lawmakers like Paul Ryan, the nation's epidemic of gun violence is a symptom not of too-ready access to weapons of mass murder but of an unresolved mental health crisis. He does not propose to remedy that crisis either—in fact, it is forever among the health programs Paul Ryan and his collaborators wish to do more damage to—but he purports to believe that better mental health care would help lessen the violence without restricting the sorts of guns that would-be killers can easily obtain.
Whether he is right or wrong, this is bad news for Nevada, already suffering from the worst availability of mental health services in the nation.
Nevada ranked last in the U.S. by measures of access to mental health care in a report released last year by the nonprofit group Mental Health America. Mental health professionals in the state said they’re routinely forced to turn patients away or add them to the end of long waiting lists. [...]
Nevada has just 190 licensed psychiatrists (6 per 100,000 residents, 47th among U.S. states) and just 390 psychologists (13 per 100,000 residents, 38th among U.S. states), according to a count last year.
And many counselors in the area specialize in the trademark Las Vegas vices of alcohol, drugs, and gambling — and are unlikely to be trained in responding to a trauma like the Mandalay Bay shooting.
The state will now need to import doctors skilled in dealing with such trauma, including those more versed in the needs of soldiers wounded in overseas battles than those expected of outdoor American concertgoers.
As of yet there is no obvious path for how these needs will be met. And as of yet, there has been no serious talk from Congress on whether they will lift a single finger to help.