Roy Blunt: “I wish to talk for a few minutes today about mental health. It is a topic that gets a lot of attention every time…”

“I wish to talk for a few minutes today about mental health. It is a topic that gets a lot of attention every time somebody does something that we don't think makes sense, when people do harm to others in ways that we don't seem to be able to rationalize in any other way but to say that we are almost 100-percent sure that this is a person who has a significant mental health problem. Before I go any further with that idea, I wish to say that if you have a mental health problem, you are much more likely to be the victim of a crime than you are to be the perpetrator of a crime. But when we see things happen in schools--whether it is an elementary school such as Sandy Hook or a community college--and when we see things happen on a military base such as Fort Hood or in the last week at a holiday party, there is no way to explain those things except to say that something has gone dramatically wrong in somebody's life. But it does bring us to a topic that seems to be brought only by the worst of circumstances. Fifty-two years ago President Kennedy signed the last bill he signed into law, which was the Community Mental Health Act. On the 50th anniversary, the last day of October 2013, Senator Stabenow and I came to the floor to talk about that. When you look at the Community Mental Health Act, there were lots of great goals to be set for the country. Almost none of those goals have been achieved.…”