Vice President Kamala Harris announced the Biden administration will allocate $285 million to provide mental health services to students at public schools in communities dealing with violent crime involving guns.
Ms. Harris made the announcement during her opening remarks at a “Roundtable Discussion on Gun Violence Prevention” at Eastway Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Jan. 11.
She said the money will pay to hire and train 14,000 counselors as well as providing a “safe place” for students to deal with the effects of gun-related crime in their communities.
She said that prior to taking the podium, she had spoken with students who had been impacted by some crime committed with a gun. She said the funding is to finance programs so students will at least feel safe in their schools.
“To provide a place where those who are trained to do this work can allow the students and the children to check in and heal,” Ms. Harris said.
Secretary of Education Michael Cardona opened the meeting by talking about taking his daughter to the first day of her senior year. He said he wasn’t concerned that she would have a good year or make friends.
“I was thinking, ‘Please God,’ I was hoping she was safe this year,” Mr. Cardona said. “It’s heartbreaking to know that that’s a thought process that parents have everywhere across the country.”
Vi Lyles, mayor of Charlotte, thanked the officials for the $12 million set aside for 300 counselors in North Carolina. She said the funding will help local and state officials partner with the federal government to address the problem.
“It’s going to take all of us; every level of government is going to be needed to address this [violence involving guns] pandemic,” she said.
In a statement released after the event, Mr. Cardona said addressing mental health issues will lead to better academic performance in the nation’s schools.
“Make no mistake: you cannot separate the need to accelerate our students’ academic success with the need to have safe and welcoming learning conditions, free from fear and violence,” the statement reads.
Financing mental health services in schools is part of the Bipartisan Safe Communities Act, touted by the Biden administration as the most significant gun legislation in 30 years.
Ms. Harris is also overseeing the newly created White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention. Last month, the administration announced its “Safer States Agenda,” an initiative to promote state-level versions of federal programs. These include opening state offices of violence involving guns prevention and promoting safe storage and red flag laws.
According to the statement released Thursday, the office is working with state officials on “renewing the assault weapons ban, passing red flag legislation, and requiring background checks for all gun sales at a time when guns are the leading cause of death for children in America.”
Ms. Harris also said that a fifth of Americans have had a family member killed with a gun.
According to the Poynter Institute, the figures include suicides along with violent crime.
Gun rights research organizations and Second Amendment advocates dispute the contention that guns are the top killer of American children. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), car wrecks are the number one killer of people under the age of 18.
Violence from guns become the number one killer when the sample was expanded to include people under the age of 20.
“The bottom line is that about one-third of the firearm deaths for those under 20 involve homicide, where the victims are 18 and 19 years old. About another 20 percent involve homicides for 15, 16, and 17-year-olds. These deaths are largely gang-related, and even banning guns is unlikely to stop drug gangs from getting a hold of guns to protect their extremely valuable drugs,” the CPRC website reads.
