Rep. Tim Murphy: ‘The Silence of Congress’ on Mental Illness ‘Is Deafening’

MURPHY: “Sure. We actually have learned a lot since the 1800s, and that's when a lot of these standards were set up. We - a year ago this month there was an important study released where they now have genetic markers of schizophrenia and bipolar. If you look at someone who's abusing substance, has a severe mental illness diagnosis, a history of violence, those are all a huge red flag to something is amiss. And there's another thing, too. States have the ability to use something called assisted outpatient treatment with such - with such persons. Instead of an involuntary commitment, they can have an outpatient commitment and work with them. The Louisiana legislature was the first one to really call for support of my bill, the Helping Families and Mental Health Crisis Act, because they saw a year ago there was problems occurring and they needed to do something about it. We have a long way to go. But I'm telling you what, I'm getting tired and frustrated with these moments of silence in the House floor. Look, we need to do that for the victims and give them our respects and our prayers, but the silence of the - of Congress is deafening. And it just reaches the point where I go from frustrated to angry now, that we ought to be getting up and doing something besides being silent.”