Dr. Keith Ablow: America’s Mental Health System Is ‘Shattered’

KILMEADE: “All right, let’s play the Keith Ablow card. The gun control debate has resurfaced, following the recent Oregon shooting. But our next guest says that tragedy could have been prevented, had our mental health system been in better shape. About one in five adults in the U.S. experience mental illness in a given year. That’s over 40 million Americans. How does that play into this? Dr. Keith Ablow from the FOX News medical ‘A’ team joins us. Dr. Keith, you looked into this shooter’s background —“ [crosstalk]
ABLOW: “Hi, Brian.”
KILMEADE: “Great to see you. And you believe that there — there is a way to have stopped this. How?”
ABLOW: “Absolutely. Listen, that’s why it’s so cynical and misguided when someone like the president tries to politicize this and say it’s about guns. It’s about our mental health care system, which is shattered. Here’s just one way that we could approach this. So many of these assailants, it’s not politically correct to say it, but it happens to be the truth, that so many of them suffer with asperger’s syndrome. Now most folks with that condition, the vast, vast, vast majority, do not hurt anyone. However the shooters tend to suffer, with this condition. Why wouldn’t we have developed the tool to assess the potential for violence in folks suffering with autism spectrum disorders like asperger’s, and especially those with access to firearms. And deploy special resources to them. Clinical healing resources. Why? Because our mental health care system is an abomination. We don’t have the will to do that. Why? Because of misguided leaders like the president, who put us of — on — on wild goose chases looking for guns, when the answer is right in front of us.”
KILMEADE: “And you’ve been saying this for years, even before this last shooting, even before what happened in Connecticut.”
ABLOW: “Absolutely.”
KILMEADE: “But, let’s look at this case in particular. The father judging by the interview, my humble opinion, was really detached from the kid. The mom was all over the kid and had brought him to different health care professionals in the past. What is her responsibility?”
ABLOW: “[indecipherable] huge responsibility. Number one, somebody should have counseled this mother. Just like Adam Lanza’s mother. Right in Connecticut, Sandy Hook. Bottom line is you can’t have firearms around your house. We know that there’s some potential for trouble here. What are you doing? Let’s get the department of social services involved here. We have the resources we need. We don’t have to disempowered and take liberty away from all Americans, because a mom whose son banged his head against the wall as a kid, who suffered with a profound mental illness, is nonetheless teaching him to shoot automatic weapons. I mean how hard is that, Brian, to find those cases? That’s two of the most — the most dramatic shootings in America’s history. Two of them are kids living in the basement of their mother’s home, with severe mental illness, and the mother’s teaching them to shoot firearms.”
KILMEADE: “A lot of people who are in defense of — a gunned and not blaming the gunned for this incident, unlike the president, say it’s mental health. You just gave a pathway to solving that problem. Dr. Keith, thanks so much.”