friends. i know everybody has been hearing from loved ones. just shock. i got a note this morning from a friend in mississippi. his pastor wrote the congregation yesterday and said, as i write these words, the sun is rising on may 25th, 2022. another day of mourning in america after another mass shooting at another elementary school. as we pray yet again for those whose lives have been torn us under by a troubled soul wielding a deadly weapon, it seems important and necessary to me to say as a christian pastor that we try to find reasonable ways to reduce gun violence, and that is not political. it is moral. the church needs to have a moral compass which can tell the difference between that which is politically partisan and that which is moral. otherwise, our fear of being political may, at times, make us fall silent concerning matters which we should not be silent. as martin luther king jr. once widely said, the day we fall silent about the things that matter is the day our
likewise, dan crenshaw, republican congressman from houston, said he will not be going. governor abbott hasn t outlined his schedule. the comment at the press conference yesterday was taking it day by day in this moment. whether he chooses to show up on friday and share a stage with former president trump, who is expected to attend, ted cruz, who is expected to attend, is going to be very interesting to watch. there will be reporters at that event. they re going to get more questions about guns. there was really only a handful of questions about guns at the press conference with a lot of questions left, frankly, unanswered. garrett, before we let you go, is the governor planning to speak at the nra convention this weekend? is the lieutenant governor planning to be there, as well? reporter: they are taking it day by day, willie. no definitive scheduling remarks by the governor. they are still on the schedule. they re still expected to appear. as will former president donald trump,
there s a lot of fear. i ve heard it from my own kids, a lot of age si anxiety. what does this mean for me? if we don t process it with them, they ll look for other ways which might not be the healthiest ways. we have to take care of ourselves, number three. reading out the names this morning, i had a hard time pulling it together. i have a child that age. it s tough. if we do not process those emotions, all this mental health stuff we re talking about, that we were already experiencing as a nation, it is only going to get worse. if we want to heal, we have to talk about it. if we want to heal, we have to put meaningful action in place, gun reform. we have to invest in issues of mental health and addiction. the scars, the mental scars stay with those not only affect bud children all over the country. mika and i, we one of our
that s more deadly than the guns we gave our troops in vietnam. i think that s the majority position, just like the background checks, just like everything else, mika, that governor abbott, that senator rubio, that every one of those people up on the stage calling beto a son of a bitch for talking about this? it was one, big massive exercise in avoidance, and it was painful to watch. i jumped out of my seat watching the television. i don t blame anyone else for getting emotional. they should have been more, quite frankly, validating of that. but that would have to involve being honest. again, not a political issue, mika. a moral issue. this is a moral issue, isn t it, mika? it is. it s our children. that s the fallback always, right? don t politicize it. stop playing politics.
what have you made of the discussion of the symptoms, what we saw in uvalde? thanks for having me on, willie. i have to cknowledge this moment. i ve watched you talk about this, seeing mika read out the n names, and the emotional toll it takes on me as a parent. i hear my kids running down the hall getting ready for school. parents are not hearing those footsteps this morning. my heart goes out. we as a nation have to reflect on how this impacts us and our mental health. let s not confuse this. there is no evidence that suggests mental illness causes gun violence. guns cause gun violence. we have two separate issues here. we have a massive mental health and addiction crisis in the country, one ignored. 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, we saw 186,000 lives lost to drug overdose, alcohol, and suicide. that is a problem that s running in the background. meanwhile, we have this gun issue being discussed today, and