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Schroer Ad Stigmatizes Mental Health Problems and Misleads on Gun Violence Causes



Welcome back Show Mo Facts readers! We first wanted to thank all of our new readers and new followers and we hope you’ll follow along with us as we head toward the midterm elections. This week we are going to be moving down the ballot and examining state legislature races. The first ad that we will be fact-checking comes from current State Representative Nick Schroer. Schroer is also the Republican nominee for Missouri State Senate District 2.


This ad comes from Schroer’s Facebook and was posted in late July. In the ad, Schroer, standing in a gun range, argues against any restrictions on guns. He says that law-abiding citizens should not be the target of scrutiny, people who break the law should be. Schroer then goes on to claim that “deranged individuals” are the reason for gun violence, not the prevalence of guns in the United States. Schroer then ends the ad by shooting a high-powered gun at a target.


Claim: “The Second Amendment is not the enemy. Deranged individuals are. That’s why I support your right to protect your home, your family, our schools, businesses, and churches. We should fund mental health and always back the blue. Always”.


Fact: Schroer claims that “deranged individuals” are the cause of mass shootings, not the high number of guns in the United States. First off, the word “deranged” is not a respectful or accurate adjective to use when describing someone living with a mental health challenge. The National Center on Disability and Journalism said that the words like deranged, “… were once commonly used to describe people with mental illness but are now considered offensive. They are still used in a variety of contexts but should be avoided”. Moving on to Schroer’s claim that people with a mental illness are largely responsible for gun violence, this has been proven to not be true. People living with mental health issues are more likely to be the victims of violence, rather than the perpetrator. The National Institute of Public Health has found that nearly one in five Americans live with some sort of mental illness (52.9 million). Schroer’s claim casts this segment of the population as "the enemy” and implies they are all violent which is untrue and dangerous. It also stigmatizes a common condition among Americans. Additionally, the United States is not the only country in the world with people living with mental illnesses. Other countries also have citizens with mental illnesses yet mass shootings and gun violence in other countries are far less common. Where the United States is unusual, however, is the ease with which a person can get access to high-powered weapons like the ones used in mass shootings. The United States is the only country in the world with more guns than people (see chart below). Experts have largely agreed that guns, not mental illness are largely responsible for the multitude of mass shootings in the United States.



Fact: Schroer also claims in his ad that “we should fund mental health”, yet during his time in the Missouri House of Representatives he has not been supportive of such funding. The single largest payer for mental health services in the United States is Medicaid. Yet, Missouri Republicans have tried to prevent the expansion of Medicaid, despite Missouri voters voting in favor of expansion in 2020. This delay in the expansion has made mental health resources unavailable to some Missouri residents. While Schroer claims to be supportive of mental health funding, his votes in the legislature have not reflected that.


Due to Schroer’s stigmatization of mental health, his unwillingness to recognize the role that gun access plays in gun violence, and his votes not being reflective of his claim to support mental health funding we rate this as EXTREME on our Pants on Fire O-Meter. Additionally, Schroer’s rhetoric is blatantly offensive to the 33.6% of Missouri residents who report some sort of anxiety and/or depressive disorder, a figure higher than the national average. If Schroer wins the election, many of his constituents will be living with a mental illness, and as such Schroer needs to reevaluate how he discusses mental health.



Thank you for reading Show Mo Facts! Be sure to follow us on Twitter as well as like and comment on this post. Also, send us any ads that you see and would like us to cover through our Contact page. If you’d like to check out another blog from our class, we recommend Gateway To Facts. They are fact-checking the MO DNC. Find them here!

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