Mental Health in Gun Proposals
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: And I want to show our viewers here, this is a quick graphic we made here. Obviously, some of the things you want to have accomplished. They're implementing school-based mental health services, lack of health insurance coverage for mental services, must implement key provisions of Affordable Care Act. These are some of the things you are putting on the table. What do you make of the NRA and their suggestion that there be some sort of registry for those who are mentally ill?</s>MICHAEL FITZPATRICK, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Well, there is a registry already in place that has had a number of problems over the years. Not enough states report. That needs to be tinkered with, changed. Language needs to be changed. Again, you need to be very, very careful when you set up a registry like this that you're not putting up a block for people to get the services they need. What we know, and as part of our recommendations in regard to this horrible tragedy, is we need to have early intervention. We need to get to people sooner. We need to make the mental health system accessible. We don't want a reporting system for weapons and guns to block people from getting the treatment that they need.</s>MALVEAUX: And do you think the task force is dealing with the need of mentally -- those who are mentally ill? The fact that there are so many people in this country, and it's almost hard to believe, that do not get treated?</s>FITZPATRICK: Right. And that's what the reality is. It's what I said earlier. The way -- more than half of the people in this country don't get the treatment they need. It takes between eight and 10 years for a child that's diagnosed to get the treatment they need. We also know that many of the kids who exhibit emotional disturbances or mental health problems begin to exhibit those problems at the age of 14. So we need to be in schools. We need to be doing mental health screening. We need to have early intervention. The system of care in this country for mental health right now spends too much time looking at the back end of the system and not looking at the front end of the system, where we can get services to people when they need them.</s>MALVEAUX: Michael Fitzpatrick. Thank you. We appreciate it.</s>FITZPATRICK: Thank you.</s>MALVEAUX: As we've been reporting, the president pushing for tighter gun laws. Is this going to be part of this legacy or it is going to be a fight to fix the country's financial crisis, the problems on that end? We're taking an in-depth look on how to plan -- how he plans to fix the deficit and whether or not it's going to work as he suggests.