“Gun control and mental health is like a two headed monster,” senior Caroline Lemen said about President Donald Trump and his outlook on mental health issues. In the wake of the shooting in Parkland Florida, President Trump has announced he plans to focus more on mental health.

One of the things that Trump would like to accomplish by dealing with mental health is putting $8.6 million towards the Department of Veterans Affairs for at risk veterans and $1 million towards the Children’s Mental Health Program according to npr.org. Although Trump is planning to put these investments in these companies, he is deciding to cut $665 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration.

“Mental health is a big problem. If you look through history, in 1923 you could go to your local hardware store and buy an automatic tommy gun that carried 45 rounds at the age of 18. But at that time there were no mass shootings, it wasn’t a problem. Now it is a problem because we loose the price of life and people don’t really care about others as much,” senior Bradley Papez said.

Many agree that mental health is a big problem in todays society, but that does not cut out the severity and importance on the issue of guns and mass shootings.

“I believe that Trump should put limitations and raise the minimum age to buy guns like AR-15’s till at least 21, because there are 18 year olds who are not responsible to handle a big war weapon,” senior Logan Bollenberg said.

Students can see both sides of the argument, many said both are equally as important and should be addressed.

“I think he should be focusing on  gun control and mental health. I know a lot of the anti-Trump people are saying he’s using mental health as an excuse to try and cover up gun control. I can see both sides of the argument though, especially with Hope Week coming up about mental health. I think if Trump made classes in public schools about mental health then that would help,” Lemen said.

Some say Trump should not even spend time focusing on mental health or gun control and should focus on more important issues in this country.

“ [He should focus on] making sure everyone is content and living well, and focus on poverty. In Flint, Michigan I heard they don’t have clean water still, so he should be focusing on that,” Bollenberg said.

Trump so far has not made any advancements towards his plan of offering money to more mental health institutions and companies.