Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday said the “long term” solution to reducing mass shootings was addressing mental health after a gunman killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall — while President Biden called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban.

Abbott, a Republican who is dealing with the second mass shooting in his state in a week and a half, downplayed the need for lawmakers to tighten gun laws during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

“People want a quick solution; the long term solution here is to address the mental health issue,” Abbott told Fox News’ Shannon Bream.

Abbott did also call for increased penalties and stricter laws “to get guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals,” but did not demand new gun control measures.

Officials have not released any information about the identity, age, motivation or mental health history of the man who opened fire in the parking lot of Allen Premium Outlets Saturday afternoon. He was shot dead by a cop who was patrolling the area, police said.

Biden called for lawmakers to act, describing Saturday’s massacre as “the latest act of gun violence to devastate our nation.”

He urged Congress to send him a bill banning assault weapons, and high-capacity magazines, establishing universal background checks, and ending immunity for gun manufacturers. 

If such a bill were delivered to him, Biden said, “I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe.” 

The president ordered US flags be flown at half-staff until sunset on May 11. He said in his statement Sunday: “Yesterday, an assailant in tactical gear armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon gunned down innocent people in a shopping mall, and not for the first time. Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar.

“American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts. More than 14,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives, credible estimates show. The leading cause of death for American kids is gun violence,” the statement added. 

The president also appeared to take a jab at Republicans who have stressed the importance of “thoughts and prayers,” including Texas Rep. Keith Self who claimed critics “don’t believe in an almighty God who is absolutely in control of our lives.”

What we know about Texas mall shooter Mauricio Garcia

The gunman who killed eight people and injured seven others before being shot dead by police at a Texas outlet mall has been identified as Mauricio Garcia, 33.

A look into Garcia’s past revealed:

• He served in the Army in 2008 but was eventually “removed due to mental health concerns,” law enforcement sources told local ABC 30.
• Garcia had undergone several firearms proficiency courses in 2015 and 2018 as part of his security guard work
• Investigators began probing whether Garcia held neo-Nazi views after police found a patch on his chest with the acronym “RWDS,” which stands for “Right Wing Death Squad”
• Garcia also appeared to be casing his target for weeks. He shared more than two dozen photos of the outlets on extremist forums in the weeks leading up to his mass shooting, seemingly determining what would be the most packed time at the mall to unleash the greatest carnage, NBC said.
• The mass shooter alluded to his declining mental health, too. One of his final posts lamented that no psychologist would be able to fix him and his fears of what his family might say about him.

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“Tweeted thoughts and prayers are not enough,” Biden said, describing gun violence as something that cannot be met with “a shrug.”  

Abbott, however, said states with strict gun control laws have also seen shootings, adding, “There has been a dramatic increase in anger and violence that’s taking place in America.”

“And what Texas is doing in a bigtime way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it,” he said.

“We know that Texas had been lagging in addressing mental health for years, and that’s why over the past three [legislative] sessions we’ve added over $25 billion to address mental health. We’re in the waning days of a session right now where we will be adding even more funding — about $3 billion,” the governor said.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde, the site of an elementary school massacre that killed 22 people last year, most of them young students, slammed Austin Republicans for allowing gunmen to “run free with AR-15s and any gun they can get their hands on,” on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Gutierrez has proposed raising the minimum gun purchasing age to 21, strengthening background checks, and instituting a “red flag law” that would take guns away from deranged individuals.

A recent Fox News poll found that at least 80% of American voters agree with implementing those measures.

The senator also accused officials — who had waited nearly a full day to update the public on the shooting — of trying to suppress the details surrounding the case.

“We are in a situation in this state where we’re — as if you’re living in communist Russia. The governor, the lieutenant governor, and people like them and their law enforcement agencies refuse to tell us the truth as to what’s going on here,” Gutierrez said.

“It’s just a sad state of affairs that we’re living in. This is not the Texas miracle that Greg Abbott likes to call it,” he added.

“We’re living in a Texas nightmare.”

Meanwhile, a civilian and self-proclaimed “gun lover” who rushed to the scene of Saturday’s massacre to render first aid to multiple shooting victims, demanded that the Texas legislature take up the issue.

“It wasn’t mental health that killed these people, it was an automatic rifle, with bullets,” Steven Spainhouer, said on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show”

“These M-4s and AR-15s, they’ve got to get off the streets, or this is going to keep happening. And we’ve got to stop that at some point. It could be you. It could be your family member,” Spainhouer said.