On Thursday, December 3, 2015, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas Kristof, usually a strong proponent of human rights, recklessly stated that mental health and gun violence are connected and supported the Murphy bill – the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646). Among other things, Kristof stated that: "As for mental health, Republicans are right that it is sometimes related to gun violence. But it’s also true that in some cases their budget cuts have reduced mental health services. To his credit, Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican, has introduced a bill that would improve our disastrous mental health system, perhaps reducing the number of people who snap and turn to violence. Yet some Democrats are wary of the bill because Republicans like it. That’s absurd: We need better mental health services just as we need universal background checks.” You can read the entire piece at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/opinion/on-guns-were-not-even-trying.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=1 Email him at Nicholas.Kristof@nytimes.com Kristof tweets at @NickKristof. Let him know that he is dead wrong about the connection between mental health issues and gun violence. Use hashtag #realmhchange. Let Kristof know that the Murphy bill will undermine the human rights of people with psychiatric disabilities. Direct him to Rep. Paul Tonko’s recent blog post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-paul-tonko/why-equating-mental-illness-with-violence-harms-us-all_b_8699594.html Rep. Tonko gets it: "Study after study has shown that there is no connection between those w/ #mentalillness & violence" - @RepPaulTonko