Not that I was going out on much of a limb when 95% of school shooters are shown to be on psychoactive meds, but it's now confirmed that the Florida shooter was also taking them (like the shooter at Virginia Tech, the "Joker" shooter at the Colorado theater, the boys at Columbine High, and so on...). Ron Paul has noted this fact in his latest column, which is worth a read.
Yes, the presence of high capacity weapons enables such shooters to do more damage, but the fact that anyone *wants* to kill people at random is the root of the problem. Gun bans leave a populace unable to defend itself against criminals or over-reaching governments, which is why they are still unacceptable to most Americans. I also find it interesting that the media outlets who are currently focusing on gun-bans are the ones which are also most beholden to the interests of the 1%. Do they perhaps sense the possibility of a popular revolt, and want to preemptively disarm the common rabble? There are numerous historical precedents for this very thing.
I've had a co-worker who failed to show up one morning, and was found in her driveway with her throat slashed. One neighbor across the street from my old residence had another (drug addled) neighbor insist that they let him into their home to "use the phone", at which point the druggie smashed in their front door and came after them (this happened two houses away from a policeman's residence). They used a firearm to defend themselves, successfully. Another neighbor, upon finding an intruder in their garage, called 911. The state patrol took 45 minutes to respond. Yet another neighbor died after struggling with an intruder in his home. Another time, I noticed a car slowly creep down our road, turn off their headlights (at night) and pull into an elderly neighbor's driveway. Who knows what they were up to, but they fled when they noticed my approach. Yes the need may be a rarity, but the ability to protect those around you is important. Would you be okay with a ban on seat belts if they were also being used for nefarious purposes?
Anything short of a complete ban will not get rid of events like school shootings, and would undoubtedly encourage the use of other weaponry (explosives, swords, chemicals, etc) where the will exists -- and psychoactive meds are clearly generating the will or extreme indifference required. I don't remember it being widely reported, but this student managed to stab 20 people at his Pennsylvania high school with steak knives before being subdued. He was, of course, also on psychoactive meds.
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey
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7 comments:
Correlation vs Causation -
Even though most of the school shooters may have been on psychoactive drugs,
the psychoactive drugs aren't necessarily the Cause of the behavior.
They probably wouldn't have been on the psychoactive drugs
unless there was some type of behavior or mental problem that was
being addressed in the first place.
Regarding the 2nd Amendment -
The 2nd amendment was enacted in 1791. How many assault rifles, semi/automatic weapons, bump stocks, etc. were available in 1791. We need reasonable regulations
regarding gun control for the United States as it exists today!
Regarding gun control -
Australia has had no mass shootings for roughly two decades, since
implementing gun control. Mass shooting inspired them to
act, very successfully. There is no legitimate use for the
general public to purchase semi-automatic weapons, other than to kill people.
See the following links:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/no-mass-shootings-australia-20-years-how-did-they-do-n597091
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-trump-students/student-survivors-of-florida-shooting-slam-trump-over-fbi-tweets-idUSKCN1G20VO
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/us/parkland-students-shooting-florida.html
Agree with Verified
If the correlation were not also causation, one would expect that gun violence were just as common, but with fewer victims before the widespread availability of high capacity magazines. That, however, does not appear to be the case. SSRIs are widely noted as having common side effects of agitation, anxiety, suicidal thoughts. Here's a quote from one study of SSRI side effects: "Some participants described feeling detached from their own emotions and instincts. Most participants described that this emotional detachment extended to a detachment from other people. Specifically, they felt reduced *sympathy and empathy*, and felt detached during social interactions. In particular, many participants described an emotional detachment from their friends and family, including their partner or children."
So -- increased agitation and anxiety, reduced sympathy and empathy, a 95% correlation with mass shootings, and no link whatsoever? I find that extremely unlikely!
That sounds quite consistent with what we'e seen in schools and other areas lately.
Australia essentially banned all repeating weapons, including most hunting shotguns/rifles.
A quote from the Huffington Post and links to contrary views -
“As for anti-psychotics which are used to treat the delusions of psychosis and schizophrenia, a study published in 2010 found that the rate of homicides committed during a first episode psychotic break before treatment was 1.59 homicides per 1,000 patients. "The annual rate of homicide after treatment for psychosis was 0.11 homicides per 1,000 patients." The authors concluded, "the rate of homicide in the first episode of psychosis appears to be higher than previously recognized, whereas the annual rate of homicide by patients with schizophrenia after treatment is lower than previous estimates. Earlier treatment of first-episode psychosis might prevent some homicides." “
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/marvin-ross/antipyschotics-school-shootings_b_2467182.html
https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/psychotropic-drugs-responsible-mass-shootings/
What Australia did was effective, even if you don't like the method!
Anti psychotics are not the drugs in question here, and are relatively rare in comparison to SSRIs, which appear to be primarily at fault.
Australia threw the baby out with the bath water, which will undoubtedly solve the problem, but at a far greater cost. I'd prefer to just throw out the bath water, because there are significant impacts when you throw the baby out as well.
Assault rifles may *enable* higher casualty rates in such shooting events, but they do not *cause* the events! SSRIs do in fact appear to be the cause, because such events were all but unheard of before SSRIs were introduced, and firearms were in fact widely available well before such shootings became commonplace.
OSU, Corvallis brought Paul Chappell from Foundation fo Peace in the Nuclear Age in to conduct a workshop. You can read more about it at his website https://paulkchappell.com . While he was here Veterans for Peace sponsored a one time public talk by Paul. He shared his own experience of childhood trauma to explain this rage he would feel well up within himself where he felt like he could ---- he couldn't understand where it came from then but now has insight. This is important insight to help others. I think that is likely the case in many, most or possibly all mass shooters. It boils down to self-esteem, self love & acceptance based on life experience starting in childhood. It starts in the family. I think it is a family illness in most cases. And as a society we have failed these families and individuals. It is easier (and more profitable) to write a prescription than to see the problem through to root cause and cure. And that is what is leading to this breakdown - in the individual, the family, the communities, etc. I now try to support Paul's work because I think he has a good part of the answer. Maybe that is why other countries have guns but less gun violence. Maybe they are more focused on the root of the problem.
Hi Shirley - there are certainly multiple things at play here, and social upheaval is definitely one of them. I don't think humans are particularly well adapted to life in the society we've produced, where people are pigeonholed into focused activities and made anonymous by our ability to travel longer distances (as for work or shopping, or even moving out of communities).
I've often felt that cars are once of the worst inventions ever created from a social perspective. I find it incredibly easy to get angry at the faceless driver of a car (a tailgater, perhaps), and much less so to get angry at a person whom I can see. The same could be said for the anonymity afforded by the internet, as well at the inability to read a person's emotions in online communication leading to raised tempers.
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