NationStates

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:03 pm**

Now, I understand InfoWars is not a legitimate news source. It's lambasted as the conspiracy mouth piece for Alex Jones. I get that. But this recent article brings up an interesting point regarding psychiatric drugs and gun violence + media coverage.

http://www.infowars.com/media-buries-ps ... y-shooter/

Now I'm not so much interested in the media cover-up that InfoWars is supposing here. Rather what interested me was the link the article draws between psychiatric drugs and mass shooters:

Despite every indication that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was on SSRI drugs that have been linked to dozens of previous mass shootings, the mainstream media has once again avoided all discussion of the issue, preferring instead to blame the tragedy on a non-existent AR-15 that the gunman didn’t even use.

We now know that Alexis “had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems.”
As Mike Adams points out, “This is proof that Aaron Alexis was on psychiatric drugs, because that’s the only treatment currently being offered by the Veterans Administration for mental problems. Alexis’ family members also confirmed to the press that he was being “treated” for his mental health problems.

Across the medical industry, “treatment” is the code word for psychiatric drugging.”
Alexis also suffered from PTSD, blackouts and anger issues – all of which are treated with SSRI drugs. The most common form of treatment for PTSD is Paroxetine, which is listed as the number 3 top violence-causing drug by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).

The Navy Yard shooter was clearly on some form of psychiatric drug, but the media has shown no interest in discovering its identity.
Despite it being reported that prescription drugs were found in the apartment of ‘Batman’ shooter James Holmes days after the Aurora massacre, it took nine months to find out exactly what those drugs were. Like Columbine killer Eric Harris, Holmes had been taking Zoloft, another SSRI drug linked with violent outbursts.

The length of time it took to find out that Holmes was on Zoloft was partly because the media habitually shows zero interest in pursuing the link between anti-depressants and violence.
As the website SSRI Stories profusely documents, there are literally hundreds of examples of mass shootings, murders and other violent episodes that have been committed by individuals on psychiatric drugs over the past three decades. The number of cases is staggering.

Now, yes the mainstream media worldwide is owned by varying corporate conglomerates. It's outrageous that something vital to our society - like the objectivity of journalism - is compromised by corporate interests.

But the article raises the implications that some medications, used to treat mental illness by psychiatrists, could be contributing to gun violence. Nearly every mass shooter in recent history has been mentally ill by some definition or another. Psychiatry is supposed to help stabilized one's mental illness, not contribute to it's aggravation.

I understand fully why medical privacy needs to be safeguarded in society but do people who are mentally ill and receiving psychiatric "treatment" have the capacity to safely own a firearm? I would say not.
http://www.naturalnews.com/042096_Aaron ... tings.html

Study reveals violence inducing drugs:
http://www.naturalnews.com/031017_viole ... drugs.html

Tracking SSRI violence:
http://www.ssristories.com/index.php

Wouldn't be wise or prudent public policy to exclude gun ownership for people on these violence inducing meds? I am a libertarian and even I understand that not all rights are absolute. Mental health needs to play a vital role in shaping future gun laws. Cho (VA Tech), Holmes (Aurora), Landza (Sandy hook), and now Alexis (DC Navy Yard) were all mentally ill and being treated by psychiatrists for their ailments. So the problem seems to be psychiatry's general failure to elicit mental health in patients seeking treatment and America's dangerously lax gun laws. Something is wrong in our culture when we fail to meet the needs of the mentally ill - instead trying to either correct a fictional "chemical imbalance" with meds like SSRIs or placate them into malleability with tranqs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8138893.stm
http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/fores.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... depression

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:05 pm**

West Florida wrote:... I understand fully why medical privacy needs to be safeguarded in society but do people who are mentally ill and receiving psychiatric "treatment" have the capacity to safely own a firearm? I would say not.

Eh.

Wouldn't be wise or prudent public policy to exclude gun ownership for people on these violence inducing meds? I am a libertarian and even I understand that not all rights are absolute.

Omg u'r no TRUE LIBRETRIAN ur an EBUL OBAMMUNIST! :lol:

Really, one would think that the idea that stuff like guns, cars, and other dangerous tools shouldn't be mixed with psychiatric treatment isn't that far-fetched, or difficult to conceive...

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:09 pm**

Risottia wrote:Really, one would think that the idea that stuff like guns, cars, and other dangerous tools shouldn't be mixed with psychiatric treatment isn't that far-fetched, or difficult to conceive...

Precisely! Or that having 2 criminal incidents involving a firearm would be a forfeiture of said rights to gun ownership. And that seeking psychiatric treatment for "hearing voices" and acute paranoia, from the VA (gov't agency) would bar one from SECRET military clearance.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:09 pm**

Correlation does not imply causation. SSRIs are given to people with clinical depression.

I was on SSRIs for over a year, and they do not make you violent.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:12 pm**

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/ ... ts?page=76

Buddhist assassin at Navy Yard prompts debate about stereotype of peaceful faith

Headlines like this too are really a let down to journalism. Was Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth, both well known assassins, linked to their respective faiths? How about Timothy McVeigh?

NOPE! Only when the religion isn't some derivative of Christianity does the media find it fit to mention faith. How convenient. And objective too :eyebrow:

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:13 pm**

West Florida wrote:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3068090/posts?page=76

Buddhist assassin at Navy Yard prompts debate about stereotype of peaceful faith

Headlines like this too are really a let down to journalism. Was Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth, both well known assassins, linked to their respective faiths? How about Timothy McVeigh?

NOPE! Only when the religion isn't some derivative of Christianity does the media find it fit to mention faith. How convenient. And objective too

Damn those Buddhists assassins. You never hear them Om'ing.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:14 pm**

Lordieth wrote:Correlation does not imply causation. SSRIs are given to people with clinical depression.

I was on SSRIs for over a year, and they do not make you violent.

Although you're more than likely correct anyway, drugs can have different effects on different people. The effects may vary hugely.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:16 pm**

Lordieth wrote:Correlation does not imply causation. SSRIs are given to people with clinical depression.

I was on SSRIs for over a year, and they do not make you violent.

Maybe not in your case. How about these? Perhaps patients with dual diagnosis or co-occurring disorders. It's becoming evident that Alexis had classic signs of schizophrenia. Cho had schizoid personality disorder. One's age may also be a contributing factors.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/obs ... -and-ssris
http://www.prescottpsychologist.com/1/p ... lence.html
http://ssristories.com/
http://digitaljournal.com/article/339440
http://beforeitsnews.com/health/2012/07 ... 17899.html

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:23 pm**

West Florida wrote:
Lordieth wrote:Correlation does not imply causation. SSRIs are given to people with clinical depression.

I was on SSRIs for over a year, and they do not make you violent.

Maybe not in your case. How about these? Perhaps patients with dual diagnosis or co-occurring disorders. It's becoming evident that Alexis had classic signs of schizophrenia. Cho had schizoid personality disorder. One's age may also be a contributing factors.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/obs ... -and-ssris
http://www.prescottpsychologist.com/1/p ... lence.html
http://ssristories.com/
http://digitaljournal.com/article/339440
http://beforeitsnews.com/health/2012/07 ... 17899.html

I could concede at best that SSRIs could potentially exacerbate underlying conditions, but many people who have psychological conditions take SSRIs, so what's the control group? When you've got so many people taking a drug, who suffer from a multitude of psychological conditions, and in same cases multiple psychological conditions, I do question the correlation. Are they saying Serotonin is linked to increased violence? That's basically all an SSRI does; increase the amount of available Serotonin in the brain.

Could it make a violent person more violent? Possibly. A non-violent person violent? I don't think so. That's like saying alcohol causes domestic violence.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:23 pm**

West Florida wrote:psychiatric "treatment"

Those are some super stupid scare-quotes right there. Contrary to what wacky conspiracy theorists have to say on the subject, mental illnesses are not actually caused by magical space-demons and/or fluoride in the water supply, but rather by the exact same sorts of things that cause illnesses in other parts of the body. Treating depression with SSRIs should be exactly as controversial as treating diabetes with insulin injections - and they are both about equally likely to cause people to be violent, which is to say, not likely at all.

Barring anyone being treated for any mental illness from owning a gun is inane, since the vast majority of mental illnesses do not cause people to be violent. All that will do is discourage mentally ill gun owners from seeking treatment, which is an awful goal, to say the least. It makes vastly more sense to bar people who have an actual history of violent behavior, or a doctor's determination that they present a danger to themselves or others, rather than deciding that anyone who takes a freaking antidepressant is somehow a terrible risk to society.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:34 pm**

Speaking as someone on SSRIs, my chemical imbalance is not fictional. Nor am I violent, despite having been on them for something like 15 years now. Stop listening to bullshitters like Jones, Natural News, and Free Republic. They're horrible, horrible liars. Were they to say that the sky was blue, I'd recommend looking outside to check that it hadn't turned bright yellow.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:36 pm**

Can we just settle on the fact that while the decision should be made on a case by case basis as no two mental patients are the same (being people and all) there is still probable cause to at the very least put effort into trying to make that judgment in the first place?

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:37 pm**

Nailed to the Perch wrote:
Those are some super stupid scare-quotes right there. Contrary to what wacky conspiracy theorists have to say on the subject, mental illnesses are not actually caused by magical space-demons and/or fluoride in the water supply, but rather by the exact same sorts of things that cause illnesses in other parts of the body. Treating depression with SSRIs should be exactly as controversial as treating diabetes with insulin injections - and they are both about equally likely to cause people to be violent, which is to say, not likely at all.

Barring anyone being treated for any mental illness from owning a gun is inane, since the vast majority of mental illnesses do not cause people to be violent. All that will do is discourage mentally ill gun owners from seeking treatment, which is an awful goal, to say the least. It makes vastly more sense to bar people who have an actual history of violent behavior, or a doctor's determination that they present a danger to themselves or others, rather than deciding that anyone who takes a freaking antidepressant is somehow a terrible risk to society.

It's becoming more and more evident that disorders are invented so that big-pharma can make a fortune. The only conspiracy here is the state of mental health in our society. A conspiracy saying that psychiatry treats mental illness to a positive net outcome or gain.

How about the adverse effects of other psychotropic drugs?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad ... finds-link

But 3/10 of the most violence-inducing drugs ARE SSRIs.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/t ... -violence/

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:39 pm**

And so continues the proud tradition of addressing absolutely anything except guns in response to a mass shooting.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:40 pm**

Ifreann wrote:And so continues the proud tradition of addressing absolutely anything except guns in response to a mass shooting.

Well to be fair. Guns don't make people commit crimes. They only give people who have been driven to crime by a completely and utterly dysfunctional society an easy way to go about their misdeeds. What you need to address is the underlying social and economic issues that drive people to crime in the first place.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:43 pm**

Wikkiwallana wrote:Speaking as someone on SSRIs, my chemical imbalance is not fictional. Nor am I violent, despite having been on them for something like 15 years now. Stop listening to bullshitters like Jones, Natural News, and Free Republic. They're horrible, horrible liars. Were they to say that the sky was blue, I'd recommend looking outside to check that it hadn't turned bright yellow.

Really? What test did your doctor run to verify your imbalance? How is it demonstrably or objectively measured? By what metric or by what device? Neurotransmitters alone? Watering the brain down to simply hormones and electrical currents is a gross misunderstanding of the most important organ on a human.

http://www.anxietyguru.net/the-chemical ... -it-exist/

http://www.anxietycentre.com/downloads/ ... -False.pdf

APA admits no test for imbalance:
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp ... joP9sakp7c

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:43 pm**

West Florida wrote:It's becoming more and more evident that disorders are invented so that big-pharma can make a fortune.

Bullshit.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:44 pm**

Oh god!
*Heart attack*
It cant...be!
*Falls on knee's*
COMMON SENSE IS LOOOOOST!
OF COURSE PEOPLE ON DRUGS WILL BE VIOLENT!
AAAAAAH....!
*Dies*

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:45 pm**

West Florida wrote:
Wikkiwallana wrote:Speaking as someone on SSRIs, my chemical imbalance is not fictional. Nor am I violent, despite having been on them for something like 15 years now. Stop listening to bullshitters like Jones, Natural News, and Free Republic. They're horrible, horrible liars. Were they to say that the sky was blue, I'd recommend looking outside to check that it hadn't turned bright yellow.

Really? What test did your doctor run to verify your imbalance? How is it demonstrably or objectively measured? By what metric or by what device? Neurotransmitters alone? Watering the brain down to simply hormones and electrical currents is a gross misunderstanding of the most important organ on a human.

http://www.anxietyguru.net/the-chemical ... -it-exist/

http://www.anxietycentre.com/downloads/ ... -False.pdf

APA admits no test for imbalance:
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp ... joP9sakp7c

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/ ... BW20110215

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:45 pm**

Purpelia wrote:
Ifreann wrote:And so continues the proud tradition of addressing absolutely anything except guns in response to a mass shooting.

Well to be fair. Guns don't make people commit crimes. They only give people who have been driven to crime by a completely and utterly dysfunctional society an easy way to go about their misdeeds. What you need to address is the underlying social and economic issues that drive people to crime in the first place.

As long as we don't even consider the laws around guns. Anything else. Talking about guns is the first step towards Obama coming to take them all.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:46 pm**

Ifreann wrote:And so continues the proud tradition of addressing absolutely anything except guns in response to a mass shooting.

I mentioned in my OP that gun rights are not absolute just like for example, freedom of speech isn't absolute. Guns are devices designed to inflict destruction. Even in sporting capacities clay targets are destroyed by the velocity of a bullet leaving a gun.

Guns need to be regulated. People who are unable to tell right from wrong, or reality from delusion automatically forfeit their gun rights. How do we live in a society where it's harder to get a driver's license or board an airplane then purchase a firearm?

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:47 pm**

West Florida wrote:
Wikkiwallana wrote:Speaking as someone on SSRIs, my chemical imbalance is not fictional. Nor am I violent, despite having been on them for something like 15 years now. Stop listening to bullshitters like Jones, Natural News, and Free Republic. They're horrible, horrible liars. Were they to say that the sky was blue, I'd recommend looking outside to check that it hadn't turned bright yellow.

Really? What test did your doctor run to verify your imbalance? How is it demonstrably or objectively measured? By what metric or by what device? Neurotransmitters alone? Watering the brain down to simply hormones and electrical currents is a gross misunderstanding of the most important organ on a human.

http://www.anxietyguru.net/the-chemical ... -it-exist/

http://www.anxietycentre.com/downloads/ ... -False.pdf

APA admits no test for imbalance:
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp ... joP9sakp7c

I was given extensive therapy sessions in which I was simply talked to and questioned, while being observed. I was actually misdiagnosed at first, and that only made it harder. Further therapy resulted in the realization that I was on the autism spectrum. Different medicines were gradually tried at different doses until an effective balance was found, and that particular balance has changed over time. If you want to tell me that I'm not abnormal, that the medicine does not alter my thoughts and ability to deal with the world, or that it is the placebo effect allowing me to cope, I invite you to have a long discussion with my immediate family or my old school teachers.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:48 pm**

Verdum wrote:Oh god!
*Heart attack*
It cant...be!
*Falls on knee's*
COMMON SENSE IS LOOOOOST!
OF COURSE PEOPLE ON DRUGS WILL BE VIOLENT!
AAAAAAH....!
*Dies*

Could you at least try to read what's been said? Might make you look less stupid.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:49 pm**

Ifreann wrote:
Purpelia wrote:Well to be fair. Guns don't make people commit crimes. They only give people who have been driven to crime by a completely and utterly dysfunctional society an easy way to go about their misdeeds. What you need to address is the underlying social and economic issues that drive people to crime in the first place.

As long as we don't even consider the laws around guns. Anything else. Talking about guns is the first step towards Obama coming to take them all.

I am not sure what you mean by that. Seriously I am not. This said, I am not an american but from Europe so the point might simply have escaped me. This all being said, once more, I think that you do indeed need to reconsider your gun laws. Not because of something inherently wrong with gun ownership but because due to the aforementioned social and economic problems your society simply is not mature enough any more to function safely with the laws you have in place. But ideally you would rather want to change your society for the better and not just apply a quick fix. But that just seems very unlikely right now.

Posted: **Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:51 pm**

Wikkiwallana wrote:
Verdum wrote:Oh god!
*Heart attack*
It cant...be!
*Falls on knee's*
COMMON SENSE IS LOOOOOST!
OF COURSE PEOPLE ON DRUGS WILL BE VIOLENT!
AAAAAAH....!
*Dies*

Could you at least try to read what's been said? Might make you look less stupid.

Or you could realize I am in no way attempting to look serious.

NationStates

Side effects may include...Gun violence?!

Side effects may include...Gun violence?!