I used to live in Connecticut, not more than perhaps 15 miles from Newtown. Like most states in our Republic, large swaths of Connecticut are rather sleepy, quiet, and quaint. People rise and sleep under a blanket of normalcy and routine. The injection of even the slightest bit of disruptive violence into these communities, to say nothing of the slaughter of children near Christmastime, is like nothing so much as the kind of nightmares you get when sick with a high fever. You may not believe in the Devil, but he believes in you.
Mass violence, especially in the form of mass shootings by young males, has reached a pathological level in the United States relative to other Western nations. Most of these incidents trigger debates about “gun control.” Fine. Seldom discussed in the mainstream media, however, is the correlation between such incidents and the mass drugging of our youth. Given the undeniably frequent coincidence of school shootings and antidepressant use in the United States, I am waiting to hear which psychiatric drugs the Connecticut shooter was using. I am not Thomas Szasz or R.D. Laing, nor do I belong to a movement that views Big Pharma as a kind of biomedical Trilateral Commission. I could be wrong. But if my gut feeling proves correct, and the acronym “SSRI” appears in any news reports over the next few days, we perhaps need to add psychiatry to our list of national discussions.
Agree. Thought the very same thing yesterday. As a nurse, I’m familiar with these meds, and one of the main side effects patients report is that they feel “numb.” That’s how the Columbine murderers Harris and Klebold, were able to carry out their killings without feelings. While many SSRI’s lift depression, they also cause a one to have an absence of any feelings. Then if one has other psychological problems, ie. borderline personality disorder, sociopathic tendencies, schizophrenia/paranoia, etc. they can be predisposed to go on killing rampages like this.
Along with the issue about these psychotrophic drugs, we should add into the mix the prolonged and intense video game playing many of these individuals to. Hours on end, involved with violent, desensitizing killing features of the games, almost programs already ego disordered individuals to this kind of behavior.
If you are going to put up video games as one of the root causes for this behavior, then you really should throw in Movies, TV shows and books (although books are less of an issue as you don’t have the visual graphics as with the others). These items are essentially the Entertainment Driven Media (EDM).
However, there is a huge difference between psychotrophic drugs and the EDM. One is a valid root cause and the other is an excuse.
Psychotrophic drugs alter your brain chemisty and have, as you pointed out, many potentially harmful side effects. Further, they are prescribed by professionals that have gone through years of medical education. When parents are told by a doctor or psychiatrist that their child needs to take this medication; there is an inherent level of trust that the professional knows what he or she is doing.
EDM, however, all have ratings meant to guide parents into what should be acceptable for their children. Desensitivity is not something that will occur over one afternoon of EDM. Whose job is it to monitor how much of the mature content that children consume in a day? It is the parent’s job, not the community or the government. Entertainment Driven Media is not meant to be a substitute for a parent or nanny, unfortunately many households use it as a distraction for the kids while the adults work or play.
It is politically unacceptable to blame parents for the behavior of the kids. Parents vote, kids don’t; therefore politicians will never blame desensitivation on parents but on the EDM. However, this is just an excuse used to avoid the real root cause: Bad or uninvolved parenting.
Folk talk about him being really smart, even the word “genius.” My bet’s he was called hyperactive and told “Shut up and take your Ritalin!” for most of his life intead of taught/handled properly. That’s how we got Ted “the Unabomber” Kaczynski, too.
The internet gives all parents the ability to educate their children themselves with the full assistance of competent teachers and for less cost of brick and mortar. How many kids would not be given medication if a committed parent were there to make sure they learned the material thoroughly and gave the child a break when they needed it gave them food when they needed it. If this were to happen instead of allowing the teachers to demand little Johnny needs medication. As well as having our children in a safe environment rather than brick and mortar schools that have too many children in too small of a location to be safe in our new and violent world that has been pushed by the Hollywood scene for years.
As a parent I can attest that there are certain teachers who will absolutely push you to put your son on medication. There is not a parent in my neighborhood who has NOT had a teacher make that suggestion – and it’s always the male children.
So while I agree wholeheartedly that our kids are being overmedicated, I also know from first hand experience that the initial influence that leads parents down that path often starts in the schools themselves.
The parents feel pressure to defer to supposed authority figures.
There are several things that can be done immediately to start changing the culture that creates these monsters – and yes, it is the culture that is creating them, not a single aspect.
This is one reason a gun ban will never work.
Anyway, I have the following suggestions:
1. Get more qualified and properly screened male teachers in the elementary school system. We need young and impressionable male children in the elementary school years exposed to positive male role models in the classroom.
I honestly believe women have a harder time identifying with male children when they hit a rebellious streak, and in those cases a male influence might fix behavior issues in a more positive manner than medications. Little girls can sit still for longer periods of time, whereas male children have a biological urge to be moving. When the female teacher has issues with a male student, too often medication is seen as the answer.
2. The AMA needs to re-think their whole approach to how they classify mental disorders.
If you go back through the history of how ADHD was classified, you find a constantly moving standard that made it progressively easier over the decades for someone to be classified as ADHD. Seriously, read through the list of symptoms and much of it will qualify a kid who is flat out bored.
Perhaps instead of allowing psychiatrists to prescribe medications, there should be a two part system wherein psychiatrists make a diagnosis – but general practioners are only allowed to prescribe medications and thereby build in a firewall to keep kids from being needlessly medicated if the general practioner disagrees or feels more investigation is needed.
The fact almost every shooter is a white male should be a clue to even the willfully blind that there is a basic flaw in how these people were originally diagnosed as children.
3. Parents have to be advocates for their children. When supposed authority figures start pushing meds, the parents need to set aside the thought that it will make life easier because the child will be more compliant and try to figure out why the kid is having problems in the first place.
Parents also have to control the influences on their children’s lives. This means knowing where the kid is every second of the day, knowing who they are hanging around with, who their teachers are, and what music and entertainment they are exposed to.
It also means the parents have to be present in the child’s life. The father needs to show up and not just be a source of financial support. The male kid NEEDS a positive male influence in their lives in a meaningful way.
4. When all else fails, the one factor that has stopped these shootings more than any other is when someone with a gun confronts the shooter. That is what happened at Pearl, Mississippi, and it could possibly have stopped this latest atrocity much sooner.
Just one thing is not going to stop the cirrcumstances that lead to these shootings in the first place, but a good place to start is to stop letting ‘experts’ mandate our kids ingest medications like candy.
Let me add that so far nothing at all has been said as to why this “disturbed” young man was ever permitted to be anywhere near any firearms.
That’s a question that’s been in my mind as well.
The father and older brother were out of the picture, apparently, so I don’t think they were the source of the firearms.
Since the murderer was 20 years old, he was legally prohibited by federal law from purchasing either the Glock or the Sig Saur pistols he reportedly had in his possession.
The M4 carbine clone he reportedly had is actually a very common weapon (you can buy several iterations from different manufacturer’s at our local WalMart), but then you get into the whole issue of someone mentally deficient being able to acquire that weapon.
To legally purchase it, they have to fill out a form as step one that goes to the National Instant Check System (NICS) where a background check is run at the federal level.
Did the doctors and bureaucrats in Conneticut government not put this guy on the list as a person prohibitied from possessing a firearm?
If not, then why not?!?!?
Then you have the fact his mother has to have some idea as he acquires these weapons that he isn’t legally able to do so. If that’s the case then why didn’t she say something?
So let’s say he DIDN’T purchase the weapons (legally), just for the sake of discussion. Say he acquired them some other way.
Under that scenario, he
- purchased them off the black market without any paperwork and therefore no legal restrictions would have stopped him,
- stole them from his mother, but honestly I know precious few women so well armed (and again no legal restrictions would have stopped him.),
- stole them from a friend or acquaintance (same as before, no legal restrictions would have stopped him),
- or perhaps he acquired them from some acquaintance of his mother (once again, no legal restrictions would have stopped him).
I am almost as interested in how he became armed as I am as to what drugs he was on. I say almost because there are millions of citizens who likewise own these same weapons but are completely law abiding citizens who would never hurt an innocent.
The weapons didn’t set him off, they were just a tool that he used. The murderer in Aurora, CO took the time to set booby traps to try to kill as many as possible. McVeigh used a truck bomb made from fertilizer to kill more people. Boxcutters on 9-11 killed thousands.
Monsters will always find a way, so best to focus on the WHY they end up murdering rather than the HOW.
Very, very well said.
Update: Looks like his mother was a gun collector, meaning he did in fact steal the weapons.
No law would have stopped him, and honestly I’m of the impression that his mother created a monster.
I have yet to see any report if the mother had a gun safe, gun owners must be responsible for securing weapons period. I will wait for more facts to come out.
One story showed where gun laws worked, the shooter tried to purchase a rifle from a local sporting goods store but refused the background check so the store refused to sell him one. He got the weapons from his mother’s house.