Gun control? We need medication control!!!!!

[beatmunga]

Keeping them away from our kids might be a start Loopy.

[LoopStationZebra]

Can't disagree with you there, brutha.

[Machinesworking]

All this concern for children caught in the wrong place at the wrong time is odd to me. Every day children die all over the world who were born into far worse situations than these kids were, whose lives from beginning to end are shear misery, yet we only truly "feel" if it's part of our culture, our safe and docile culture, that continues to be involved in armed conflicts that have killed far more children than died yesterday. I truly do not get how it's better to die in a war as collateral damage than to die by the hands of a lone gunman, but to me death is the enemy, not some ideology.

We have to accept that some people are just born bad. Always have been, always will be.

No we do not, because oddly enough some of us think that science outweighs emotional responses.
Again, fascist states are made, thrive, on the logic you propose. Are you comfortable with that?

[beatmunga]

All this concern for children caught in the wrong place at the wrong time is odd to me. Every day children die all over the world who were born into far worse situations than these kids were, whose lives from beginning to end are shear misery, yet we only truly "feel" if it's part of our culture, our safe and docile culture, that continues to be involved in armed conflicts that have killed far more children than died yesterday. I truly do not get how it's better to die in a war as collateral damage than to die by the hands of a lone gunman, but to me death is the enemy, not some ideology.

I agree completely.

We have to accept that some people are just born bad. Always have been, always will be.

No we do not, because oddly enough some of us think that science outweighs emotional responses.
Again, fascist states are made, thrive, on the logic you propose. Are you comfortable with that?

Bloody hell Machinesworking, I've never seen Godwin's law proved so swiftly!

I was speaking scientifically.

It is emotional involvement which leads us to ignore some uncomfortable truths about neuropsychology and start bringing politics into it.

We tend to think these things are more complicated than they are.

Just a bit of the brain, dealing with empathy, that does not work from birth. Around 1% in every culture. For all time.

The phrase 'The Banality of Evil' springs to mind - although not perhaps in quite the way it was originally intended.

[Vivo]

Suicidal people are not generally homicidal.

For people who can not digest these drugs properly, some become Suicidal others homicidal.

I urge you to read the links I provided before you or your love ones take these drugs.

[Machinesworking]

Bloody hell Machinesworking, I've never seen Godwin's law proved so swiftly!

I was speaking scientifically.

It is emotional involvement which leads us to ignore some uncomfortable truths about neuropsychology and start bringing politics into it.

We tend to think these things are more complicated than they are.

Just a bit of the brain, dealing with empathy, that does not work from birth. Around 1% in every culture. For all time.

The phrase 'The Banality of Evil' springs to mind - although not perhaps in quite the way it was originally intended.

Sorry, you're not talking for the scientific community, period.
Again, there has never been, and in my opinion never will be a way to measure that a part of the brain is in control of empathy with any scientific accuracy.
That there are some scientists that believe there is means nothing, there were scientists that believed in Eugenics as well, and brought in cultural "proof" to back it up.
None of it was real science because it never even made it to the level of theory in the scientific term of the word.
That, is why your hiding behind "Godwin's Law" simply doesn't apply here. You are looking to nature for the evil gene, some people tried that years ago and ended up proving that the search to cleanse the gene pool of evil is in itself one of the chief organized evils this world knows.

Again, evil is a construct of mankind, mass murderers with society behind their actions can be truly empathetic towards their own family, nationality, ethnic group, gender whatever... they're simply trained to ignore it for those they see as different. Anybody given the right circumstances can be a killer, that's the uncomfortable truth and always has been. The random psychopath isn't in any 1%, it's simply a random psychopath. Think about it, there are over 300 million people in the USA and 6 billion world wide, the chances that someone is damaged by life, and bad mental choices beyond repair are very, very good.I think it's obvious beyond a doubt that mankind wishes this weren't true, that we could find your 1% and isolate them, because the thought that all of us are capable of becoming monsters given the right conditions is a hard pill to swallow and it's much easier to put them on some imaginary other side.

The simple fact is the scientific community has not come out with a theory of 1% people without empathy that has the weight of the classification of Autism for example, which is a huge, unwieldy classification even. There's nothing even that generalized decided upon because it's still in the realm of conjecture, period. That, is what you're not addressing here.

[artpunk]

Again, there has never been, and in my opinion never will be a way to measure that a part of the brain is in control of empathy with any scientific accuracy.

Just regarding the above point (I'm not getting into any of the rest of the debate at the moment) - I'm not sure there is any one 'part' of the brain that is in control of empathy, rather I thought it was a complex interaction between neurological physiology, endocrinology and possibly genetic predispositions & developmental upbringing? Regarding the endocrinological side of the equation however - I thought recent studies into oxytocin were revealing ways of doing just that? I could be wrong. To say 'never will be' is a rather brave leap methinks!

(Rather a long edit to clarify my points)

[Forge.]

dichotomous thinking, good or bad?

Everyone is missing the point. It's not a gun or a sociological problem. It's a drug problem.

Read the articles I've posted in this thread.

I totally agree that some of these drugs can be very dangerous. I've had my own direct experience with that.

But I can't really understand the gun argument - clearly the more available they are the more likely these things are to happen.

The numbers speak for themselves:





Maybe the point you are making is more connected to these more horrific situations where young people or children are involved, because they upset us more, but those 10,000 people still died that might not have, and I doubt most of them were anti-depressant related.

[Forge.]

also -

Law officers found evidence that Adam Lanza played graphically violent video games, the sources said.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/- ... er-talked/

discuss.

[beatmunga]

Bloody hell Machinesworking, I've never seen Godwin's law proved so swiftly!

I was speaking scientifically.

It is emotional involvement which leads us to ignore some uncomfortable truths about neuropsychology and start bringing politics into it.

We tend to think these things are more complicated than they are.

Just a bit of the brain, dealing with empathy, that does not work from birth. Around 1% in every culture. For all time.

The phrase 'The Banality of Evil' springs to mind - although not perhaps in quite the way it was originally intended.

Sorry, you're not talking for the scientific community, period.
Again, there has never been, and in my opinion never will be a way to measure that a part of the brain is in control of empathy with any scientific accuracy.
That there are some scientists that believe there is means nothing, there were scientists that believed in Eugenics as well, and brought in cultural "proof" to back it up.
None of it was real science because it never even made it to the level of theory in the scientific term of the word.
That, is why your hiding behind "Godwin's Law" simply doesn't apply here. You are looking to nature for the evil gene, some people tried that years ago and ended up proving that the search to cleanse the gene pool of evil is in itself one of the chief organized evils this world knows.

Again, evil is a construct of mankind, mass murderers with society behind their actions can be truly empathetic towards their own family, nationality, ethnic group, gender whatever... they're simply trained to ignore it for those they see as different. Anybody given the right circumstances can be a killer, that's the uncomfortable truth and always has been. The random psychopath isn't in any 1%, it's simply a random psychopath. Think about it, there are over 300 million people in the USA and 6 billion world wide, the chances that someone is damaged by life, and bad mental choices beyond repair are very, very good.I think it's obvious beyond a doubt that mankind wishes this weren't true, that we could find your 1% and isolate them, because the thought that all of us are capable of becoming monsters given the right conditions is a hard pill to swallow and it's much easier to put them on some imaginary other side.

The simple fact is the scientific community has not come out with a theory of 1% people without empathy that has the weight of the classification of Autism for example, which is a huge, unwieldy classification even. There's nothing even that generalized decided upon because it's still in the realm of conjecture, period. That, is what you're not addressing here.

Sounds like you're confusing 'psychopath' with 'murderer'.

Not all murderers are psychopaths, and far from all psychopaths are murderers.

I'm talking about clinical psychopaths. Sounds like you doubt they exist.

What you call conjecture is considered scientific enough to significantly inform penal systems throughout the entire World. Bob Hare's psychopathy test is employed in all of them, to sort out who can be rehabilitated and who can't.

Is the very existence of the category 'psychopath' something you say does not/should not exist, MW?

Do you doubt that otherwise 'well brought up' children with no trauma in their family lives are sometimes found secretly torturing kittens?

If not and (like the psychological sciences) you acknowledge these individuals are at least out there (and don't want them victimised), what do you think we can do to live alongside them safely?

[artpunk]

what do you think we can do to live alongside them safely?

Ummm, how about...reduce their easy access to deadly weapons?

Medication control and mental health aside...
Really, what average individual actually needs any kind of gun, let alone a goddamn military-style automatic rifle for 'self-defence'? (unless you're a Walter White type)
anything an individual has as a weapon 'of/for self-defence' can also be used as a weapon of assault against the same individual or any other innocent or innocents. This sadly was what the perpetrator of this latest tragic atrocity proved when he murdered his own Mother and all the other innocents with his Mother's weapons kept by her "for self-defence"

The poster of recorded handgun related deaths in different countries that Forge posted really says a lot, there is something seriously going wrong when you look at those statistics objectively.

[Sage]

http://cegant.com/commentary/school-sho ... tric-drugs

School Violence

The following are reports of teens committing acts of school violence during an 18 year period from 1988-2006 (footnote 3), beginning only one year after the first SSRI antidepressant was approved for the U.S. market for adult use only. More than half of the teens committing these acts were taking SSRI antidepressants.

1988
1. September 26, 1988, South Carolina: James Wilson, 19, went on a shooting spree in an elementary schoolyard in Greenwood, killing two 8 year olds, and wounding 7 other children and 2 teachers. He was taking Xanax and for the eight months prior to the shooting had been taking several psychiatric drugs.

1997
2. October 1, 1997, Pearl, Mississippi: Luke Woodham, 16, shot two students to death and wounded seven others after beating and stabbing his mother to death. Public reports say the boy was taking Prozac.
3. December 1, 1997, West Paducah, Kentucky: 14-year-old Michael Carneal was on Ritalin, when he started firing a gun during a prayer meeting at a high school, killing three teens aged 14 to 17, and wounding five other students, including one who is paralyzed.

1998
4. March 1998, Arkansas: Andrew Golden, 11, and cousin Mitchell Johnson, 13, went on a shooting spree at Westside Middle School in Arkansas, killing four students and one teacher. Nine students and a teacher were also wounded. In a review of the book Teenage Rampage: The Worldwide Youth Phenomenon, both boys were reported to be taking Ritalin.
5. May 21, 1998, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been taking Prozac and an amphetamine.
6. Pocatello, Idaho: An unnamed 14 year old held 5 classmates hostage with a gun. He surrendered to the police and fortunately no one was hurt. He was taking Zoloft.

1999
7. April 16, 1999, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school, narrowly missing students. He was taking a prescribed SSRI antidepressant and Ritalin.
8. April 29, 1999, Taber, Alberta: An unnamed 14-year-old student from W.R. Myers High School shot two students, killing one. He began taking prescribed Dexedrine immediately prior to the shooting.
9. April 20, 1999, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris, the ringleader in the Columbine massacre was taking Luvox that the coroner confirmed was in his system through toxicology reports. He and his co-shooter, Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves.
10. May 20, 1999, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with Ritalin when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
11. December 6, 1999, Fort Gibson, Oklahoma: 13-year-old Seth Trickey fired at least 15 shots at Fort Gibson Middle School wounding four classmates. He was undergoing psychological counseling and was probably being medicated, although those records are sealed.

2000
12. March 7, 2000, Williamsport, Pennsylvania: Elizabeth Bush, 14, was taking Prozac when she shot at fellow students, wounding one.

2001
13. January 10, 2001, Oxnard, California: A 17-year-old gunman fired shots at Hueneme High School before taking a female student hostage. He was later shot and killed by police. Prior to the shooting he had been treated for mental illness and was probably taking psychiatric drugs.
14. March 22, 2001, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman opened fire on his classmates, wounding three students and two teachers at Granite Hills High School. He had been prescribed the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor.
15. April 2001, Washington State: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school and took 23 classmates and a teacher hostage. According to another student, “Cory was yelling and then he just stopped, looked down at the gun in his hand and woke up.” Fortunately, no one was hurt. Cory had been taking Effexor and had no memory of the incident.

2003
16. January 2003, Elliot City, Maryland: Ryan T. Furlough, 19, killed a Centennial High School classmate by spiking his soda with cyanide. He was being treated with Effexor.

2004
17. February 2004, Greenbush, New York: 16-year-old, Jon Romano strolled into Columbia high school in east Greenbush and opened fire with a shotgun. Special education teacher Michael Bennett was hit in the leg. The boy was treated with medication for depression.

2005
18. March, 2005, Minnesota: Jeff Weise, 16, shot dead his grandparents, then went to his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation where he shot dead 8 students and a teacher, and wounded 7 before killing himself. He was taking Prozac.
19. November 8, 2005, Jacksboro, Tennessee: Kenneth Bartley, a student in high school shot and killed an assistant principal. The principal and another assistant principal were wounded. He had previously spent about a year and a half in a residential juvenile treatment program, where he was likely prescribed psychiatric drugs.

2006
20. August 30, 2006, Hillsborough, North Carolina: Alvaro Castillo, 19, killed his father, then opened fire at Orange High School, wounding two students before surrendering to police. He had been involuntarily treated in a state psychiatric hospital, and such commitment nearly always involves drugs.
21. October 10, 2006, Charleston, South Carolina: Tyrell Glover, 19, took an air rifle to Burke High School where he planned to hold students hostage and be gunned down by police. He had been taking an antidepressant for several years but his mother took him off the drug when she saw the listed side effects in ads. However, Tyrell began taking Prozac again for approximately six months. Whether he was taking a psychiatric drug or withdrawing from it at the time of this hostage/suicide plan is yet to be confirmed.

The number of drug-related school shootings are dwarfed by the number of non-school-related violent events associated with psychiatric medication use. Many school shooting cases have had their court documents sealed, especially if minors are involved, and the extent of the chemical use is often never revealed. The psychiatric drug-related violence noted in the cases above was discovered mostly by reporters who dug up the data, usually reporting it as an “incidental” finding!

Thomas Lane did not go to Chardon High, instead attending nearby Lake Academy, which is for students with academic or behavioral problems, making it extremely unlikely that he was not being medicated with psychiatric drugs. But we may never know if his records are sealed too, which I suspect often happens due to pressure from Big Pharma or from those politically positioned to benefit from the pharmaceutical companies money.

All happened in the USA and all the drugs mentioned are taken by people all over the world. So your theory is flawed.

[Vivo]

dichotomous thinking, good or bad?

Everyone is missing the point. It's not a gun or a sociological problem. It's a drug problem.

Read the articles I've posted in this thread.

I totally agree that some of these drugs can be very dangerous. I've had my own direct experience with that.

But I can't really understand the gun argument - clearly the more available they are the more likely these things are to happen.

The numbers speak for themselves:






Maybe the point you are making is more connected to these more horrific situations where young people or children are involved, because they upset us more, but those 10,000 people still died that might not have, and I doubt most of them were anti-depressant related.

While I don't own a gun, I believe in the right to bear arms.

[Vivo]

also -

Law officers found evidence that Adam Lanza played graphically violent video games, the sources said.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/- ... er-talked/

discuss.

Do you have any clinical evidence that playing violent video games can make a person homicidal and/or suicidal?

[Vivo]

http://cegant.com/commentary/school-sho ... tric-drugs

School Violence

The following are reports of teens committing acts of school violence during an 18 year period from 1988-2006 (footnote 3), beginning only one year after the first SSRI antidepressant was approved for the U.S. market for adult use only. More than half of the teens committing these acts were taking SSRI antidepressants.

1988
1. September 26, 1988, South Carolina: James Wilson, 19, went on a shooting spree in an elementary schoolyard in Greenwood, killing two 8 year olds, and wounding 7 other children and 2 teachers. He was taking Xanax and for the eight months prior to the shooting had been taking several psychiatric drugs.

1997
2. October 1, 1997, Pearl, Mississippi: Luke Woodham, 16, shot two students to death and wounded seven others after beating and stabbing his mother to death. Public reports say the boy was taking Prozac.
3. December 1, 1997, West Paducah, Kentucky: 14-year-old Michael Carneal was on Ritalin, when he started firing a gun during a prayer meeting at a high school, killing three teens aged 14 to 17, and wounding five other students, including one who is paralyzed.

1998
4. March 1998, Arkansas: Andrew Golden, 11, and cousin Mitchell Johnson, 13, went on a shooting spree at Westside Middle School in Arkansas, killing four students and one teacher. Nine students and a teacher were also wounded. In a review of the book Teenage Rampage: The Worldwide Youth Phenomenon, both boys were reported to be taking Ritalin.
5. May 21, 1998, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been taking Prozac and an amphetamine.
6. Pocatello, Idaho: An unnamed 14 year old held 5 classmates hostage with a gun. He surrendered to the police and fortunately no one was hurt. He was taking Zoloft.

1999
7. April 16, 1999, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school, narrowly missing students. He was taking a prescribed SSRI antidepressant and Ritalin.
8. April 29, 1999, Taber, Alberta: An unnamed 14-year-old student from W.R. Myers High School shot two students, killing one. He began taking prescribed Dexedrine immediately prior to the shooting.
9. April 20, 1999, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris, the ringleader in the Columbine massacre was taking Luvox that the coroner confirmed was in his system through toxicology reports. He and his co-shooter, Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves.
10. May 20, 1999, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with Ritalin when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
11. December 6, 1999, Fort Gibson, Oklahoma: 13-year-old Seth Trickey fired at least 15 shots at Fort Gibson Middle School wounding four classmates. He was undergoing psychological counseling and was probably being medicated, although those records are sealed.

2000
12. March 7, 2000, Williamsport, Pennsylvania: Elizabeth Bush, 14, was taking Prozac when she shot at fellow students, wounding one.

2001
13. January 10, 2001, Oxnard, California: A 17-year-old gunman fired shots at Hueneme High School before taking a female student hostage. He was later shot and killed by police. Prior to the shooting he had been treated for mental illness and was probably taking psychiatric drugs.
14. March 22, 2001, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman opened fire on his classmates, wounding three students and two teachers at Granite Hills High School. He had been prescribed the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor.
15. April 2001, Washington State: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school and took 23 classmates and a teacher hostage. According to another student, “Cory was yelling and then he just stopped, looked down at the gun in his hand and woke up.” Fortunately, no one was hurt. Cory had been taking Effexor and had no memory of the incident.

2003
16. January 2003, Elliot City, Maryland: Ryan T. Furlough, 19, killed a Centennial High School classmate by spiking his soda with cyanide. He was being treated with Effexor.

2004
17. February 2004, Greenbush, New York: 16-year-old, Jon Romano strolled into Columbia high school in east Greenbush and opened fire with a shotgun. Special education teacher Michael Bennett was hit in the leg. The boy was treated with medication for depression.

2005
18. March, 2005, Minnesota: Jeff Weise, 16, shot dead his grandparents, then went to his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation where he shot dead 8 students and a teacher, and wounded 7 before killing himself. He was taking Prozac.
19. November 8, 2005, Jacksboro, Tennessee: Kenneth Bartley, a student in high school shot and killed an assistant principal. The principal and another assistant principal were wounded. He had previously spent about a year and a half in a residential juvenile treatment program, where he was likely prescribed psychiatric drugs.

2006
20. August 30, 2006, Hillsborough, North Carolina: Alvaro Castillo, 19, killed his father, then opened fire at Orange High School, wounding two students before surrendering to police. He had been involuntarily treated in a state psychiatric hospital, and such commitment nearly always involves drugs.
21. October 10, 2006, Charleston, South Carolina: Tyrell Glover, 19, took an air rifle to Burke High School where he planned to hold students hostage and be gunned down by police. He had been taking an antidepressant for several years but his mother took him off the drug when she saw the listed side effects in ads. However, Tyrell began taking Prozac again for approximately six months. Whether he was taking a psychiatric drug or withdrawing from it at the time of this hostage/suicide plan is yet to be confirmed.

The number of drug-related school shootings are dwarfed by the number of non-school-related violent events associated with psychiatric medication use. Many school shooting cases have had their court documents sealed, especially if minors are involved, and the extent of the chemical use is often never revealed. The psychiatric drug-related violence noted in the cases above was discovered mostly by reporters who dug up the data, usually reporting it as an “incidental” finding!

Thomas Lane did not go to Chardon High, instead attending nearby Lake Academy, which is for students with academic or behavioral problems, making it extremely unlikely that he was not being medicated with psychiatric drugs. But we may never know if his records are sealed too, which I suspect often happens due to pressure from Big Pharma or from those politically positioned to benefit from the pharmaceutical companies money.

All happened in the USA and all the drugs mentioned are taken by people all over the world. So your theory is flawed.

It's all over the world. Google is your friend.

April 22, 2004: The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products issued a press
release to the press and public. In this press release, they report that, according to clinical trials, Paroxetine (Paxil) containing medicines can cause suicidal behavior and hostility in children. It recommends that Paroxetine not be used in children and recommends that young adults be observed carefully for signs and symptoms of suicidal behavior or hostility.

July 2003: Health Canada’s Health Products and Food Branch warned health care professionals,
“Until further information is available, Paxil should not be used in…pediatric patients…due to a possible increased risk of suicide-related adverse events in this patient population.”
Further, incidents of suicidal thoughts and self-harm were nearly twice as high on Paxil as on placebo (5.3% vs. 2.8%).ii

September 21 2004: The British Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority advised that it had
issued guidelines that children should not be given most SSRI antidepressants because of clinical trial data showing an increased rate of harmful outcomes, including hostility.vii

December 2004: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration published an Adverse Drug
Reactions Bulletin recommending that any use of SSRIs in children and adolescents should be
carefully monitored for the emergence of suicidal ideation. In a recent study involving Prozac, it said, there was an increase in adverse psychiatric events of suicide, self-harm, aggression and violence.viii

May 2009: JAPANESE SSRI WARNING. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
investigated news reports of antidepressant users "who developed increased feelings of hostility or anxiety, and have even committed sudden acts of violence against others." After its investigation, the Ministry decided to revise the label warnings on SSRI antidepressant stating, "There are cases where we cannot rule out a causal relationship [of hostility, anxiety, and sudden acts of violence] with the medication." xxi

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=ca ... MOnhq3Mg4A