guns

Apr

2023

Big Pharma and Nashville Shooting

How To Taper Off Pharmaceutical Drugs

or How to Get Back to Normal

or Why On Earth Should One Not Do Pharmaceutical Drugs

or What Is Killing North America

or School Shootings and Big Pharma

or What Is The Most Dangerous Age Group For Anti Depressants?

A good friend recently conveyed his story coming off anti depressants. The telling was considerably shorter than the coming off. Well, sort of. After being on an anti depressant for a few years and feeling that it was making him worse than before, he went cold turkey.

This is very difficult for anyone. It is also extremely dangerous. Not recommended. These anti-depressants are horribly addictive. The professionals that monitor tapering off advise doing so in very small increments over weeks and months, sometimes years.

Most times the reactions of coming off can be far worse than the effects of the drugs themselves. And most times much worse than not doing them in the first place.

Some of the withdrawal symptoms can include headaches, burning, electric-like or shock-like sensations, insomnia, drowsiness, not feeling like oneself (a disconnected feeling), dissociation, impotence, tingling, fatigue, nausea, headache, light-headedness, chills, body aches, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, dizziness, vertigo, nightmares, vivid dreams, light-headiness to name just a few. Withdrawal symptoms can last from weeks to months.

“…can be notoriously difficult to quit because stopping can produce withdrawal-like symptoms referred to as "discontinuation syndrome.”

Very Well Mind

One of the more prominent doctors that encourage tapering off pharmaceuticals but also give an exact science as to doing so, is Dr Peter Breggin. Dr Breggin wrote a book dedicated to the subject. It’s called Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal. Read his article here: Dr Breggin Book.

Another doctor that has been a great help to a great many tapering off anti depressants and anti anxiety pills is Dr Kelly Brogan. Dr Brogan stresses the need for coming off these drugs properly. Her website is filled with natural, holistic ways of being healthy, sane and stable without the need for mind altering drugs. Spend some time there.

If you read through the websites of Dr Breggin and Dr Brogan, you will see some of the dangers of anti-depressants and anti anxiety pills. Some of the more dangerous side effects of anti-depressants are ‘depression’, ‘suicide ideation’, ‘panic disorder’ and violent behaviour.

“…for 15 to 24 year-olds, the findings were more grim: There was a very substantial increase – 43 percent – in their risk of committing violent crimes while on antidepressants.” - The Heart and Mind Institute

So, in light of the recent shooting in Nashville, Tennessee by 28-year-old Audrey Hale - she was a being treated for a ‘mental disorder’. This has been the case with far the majority of school shootings. Given the side effects of the drugs likely given plus other treatments it is far from surprising that she acted out this violent ideation.

An excerpt from risk.org explains it a little more thoroughly.

“Dissociative experiences

Dissociative experiences refer to unusual changes in perception and feelings, often involving a sense of detachment.

Antidepressants can cause a number of dissociative experiences including:

▪ Amnesia

▪ Déjà vu

▪ Depersonalization

▪ Derealization

▪ Hallucinations

▪ Prominent nightmares or lucid dreaming

Depersonalisation is an experience of feeling strange and unusual, almost as though you are not really yourself anymore, or that you are in a kind of a dream or haze.

Derealisation refers to a similar set of feelings and perceptions, but in this case it is the world itself that seems strange or unreal; everything may seem far away or staged in some way – as though life is being watched rather than lived.

Depersonalisation and derealisation are relatively common on antidepressants.”

Remember that the above are side effects of the drugs, not the reason for doing them. Feelings and actions created by taking the drugs. So, the most dangerous age group for anti depressants and anti anxiety are the young.

If you are truly interested in finding out more I’ve put together a few references:

Resources On Psychiatry

Mar

2023

Shooting in Nashville, Tennessee

or ‘What is the cause of violence?’

When there is a shooting such as happened the other day in Nashville,Tennessee, all rationality seems to go out the window. The flames of this are thoroughly fanned by politicians and the media. Hardly a fact spoken, the rhetoric all being that we have to do something and we have to do it now. And solution by all these firebrands is ‘ban guns’, ‘get rid of guns and we will have less violence’.

This is so illogical it is horribly frightening. The media goons and political hacks depend on the irrationality and runaway emotions of the greater population. And, boy, do they know the buttons and how to fan those flames.

And to mount one scary event on top of another, part of the Trans community is calling for ‘A Trans Day of Vengeance’ Yeah. That is going to solve everything.

If you can’t have your way or someone disagrees with you, have a temper tantrum. That is pretty much what this amounts to. But way worse. People are gonna get hurt.

What happened to rational discussions? What happened to stepping back and looking at all the facts? I’ve done a heck of a lot of research on the subject and I could list hundreds of facts here to bolster my case. I personally don’t think guns are the cause of these horrible events. School shootings and others.

You many have different information. You may have looked at information that I have missed. Maybe, just maybe, if we actually share in a calm, rational manner, there might be a solution that works for both of us.

Jul

2022

School Shootings and Prescription Medications

Tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Texas

A mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas left nineteen children between the ages of seven and 10 and two adults dead. This school shooting comes just ten days after 10 people were killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. (Mass Shootings)

History of Mass Shootings

I saw a post yesterday on a social media platform indicating that in the United Kingdom there have been no mass shootings since guns were outlawed around 1996. In 1996, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher in Dunblane, England.

That’s actually not true. There were the Massereene Barracks shooting in 2009, the Cumbria shootings in 2010, the Northumbria shootings in 2010, the Moss Side shooting in 2018, the Plymouth shooting in 2021.

So, after I saw this claim about the UK having no mass shootings after the gun ban and I found some, I thought the next step would be to find out what the situation had been before 1996. That information has been much more difficult to find. So far, one I’ve discovered happened in 1987, in Hungerford, England. Sixteen deaths. The only other one I could find that is not a murder/suicide situation was the Monkseaton shootings where one person was killed and 14 injured on April 30th 1989.

One other, The Whitehouse Farm murders. Five deaths. August 1985

There are numerous other shootings in the UK which are, from what I could find, all connected to fighting between the Irish and the Irish and the Irish and the British. War and gang type shootings.

So, my conclusion here, based on my initial research is that the gun confiscation in the UK made very little difference to the situation of mass shootings. No significant change in number of these types of shootings and deaths from before the gun ban and afterwards.

A similar situation happened in Australia. There was a violent mass shooting there in 1996. Port Arthur: 35 dead, 23 wounded. Truly, a horrific tragedy. Several years ago a couple of things made me research “the before and after” again. A claim was made by the Prime Minister of Australia about 10 years ago(?) that there had been zero mass shootings since the gun ban after the 1996 massacre. Again, false information. Surprise, surprise -- a politician lied.

There have been numerous mass shootings since. None nearly as massive as Port Arthur but deadly just the same. And another mass killing in Australia about 15 years ago happened with a knife!

Again, I checked for mass shootings before 1996 in Australia and found some. But there was no dramatic change, no significant difference before the gun ban and after. Still lots of shootings. The claim that mass shootings were solved by the banning of guns in Australia is a bit of a stretch.

One other point on this is a comedian I saw some years back, around 2017, comparing the United States to Australia. The reduction of gun murders in Australia had gone down apparently by 50% since 1996. About 30 years after the fact of the massacre this comedian is in the USA asking why Americans would not want the same reduction in gun murders as Australia. Good question!

I decided to see what the comparative data was for the gun murders in the USA. For the same period of time.

Per USA government statistics, the gun murders had gone down, in the same period of time by 49%. With no gun ban.

Gun Violence and Gangs

Another interesting statistic is the fact that gun violence is gang related:

“Black males had the highest firearm homicide rate … Black boys and youths aged 0-19 were over 14 times more likely to be killed by firearm homicide than White (non-Latino) boys and youths, while Black men aged 20-34 were nearly 17 times more likely to be killed by firearm homicide than their White (non-Latino) counterparts.”

Black Males and Firearms

Violence in America

And put this data together with:

“According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011.”

Gang Homicides

And:

“…That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns.”

Anti-depressants and Drug Users

Guns Or Drugs?

Interesting point is that confiscating guns hasn’t reduced knife fatalities in UK schools. There has been an ever-increasing number of school stabbings in the UK, of which there was a record number just last year (30 teenage homicides). An August 3, 2021 report says:

"In March 2019, knife crime in the UK reached a decade high; and tragically many victims where under 18. In 2019, 45,632 young people aged 10-17 were sentenced for carrying a knife or offensive weapon in England and Wales, with over 1000 of these weapons found on school property. Everything from machetes, hunting knives, samurai swords and even a modified highlighter pen were seized by police on school grounds, with the youngest offender just 4 years old.

Since 2015, assaults taking place in public sector schools have increased by 72%, with physical violence not only being committed against fellow pupils but also teachers. Recent data suggests that nearly one in four teachers have been physically attacked by pupils, with as many as two thirds of teachers considering leaving the profession because of verbal abuse and threats of violence from students. A staggering 18% of teachers report being threatened with a weapon by pupils, with 3% claiming a weapon was brought into school in order to follow through on the threat."
Knife Crime in the UK

Knives instead of guns. Hmmm.

So, this begs the question, is it the drugs and not the specific weapon? Prescription medications? Anti-depressants? Anti-anxiety pills? Street drugs?

There is little doubt that there is a huge connection between gun crime and other types of crime in general and drugs, particularly with inner city gangs.

Mass Shootings

When talking about outrages such as mass shootings, there is a lot of emotion attached to the subject, particularly when they involve children. Many of the school shootings are committed by young people, many if not all of whom were on prescription medications. These individuals were given mind altering(anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, etc.) medications/drugs that have the stated side effects of ‘suicidal ideation’ and ‘depression’. Side effects are all listed right in the DSM VI*. These side effects can also be found with a simple search online.

Almost one for one, discussions come up of the young people that are doing the shootings as having mental issues and being on one sort of prescribed medication or other. And sometimes having come off them recently, which is worse.

This information is not always easy to find, partially due to privacy medical rules. But it is an important factor considering the potential nasty side effects of these prescriptions.

So, with many fingers pointing at guns as the source of all the violence, no studies get done. It seems that either, those in power don’t want to know or they are just swept up in the mass emotion of these incidents.

What happens if these types of shootings are compared also to mass killings with a knife or someone driving a car into a school playground. Are these people also on some mind altering prescription medication with the side effects of suicide ideation and violent behaviour?

Or do the powers that be just want to go along with the masses and ban guns and hope for the best? That solution hasn’t worked places like Chicago. They have the highest murder rate in the USA and some of the strictest gun laws. Funny thing is that the murders there are again perpetrated by criminals, not law-abiding citizens.

As hard as it is, we have to objectively ask the right questions, taking the emotion out of the equation.

And just remember how much money is behind the marketing of these prescription medications/drugs and also illegal drugs. And the profits!

* DSM-IV: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Aug

2019

The War On Terror

When there is a terrorist attack, why would you, or anyone, talk about or forward their message?

With domestic terrorism or global terrorism, who are the real casualties?

I believe that one of the best ways of combating terrorism is to not talk about it. Lately, it seems, though, social media and terrorism go hand in hand. If terrorists had no way of creating fear in the hearts of many, I’m quite certain they would not be so active.

This from Encyclopedia Britannica:

“The goal of terrorism generally is to destroy the public’s sense of security in the places most familiar to them. … and that terrorist acts are intended to create an overwhelming sense of fear.”

Every time you talk about an incident that occurred, every time you forward some news article, you let the terrorists win.

The Media and Terrorism ... or Suicides ‘R Us

There are a couple of places where suicides are known to occur in volume. One is on subway lines around the world and another is a place like Niagara Falls. People jump in front of trains and people jump into the Falls. These suicides used to be sensationalized in the press. This was stopped in most places as this type of media coverage normally resulted in an increase of suicide attempts. Usually a spike after any media attention. With less media attention, they still occur but to a much lesser extent.

If you knew that as a result of your promoting that someone jumped over Niagara Falls and committed suicide resulting in three other people doing the same thing, hopefully, you would feel somewhat guilty and not promote this thing any more. The media did stop, or at least put this type of news on page 23 and the number of suicides went down.

The same could be predicted for the war on terror. A terrorist attack that no one hears about is just some idiot killing people. If they are not creating a climate of fear and worry, if they are not alarming populations as a whole, then the terrorists are not winning.

Domestic Terrorism in the US of A

There are many examples of domestic terrorism in the US, but by far the most prevalent and obvious is the recent school shootings. And not so recent. There have been a lot over the years.

You may realize where I’m going with this…

If you insist on telling everyone on Facebook, Twitter or other social media how sorry and concerned you are about the shooting in whatever school then you are feeding the frenzy. You are doing exactly what they want. You are forwarding the fear and feeding the terror.

If you say on Facebook that your heart goes out to all those in Texas for some tragedy, I honestly believe that is a useless bit of sympathy. No one in Texas is going to read your post.

For every Tweet and Facebook post about some terrorist attack, whether it be a bombing in Paris or the Columbine Massacre one is just forwarding the terrorists message and creating fear and upset.

The media’s mantra ‘the people need to know’ is simply put just bullshit. That is just an excuse to spread and create a feeling that the world is a horrible place. Years ago someone coined the phrase ‘merchants of chaos’ as a moniker for the media. I think this is quite appropriate.

Big Pharma - The Real Terrorists

The media is pretty much controlled by the advertising companies. If you disagree, just try and get an article attacking Big Pharma in a woman’s magazine. Any pharmaceutical company is going to love these terrorist attacks in schools. The upset that occurs I’m sure drives their drug sales out the roof. They are going to milk this for all it’s worth.

If you really want to calm things down and fight terrorism, then don’t give in to it. Don’t forward the fear. 90% of the people in the USA would not even consider not talking about this. They will believe the media. They will feel that it needs to be talked about. They will feel that posting on Facebook, Twitter and other social media is going to help.

I ask you how? How is this going to help. You are upset about it and now you are going to upset all your friends? How does that make a safer environment? Please tell me how that is good and beneficial.

So, I would propose that the real cause of the increase in school shootings is social media. Twitter, Facebook and the like. The media in general has been feeding terrorism for years and years. Guns are a factor. Psychiatric mood altering drugs and street drugs are also undoubtedly a factor. But for the surge over the last few years of these domestic terrorists (school shootings), I can only thank (or blame) social media. Or the people using social media to stir up fear and alarm in others.

So, just stop! If you are fearful and alarmed and need to talk to someone, then talk to one person, don’t create fear and alarm in 10 or 20. As far as I’m concerned as soon as you do that you are partnered with the school shooter or the Paris bomber.

So, just stop!