guns and drugs

School Shootings and Prescription Medications

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

 

Posted by Marty in Blog, 0 comments

Gun, Baby, Gun by Iain Overton

guns and violence

I recently read a book by Iain Overton called ‘Gun Baby Gun’.  I honestly think that the book would be a good read for anyone that likes guns or dislikes guns.

The author investigates gun culture all over the world, not just the USA.  There are places much worse for gun violence than the US.

I’ve owned guns in the past(I don’t currently) and like to shoot them.  I took safety courses, learned care and safety of my guns and made sure my kids had the same knowledge and respect for what a gun can do.

Over the years, between reading magazines and various posts on the internet and FaceBook, both sides of the ‘gun’ situation in the world kinda pissed me off.  Always, always, particularly on FaceBook many posts that I’ve read leave important information out.

A similar example: Years ago when Obama was running for his second term as President, within a few days I saw two different memes on Facebook.  One was posted by a Facebook friend that was very much a Democrat.  It listed 5 or 6 statistics that Obama had been responsible for that were very stellar and good.  Another Facebook friend is very right wing and posted a similar meme that listed 5 or 6 statistics that put Obama in a terribly bad light. Showed how poorly he was doing.

I took each point in both memes and researched them fully.  Pros and Cons.  In the meme that told how wonderful Obama was, five out of the six ‘facts’ were quite false or very misleading.  In the meme that was showing Obama in a very bad light, five out of the six ‘facts’ were  false or misleading.  I wish I had them here to show, but anyone that has been on FaceBook for any length of time is quite aware that there is very little truth in any of the memes that are posted and they are largely posted just to inflame.

Both sides of the gun lobby do the same thing.  Facts get omitted to forward a particular line.  The reader will often assume that because it is coming from a somewhat respectable source, that the facts are accurate.  There is usually enough truth that cursory investigation makes it look valid.

Iain Overton’s Book ‘Gun Baby Gun’ is very enlightening on many points.  For example he brings up the point of gun suicides.  The NRA argues that if the person doesn’t have a gun that he or she will find another way to commit suicide.  Overton gives an example of the Israeli army.  For some years soldiers would take their guns home on the weekends.  There was a pretty serious suicide rate so the rules were changed so that they would not take their guns on leave.  Suicide rate dropped dramatically.

There are facts that Overton does not delve into with the book.  He does, to some extent, try and forward information and let one make his or her own evaluation.  To an extent.

There is one area that Overton glosses over that I thought needed more attention.  He mentions at one point that he looked into the fact of psychiatric drugs and their involvement in violence in the US in particular.  This was surprising to me in the light of the fact of the detailed accounts in other areas of his book.  For example, check out the sections on the proliferation of SWAT teams in America.

If one reads almost any book by Peter Breggin, MD, or watches some of  his videos you will read or hear much about the relation of mood altering prescription drugs and violence, including gun violence.

Maybe it was because some of the people in the mass shootings in the USA were not actually on the drugs when committing their atrocious acts.  Neglecting the fact that some of the worst mental anguish is when someone tries to ‘come off’ these drugs without a proper medical or health practitioner monitoring and helping.

If you can read through the gobbledygook on the following website, you will see in the article some of the legal, prescription drugs that can be responsible for violence:

Guns and Prescription Drugs 

Here is an article that talks about one of the biggest issues being that people stop the medication abruptly and without proper supervision: School Shootings

If you look, you can find articles that negate this relationship.  But if you go to the source… Go to the websites that list out the side effects of drugs like Prozac and Ritalin and the like; research some of the drugs that these kids that do the mass shootings are on.  Have a look at the side effects, that are often depression and violence.

To me, this was a huge omission from Iain Overton’s book ‘Gun, Baby, Gun.  Marvelous book. Well worth the read.  Extremely enlightening.

Get a copy of the book here:

 

 

Posted by greymouser in guns, Violence, 2 comments