legal drugs

May

2018

Gun, Baby, Gun by Iain Overton

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:

Sep

2015

Two Pronged Attack: Education and Drugs

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. There is no lack of evidence that education was considerably better then than it is now. Even then, it was almost scary how literate my father’s generation was compared to ours at the time.

There are many ways to destroy a culture. I remember mentioning to some friends way back when through the 60s and 70s that the best way to do it would be a two pronged attack. If one wanted to control a population, that people had to be dulled, dumbed down. Uneducated. It had to be done in increments and would be much easier if the senses were dulled.

Thus came the glorious advent of drugs in the 60s. Not that drug use was not around before that but illegal drugs particularly were marketed in such a way to become quite acceptable. And the more the senses were dulled, the easier it was to keep reducing the effectiveness of the education system.

I watch young people in retail outlets now that do not know how to count out change to a customer. And this is a majority. If the register does not tell them how much to give back they are lost. If a customer gives them a little extra change so the cashier can round out the change to a dollar or a fiver then there eyes glaze over blankly. I DO NOT blame these young people. They have been unfortunate enough to go through an education system that was stripped of many basic and useful tools. Like the basics of math.

I’m pretty sure that addition and times tables are not done anymore. Back in the 50s and 60s we drilled these until we could do them in our sleep. It is the ONLY way to learn this. One must know tables like this by rote. Just learning the theory of how is useless if one one does not know the tables cold.

Here is a great example of the deterioration of math knowledge from the website: www.thestraightdope.com

“The following examples may help to clarify the difference between the new and old math.

1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?

1970 (Traditional math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. What is his profit?

1975 (New Math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100 and each element is worth $1.

(a) make 100 dots representing the elements of the set M

(b) The set C representing costs of production contains 20 fewer points than set M. Represent the set C as a subset of the set M.

(c) What is the cardinality of the set P of profits?

1990 (Dumbed-down math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Underline the number 20.

1997 (Whole Math): By cutting down a forest full of beautiful trees, a logger makes $20.

(a) What do you think of this way of making money?

(b) How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?

(c) Draw a picture of the forest as you'd like it to look.”

When you are cashing out at the end of a busy day ‘how one feels’ about the money doesn’t help one at all. Knowing that 10 dimes add up to a dollar might.

But after the 60s young people questioned what they were given/told in school less and less. I remember meeting an ex-teacher of mine about 15-20 years after I graduated. We talked about that period of time and he said ‘What I wouldn’t give for some students like I had in the 60s.” He said that kids in the 80s and 90s never questioned anything. Ever. All they wanted to do was clock their hours and get their grades.

So, with this dumbing down, legal drugs get introduced to the general population directly. Instead of marketing mood altering drugs through psychiatry, the pharmaceutical companies went direct by advertising their wares on television. Then, without batting an eye, or doing their own research(not really knowing how or that it might be appropriate to actually question anything) the North American population began to consume billions of dollars worth of ‘legal’ drugs. Which further dulled awareness and any judgement that anyone would otherwise have.

I occasionally catch some video on Youtube where people are making fun of the uneducated public by asking questions that catch them out. Wonderful. We can all sit around and laugh at another’s expense. Rarely does anyone in this position actually try and point out that maybe it is not this person’s fault but the system in which they were educated.

Back in the 60s we all read ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley and Orwell’s 1984. We all believed that because of these books that these things would never come to pass.

I guess we too got a bit distracted and forgot to fight the good fight.

If you are reading this, demand that your children learn some basics in school properly. Make sure they know how to research things on their own.