A recent article in Politico highlights the shallowness of much of the current debate on mass shootings in the United States.
The article described the work of Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University, and James Densley, a professor of criminal justice at Metro State University, who constructed a database of every mass shooter since 1966 who shot and killed four or more people in a public place, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces and places of worship since 1999. They also compiled detailed life histories on 180 shooters, speaking to their spouses, parents, siblings, childhood friends, work colleagues and teachers. Most of the shooters did not survive their own rampage, but five who did talked to Drs. Peterson and Densley from prison, where they were all serving life sentences.
Here is what the two distinguished experts had to say:
There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers.
So mass shooters are unhappy, troubled people? Who would have imagined?
So what to do about this? Here is their prescription:
We need to build teams to investigate when kids are in crisis and then link those kids to mental health services.
No acknowledgement that many of these kids (and adults) already had been subjected to the ministrations of the mental health services industry. (We don’t know how many, because the powers that be won’t tell us.) No acknowledgement that in this country, “mental health services” is virtually synonymous with drugs. No acknowledgement of the overwhelming evidence that so-called “antidepressants” and other psychiatric drugs cause agitation, suicidality, and violence. No acknowledgement that children and adults who react badly to these drugs, instead of being taken off the drugs, all too often are given more drugs, stronger drugs, higher doses, until somebody who started out with no more than the problems of living ends up a career mental patient, or worse. And no mention that as consumption of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs has skyrocketed, so has the proportion of the population disabled by mental illness, and the suicide rate.
Oh, and I noticed the article is accompanied by a prominent banner advertisement for PhRMA, or the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. But I am sure that is just coincidence.
So what do we do about the problem of mass shootings? Here is my modest proposal: whenever somebody commits a mass shooting, that person’s complete medical records (including all the drugs has was prescribed) should be made public.
Some people might regard this as an invasion of the shooter’s privacy. Too bad. Maybe the people who have had bullets ripping into their flesh feel their privacy has been invaded.
My book Prescription for Sorrow: Antidepressants, Suicide, and Violence is available on amazon.
What makes the USA unique amongst other western nations regarding hopeless, depressed and suicidal citizens? Is there a higher rate of antidepressant prescription? Why are mass shooting the modus operandi of the disenfranchised in the USA?
Mental health centers don't just offer drugs. They offer "therapy" and groups where they tell you how hopeless you are. Hopeless and slanderous "diagnoses" to fill you with self-loathing and despair and cause isolation and rejection from family and former friends. And yet almost everybody thinks getting help from these places is the answer to all personal and societal problems. No.