Yes, I understand that any examples from 'the other side' are anecdotal, but one of the nicest co-workers I've ever worked with was killed one day by a DUI-repeat-offender speeder doing about 65 in a 35 zone. Said hi to her on the way in to work that day and by the end of lunch time she was dead.

And those laws have been on the books all my life. Now, everyone compares pot to alcohol in terms of risk and likely outcomes of legalization, but where are the controlled studies to prove it.

And yeah, as an engineering college grad, I can be a dumbass, too, just like I can be a college grad, dumbass and Producer here... and I HAVE tried pot on several occasions, and nothing bad happened as a result, including one very interesting positive effect, but hey, catastrophization of assumed future events is the new American Way.

Yes, I have, it's a waste of time, unless you're a dumb-ass, or have a medical need.
In this, and every other shooting case like this, the problem has been SRI drugs. That was the "drug" I was referring to.
The gov't is focused on guns being the problem, and not SRIs.
We know what happened when alcohol was legalized...DUIs. Before the car was invented being drunk wasn't lethal to the population.
As for pot itself, I don't care if someone wants to smoke pot. As long as it's on their time, and not our roads. I want harsh penalties for it. The problem is, we're legalizing without any concerns of public safety. We're going to rely on alcohol laws - that works great. How many times have you seen a person with numbers DUI arrest with no penalties.
Will being high on pot become a twinkie defense?

"Try it, then decide. "
You don't have to rely on one data point or anecdotal evidence. Large controlled studies show you're right.

Yep, maybe a few things changed...
http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix/pr...

and http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix/pr...

and http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix/pr...

and we should not forget...

http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix/pr...

:)

This article has a fundamental flaw. It fails to take into account the mental condition that prompted the prescribing of these drugs. This, not the drugs themselves, is the common factor...

Probably not much more than went wrong when alcohol was re-legalized.

There are risks associated with EVERYTHING in the world you can do. The question is whether it's a large or small risk and whether it's to you, yourself or to others around you.

Most pot smokers do NOT engage in violent acts... quite the opposite. Unlike alcohol.

Have you tried pot or just drawn a conclusion/opinion about it. I've tried it. No negative side effects and one very interesting positive side effect. Try it, then decide.

Thanks, TRB... I was waiting for some sense to enter this thread. I've been a 'chronic depressive' most of my life. I can remember the classic symptoms back into my teens.

I went to a psychiatrist some time in my 40s and tried several antidepressants before settling on Prozac. One thing I did was read the ENTIRE 'side effects' write-up and concluded that P had one of the lowest incidence of dangerous side effects of just about any competitive product on the market.

I started at the recommended starting dose of 20mg/d and the effects were astounding (-ly good.)

As stress levels in my life came and went, I tuned my dosage and today I'm very comfortable at 80mg/d. I've read that after bariatric surgery, which I had last December, many post-op patients discover they need much less Prozac than when they were pre-op. Sometimes that effect doesn't show up for 6-12 months after surgery, and I'm only six months post-op now. We'll see.

The whole list of coincidence of Prozac-users and shooters/killers really does represent a subgroup of a subgroup and I'm glad you pointed that out.

It reminds me of the time when I did the est Training back in the 80s. Some 'graduates' suicided. Most didn't. The ones who didn't usually had the reaction to suicide reports of "well, they probably would have anyway..."

Thanks for a more rational perspective!

Gun violence actually increased briefly during the effects of the "Brady Bill", which was a light version of a gun control bill at the national level. Gun violence then retreated following it's expiration.

As to gun violence in general, the violence seems to be inversely proportional to the rights accorded individual citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Look no further than Washington, D.C., which has extremely restrictive concealed carry laws and (not surprisingly) a very high rate of armed crime - especially gang violence. Chicago is a similar case, as is Detroit. Compare those to Houston and Dallas, however, (cities in a state that supports gun rights) and you see very low incidences of firearm-assisted crimes.

Note that neither of these combines drugs (either prescribed or non-prescribed) into the picture. That is an additional variable that I haven't seen too much study on.

It's probably not the statins... it's the diet that created the need for the statins in the first place (that also causes the type 2).

Otherwise, I agree.

If you believe that background checks keep guns away from "criminals and the mentally ill", they are as valid at gun shows as they are in gun shoppes.

Colorado has "instant" checks, and dealers can, and must, do them at shows as well. This is the much-touted "gun show loophole".

Conversely, if someone is buying from a private citizen, whether it's their Uncle Bob or a stranger, they are governed by the same laws at a show as at anywhere else.

Naw. Instead, we are already seeing a massive explosion in adult onset diabetes. Some estimates are that in 10 years roughly half the population will have it. Early onset of serious illness is on the increase now. You know what's linked to type 2 diabetes?....statins.

Maybe more people should just watch what they put in their pie hole.

I understand that gun violence is on the decline. I didn't hear that "mass shootings" are. I'd love a reference to that (too busy to look for one right now). I'm old enough to remember newspapers and scratchy nightly news on the rabbit ears. I don't think the enhanced media is the issue. I am certain that the increased use of certain meds will surely result in more violence - the drug manufacturers even say so.

Actually, the NRA has done a study on "mass" shootings and the incidences are actually going down now - not up. The reason they are a "greater" concern now is because our information systems are so much better it can become a major topic in the national news media the same day - where before it would be several weeks old before someone could re-print it, ie Old News. The number of shootings isn't going up - our access to information is.

It also appears as though they have wild-staring eyes.

nothing about them being Conservative, right wing, Tea Party, racist, bible thumpers.
Only drugs. We should definitely legalize pot. What could go wrong?

Mental health issues are the elephant in the room. The PC of this world can't bring themselves to the conclusion that mental health plays the major role in mass killings. First, you might offend someone, maybe the patient, certainly the family. Second, you'd have to do something about it. As someone with a family member that needs assisted living because of mental health issues, I can tell you there is no good way to get them off the street and into a facility.

To do that, you have to go to court and have them adjudicated incompetent, strip them of their civil rights, and put them in a key coded secure environment. Even progressives shy away from stripping rights, unless it's our right to assemble, own firearms, have some privacy, etc. The alternative is to leave them where they live to wreck havoc on the neighborhood, forget to take their medication, drive on public highways, become paranoid, call local police on unwarranted calls, react to auditory hallucinations, have a psychotic break, then reset and start over.

Having gone through that process with my wife's Aunt, it's terrible. You are sitting in a court room presenting evidence against your own family member that will most likely take away their rights, permanently. Of course the family is divided over this. The other side says she could get along fine on her own with a little help. Well, that's where she was when she stopped taking her meds and started hearing voices.

And that, I offer, is exactly how the family, friends, and physicians of these nut jobs feel when they don't turn them in. The latest one, in California, Police paid a visit, and it went just like it did for us. Without probable cause of a crime or permission they cannot enter your home. The young lad seemed "normal enough" to be ok on his own. He didn't resist or strike the officers. Without a crime being committed, the Police are only professional observers of the insanity before them. Even if the emergency squad is called, they could not make my wife's Aunt go for a medical/pshych evaluation. They could only try to persuade her. The last time, #17, she got angry with the county officer for the aged and struck her. That allowed police to take her in, take her to hospital, get an emergency evaluation, and admit her to a locked down unit. It really is another kind of prison.

Applying all this personal experience to the mass shootings. If someone is mentally ill, if they are paranoid, if they are hearing auditory hallucinations, (some think God is talking to them) if the have access to weapons, if they have access to unarmed groups, ...something bad is probably going to happen. Progressives would like to think we can medicate this problem, it's a lot less expensive that institutionalizing them. The trouble is, they either don't like the way the medication makes them feel, or they begin to approach normal and tell themselves "I don't need to take that." Either way, they quit taking their medication and the time bomb is ticking.

In the 70's I was going to Barber School in a downtown area. We had homeless guys that came in all the time for the very inexpensive services offered by new students. These guys were not crazy, being a hobo or living off the land in the city was a lifestyle choice for them. Ohio had State hospitals for the mentally ill, as did some counties and cities. Those with mental problems were taken somewhere. Of course the terrible stories about abuse caused the hand wringing liberals to do away with State Hospitals. Today, most of the homeless have serious mental problems, no medication, no family contact, and no place to go except the streets. As one of my Doctor friends said to me, "Psychiatry has been removed from healthcare, most insurance allows 2 weeks care. You should try to be a Psychiatrist today..."

So....Obviously, if there is no political will to create a place for the mentally ill in the system, and which party wants to be blamed for making those decisions, it would just be perfect and so much easier, if we did away with guns. Then the insane could just walk among us and nobody would know or dare say.

You mean repealing the Second Amendment isn't the answer?

That will make all the loony libtards drop their bongs.

And who is behind putting the shooters on the drugs - school systems which threaten to not let them back in without medication! What is Obama calling for, psychological checks before letting people have guns. A drugged up person will find a weapon, be it a bomb, poison, or pencil if they really are aimed in that direction. Our nation's youth are being used and abused via psychotropic drugs, to meet the end of unscrupulous people.

Elliot Rodger refused to take his meds. Not that meds would have eliminated his megalomania and lust for sex and revenge.

We are on dangerous Orwellian ground when contemplating whom to lock up as mentally ill. It can easily extend to political resisters, critics of the government, harmless eccentrics, and family members standing in the way of inheritances.

And where does vigilance leave off and paranoia begin? Back in the 1970s many institutionalized were let out and mainstreamed. America's cultural climate with its war mentality and stirring of class envy is not conducive to a healthy society. It is predictable that the more impressionable will become unbalanced and antisocial and end up in the ranks of criminals or the criminally insane. The psycho-epistemology of our culture has become caustic. The outliers are the canaries in the coalmine of worse to come.

Objectivists have a major uphill struggle if we are going to reverse current trends. And the future does hang on the power of ideas today.

Wait until you get older... taking a statin and a BP med is pretty common in later life. I'm expecting to see a shockingly sharp drop in heart attacks and strokes in Gen X versus the baby boomers.

Having a stroke, or a serious cardiac event in your 60's or 70's is no-joke, and begins the spiral of circling the drain.. but in a very bad way... your life takes on the glide path of a paper airplane with no hope in sight of getting better, or only a slow decline in quality of life. My father-in-law drools on himself, craps his bed, and pisses his pants daily.... no thanks... I'm fine with staying healthy until I die suddenly of something else.

Medication is the way we treat mental illness. In most cases, the patient sees a psychiatrist for only medication regulation purposes - maybe once a month for 15 minutes. They look for signs of agitation, etc. Then the patient would also see a therapist for an hour or two at least once a week. Only a psychiatrist can prescribe meds though, and there are really not enough of those to go around - so the system relies on master's degrees to do the heavy-lifting and reserves the MD's to medications.

I concur... the libs are reluctant to strip a nut job of their rights... but perfectly willing to shred the Constitution with regards to everyone else.

I've read the same case studies I think, statistically, that is correct, but you are also talking about a subject group that is "100% Depressed" as compared to the rest of society. I think it would also be difficult to compare depressed people groups with an anti-depressant to depressed people without an antidepressant with a lot of reliability in the outcome. Depression has a lot of causes, some physical, some emotional, some (most I think) environmental. Common sense would expect a higher rate of suicide in either group, quantifying it to a drug would be pretty difficult.. you would have to compare low dosages and medium dosages and high dosages and see a correlation of increase in suicide - if it's "inverse" it blows the theory out of the water. Some antidepressants (Prozac @ 5 mg for example) are used also in low-dosages to compliment a low-dose BP medication for people with high levels of stress that are unlikely to be resolved with exercise & such (such as a high-stress career). There is no such statistical evidence in those groups, so the problem isn't likely to be the antidepressant, so much as it is more likely to be the group being studied.

Porn stars also take mild antidepressants to extend sexual performance before orgasm for example, and there hasn't been any example of Long Dong Wong running out & shooting people down.

I have a nephew for example that is a little doped-up to calm his ADHD & other diagnoses. Yeah, he's a little catatonic when on the stuff, and probably a little depressed and probably suicidal, but without the stuff he's certainly violent and practically homocidal. I'll take a "risk to self" versus a "risk to others", I'm pretty sure he'll end up in prison, I don't think anyone will be surprised by it when it comes, but the issue you look at is do the positives outweigh the negatives. In most cases they do.

The common thread here are very mentally disturbed people, which were certainly detected earlier and being treated with the therapy and pharmaceuticals we currently have available. There are next-gen antidepressants in Europe and overseas, but not yet approved by the FDA.

My point is, these are troubled people to begin with, and were identified as such. We don't lock them up in asylums like we used to, and as a society, we are also more reluctant to immediately correct deviant behavior in children, which I really don't think works... Letting them roam free in society, and powerful psychotropic drugs is obviously quite a bit more dangerous. In my experience, they often think they are "getting better" and don't like the side effects of their drugs... (poor libido, mental slowness, boring to be around, etc.), so they stop taking the drug in hopes of being more-accepted to society. They rarely seem to remember or willing to admit what happens when they are off the stuff and assume they can "handle" it this time.

Every one of these stopped taking their meds previously. If you combine whatever they have, with say, bi-polar disorder (common to these as well), they probably stop taking it during a manic period, when they are pretty sure they have the cure for cancer mulling around in their brain, can take on a grizzly in hand-to-hand combat, and don't sleep for 4 or 5 days straight at a time. Then they take Ambien or something to get some rest, and they probably think they are dreaming when they are not... I've even read about a gal on Ambien that got up and cooked a complete Thanksgiving dinner, set the table, got out all the trimmings, etc.. all in her sleep, then went back to bed and woke up to a dinner and table for 16. In July. She had zero recollection of it.

My opinion is that we will never really be able to integrate these people into society... but its also a small percentage that this occurs with. I don't know what the answer is, other than to say that many of these folks are inherently dangerous. It would be interesting to see the statistic that includes all felonies committed, versus only mass murder, and correlate that to how many of the perps are mentally ill.