There it is in black and white.

Holmes reportedly had as much Vicodin in his system as killed Heath Ledger. His psychiatrist had been reprimanded for prescribing medications very liberally - including to family and friends.

Painkillers and antidepressants kill normal senses in the body in order to kill depression, pain and anxiety. Police apparently said that he seemed abnormally calm and seemed to "not have a normal emotional response to things." He actually seemed to literally wait outside in the parking lot for police to arrest him after he murdered all of those people. That is really strange - usually even the worst serial killers avoid police.

His pupils were also seriously dilated in his booking photo, which is most likely the cause of heavy duty medication.

Drug use comes up in nearly all of these mass killings. Read Peter Hitchens' coverage - it is worth reading. You shouldn't go ban all prescription drugs, that is obviously ridiculous, but drugs are passed out in our society way more liberally than they ever should be.

It doesn't make sense that there seemed to be factions that think guns should be freely available but that overmedication is a problem and sides that think the exact opposite. Both guns and medications are dangerous enough that there should be serious regulations on them - more so than we obviously have.

You should only be able to own a gun after going through a serious screening process at least ten times as difficult as getting a driver's license. You should only be prescribed medication if you have a demonstrable mental or physical illness that requires the actual medication you're being given. Advertisements should either not be allowed or should be required to have huge warning labels.

We have such regulations on cigarettes and getting cancer after forty years of smoking is certainly not as scary as an overdose or getting shot in the face.