The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Orion's picture

    The Killer Profile

    By Orion on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 8:51pm |

    If we are really serious about stopping the mass shootings that are occurring in this country, we really need to get serious about what's really going on.

    There is an obvious shooter profile. Characteristics seem to fit every single one. Here is a description of the New Mexico Pastor's son who killed his whole family:

    "We know him as a bright, curious and incredibly talented young man.  He was a brother, nephew, grandson and cousin," said the statement, which was obtained by ABC News affiliate KOAT in Albuquerque from former New Mexico state Sen. Eric Griego, the suspect's uncle.

    Here's a description of James Holmes:

    People who knew the suspect in the "Dark Knight" shooting at a Colorado movie theater described him Friday as an intelligent student who showed no signs of violence.

    Holmes was a student at the University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, but the school said he was in the process of withdrawing from the graduate program in neuroscience.

    Descriptions of Cho Seung Hui, the shooter at Virginia Tech, also described a "perfect student" and one documentary on the Virginia Tech massacre noted that Cho started taking antidepressants weeks before the massacre. Jared Loughner was described as having an abrupt personality change before his shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, as well. Like Holmes, pictures of Loughner literally look like completely different people.

    In each case, you seem to have individuals who lived fairly normal lives and then experienced abrupt, frightening mental shifts.

    I already put together a piece on James Holmes here that I hope illustrate a young man who is quite obviously under the influence of large dosages of painkillers and antidepressants (as much Vicodin as killed Heath Ledger, allegedly). He even physically looks like completely different people in those pictures. Police reported that Holmes "lacked normal emotional responses" and much of the same behavior seems to have occurred with Adam Lanza:

    “That’s when the gunman burst in, did not say a word, no facial expressions, and proceeded to shoot their teacher,” said Robert Licata, whose 6-year-old son Aiden escaped by running past the shooter.

    Without guns, these massacres would not be as serious as they are - you would not have the mayhem and havoc with - say - people armed with a knife or baseball bat, which can be more easily put down. However, there is a clear pattern to the worst mass shootings (Virginia Tech, Newton, Aurora, Columbine, etc.) - fairly intelligent young men on alot of pharmaceutical drugs who experienced a fairly abrupt mental shift. When there is something like that occurring in a country like this on a large scale - where guns are literally sold as if they weren't dangerous at all - the result is what is happening now.

    The evidence is right there and fairly obvious. Ethical psychiatrist Peter Briggin, MD, a critic of the medications that have caused this carnage, has had his work finally start to get noticed in publications like Variety and Huffington Post - proof, I hope at least, that the voices of people like myself - who know what the hell really feels like and somehow survived it - are finally being heard.

    Additional: I wanted to add, based on a few comments that I got, a few clarifications. Most of the stuff that I am saying about SSRIs is quite literally guesswork - Take a trip to your local psychiatrist and they will admit they "don't know how they work." We're left than to look at what happens to people who take them. They are implicated enough in the rash of mass shootings that to just dismiss the implications is very bad form.

    Another Dagblog user was nice enough to post an article that revealed this about alot of the psych meds being produced on the market:

    A rare peek into drug company documents reveals troubling differences between publicly available information and materials the company holds close to its chest. In comparing public and private descriptions of drug trials conducted by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, researchers discovered discrepancies including changes in the number of study participants and inconsistent definitions of protocols and analyses.  

    The researchers, led by Kay Dickersin, director of the Center for Clinical Trials at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, gained access to internal Pfizer reports after a lawsuit made them available. Dickersin and her colleagues compared the internal documents with 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals about randomized trials of Pfizer’s anti-epilepsy drug gabapentin (brand name Neurontin) that tested its effectiveness for treating other disorders. The results, the researchers say, suggest that the published trials were biased and misleading, even though they read as if standard protocols were followed. That lack of transparency could mean that clinicians prescribe drugs based on incomplete or incorrect information.

    They don't know how they work. Are you comfortable with that?

    Another good point:

    The study's results, published January 29 in PLOS Medicine, show that publications about drug trials don’t always reflect the research that was conducted, says Lisa Bero of the University of California, San Francisco, an expert in methods to assess bias in scientific publishing “We know that entire studies don’t get published and that what does get published is more likely to make a drug look favorable,” she says. “This adds another layer.”

    If you're off any mood altering drugs and have normal human responses again, that sentence should put chills down your spine.

    Comments

    Geez enough already, can we just get off the

    Without guns,

    You'll have a civil war, before folks will give up the guns.

    You better find another way to deal with the root problem leading to violence.

    It's just as our forefathers figured it would be, therefore they wrote it in the Bill of Rights.

    Sheriffs Target Obama Gun Control, Vow to Resist

    " Chief law enforcement officers from Kentucky, Oregon, Texas, California, Missouri, Idaho, Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, New York, Utah, Oklahoma, and other states have all spoken out already — many of them in unison. It seems that virtually every single day, more sheriffs are adding their voices to the expanding list of prominent lawmen who have vowed to ensure that the U.S. Constitution is respected in their jurisdictions."..........

    Soon, state lawmakers began introducing legislation to protect gun rights in their jurisdictions and even put federal officials who attempt to enforce unconstitutional restrictions in prison — in some cases for four or five years."

    Add the civil disobedience of the Marijuana laws and it sounds like war drums to me.

    Good thing Obama's bringing the troops home, he may need them to quash the rebellion.  


    by Resistance on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 9:31pm

    You would think that sheriffs would be more concerned about people mass murdering one another. You'd think. 0 _ o


    by Orion on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 10:25pm

    No I never thought sheriffs would.

    Years ago I found a booklet, what I considered was a guide, for an underground movement of law enforcement officers, who were concerned about the notion of the New World Order. Viper 2000? or something like that

    Most law officers take their oath seriously, they feel it's part of who they are as patriots. Doing their duty thing.

    Reminds me of brother against brother during the Civil war; today it could turn into brother officer against brother officer.

    They all have a common bond. To Protect and Serve the Constitution. We'll have to see how this unfolds when a conflict occurs in the interpretation. 

    I suppose it was that way during World War 2 with segregation amongst the troops, all those men men willing to risk their lives to protect our rights, each doing what they thought was right, even though the rights didn't equally apply.

    Like this blog, each side has it's bias, leading to a different interpretation of who is wrong or right.

    Bias is troubling, instead of uniting, it is dividing this Nation again.     


    by Resistance on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 11:28pm

    Resistance is right smack dab on target as usual.

    His second link has a side article titled "Communists Cheer on Obama's Gun Grab". I can't wait to read it but his other link takes 15 minutes to load.

    As Resistance has pointed out, mass murderers could just hammer people to death. Hammers aren't protected by the Constitution, so we are left with assault weapons and hundred round drums to save freedom. I've asked Resistance if I need to buy a Bushmaster but he refuses to blog on it, or blog on anything for that matter.

    Resistance other link, which won't load, is the CSPOA, Constitutional blah blah blah, headed by Sheriff Mack, and Oathkeeper cop from Arizona.

    You can send money to Sheriff Mack here, and he will save the republic if freedom loving guys like me and Resistance come up short.


    by NCD on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 8:38pm

    I'm not seeing the profile, except for young intelligent males with little or no previous history of actual violence, whatever their troubled thoughts might have been.

    Have you seen a mention of young Niemiah Griego taking pharmaceuticals? Maybe I missed it, haven't seen it. And I don't think Loughner was on drugs when he committed his violence--though you may be right.

    I definitely think there are good reasons to look closely at our use of SSRIs, because (duh!) they affect our brains, and you may be right that they have some negative impact on judgment or impulse control. But in terms of a shooter profile, I believe there is more in the human mind and heart than covered here...

    And it wasn't all them, either--other people had something to do with it, too. In the end, no one turned these young men from their dark thoughts. And those dark thoughts, combined with access to deadly weapons and a certain amount of fate, did the deed.


    by erica20 on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 12:24am

    Loughner is hard to find facts on - the dramatic personality shift fits most of these cases.

    This one just happened but the facts regarding Holmes, Cho, etc. are enough to validate what I'm saying. Almost all of the big school shootings involved shooters on or withdrawing from SSRI medication. These shootings started in the early 90s - this class of antidepressant medication hit the market in the late 80s. They have become more common as the medication has become more popular.

    Also, in my support group, I've met a lot of women put on these meds who got violent. One included a social worker who recommended the meds to her clients before taking it herself. It was a different sort of violence since they were very different sorts of personalities - but the drugs are a bit designed to take make people like this. I really recommend you check it out. We have over 100 people on there.

    They're warning about "homicidal and suicidal ideation especially among young people" in the TV commercials now so it is definitely worth looking in to this factor. I have talked to doctors about this and gotten about a dozen times "We don't know how they work." You'd think if ethics had any place in this world, people wouldn't make medication available when "no one knows how it works."

    Humans are pretty sick creatures - they will literally sell death to children if it will make money. Hmmmm.....


    by Orion on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 12:42am

    Tobacco companies kill their best customers, that is why they need another generation of replacement smokers.

    Their greed kills and they don't care.

    I had a friend that took Chantix and had the worst nightmares

    Taken from the website

    What is the most important safety information about CHANTIX?

    Some people have had changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions while using CHANTIX to help them quit smoking. Some people had these symptoms when they began taking CHANTIX, and others developed them after several weeks of treatment or after stopping CHANTIX.

    If you, your family, or caregiver notice agitation, hostility, depression, or changes in behavior, thinking, or mood that are not typical for you,

    or you develop suicidal thoughts or actions, anxiety, panic, aggression, anger, mania, abnormal sensations, hallucinations, paranoia, or confusion, stop

    taking CHANTIX and call your doctor right away. Also tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems before taking CHANTIX, as these symptoms may worsen while taking CHANTIX.

    call your doctor right away, isn't that what the Colorado shooter tried to do? 

    What the heck are we doing allowing this crap into society.

    Shouldn't we ban cigarettes and eliminate the need for Chantix? 


    by Resistance on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 1:56am

    The presence of dihydrogen monoxide in SSRIs is a problem, I'll admit.


    by nothere on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 7:47pm

    The presence of snarky comments that do nothing productive is a problem, I admit.


    by Orion on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 3:45pm

    Orion, when and if you actually make a case for something (which you have not done with SSRI) then I'll acknowledge it.

    In the interim, as you continue to make unsubstantiated claims based on what appears to be bad science (if it is science; which I doubt) I'll mock your fake morality and concern, at will. I reiterate that it looks a lot like attention getting behavior, non-compliance, and basic bullshit.

    As far as I can tell, all supposed evidence you've offered on the imaginary SSRI problem points back to a single author. His alleged research was rejected and discredited by his peers.

    That is a serious deficit in your argument; and potentially harmful. Which is ironic, since (AFAICT) your entire set of posts on this topic (guns, and "mental" illness) is allegedly about preventing harm.

    If you have peer-reviewed evidence based on sound scientific research regarding SSRI-caused violence, post your source. This may require an actual trip to an actual library where you can consult an actual glossy journal of science. Implied here is the absolute exclusion of random sites on the net with articles that all point back to your single, discredited, source and your SSRI groups' anecdotal contention(s). Those things are not science.


    by nothere on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 8:27pm

    It's a little hard to really feel like anything I've said is being taken down when the rebuttal is filled with insults and cuss words. This is an internet site - I'm not writing a book here - it's easier for me to link to internet resources because the average reader isn't about to go to a library, are they?

    Honestly, don't you think Peter Briggin may possibly be condemned by his peers because his peers make their livelihood on prescribing these medications? Seriously, as a liberal individual who reads a liberal website like this, I'm sure you've nodded your head at some point to the phrase Noam Chomsky titled a book after - Profits Over People. Is there something different about this product that makes you want to defend it to the hilt? There were alot of folks like you when it became obvious that cigarettes caused cancer - do you really want to be on that side when it becomes obvious that the mass production of psychiatric drugs led to mass murder becoming as routine in American society as a car accident?

    And I linked to alot of other resources besides the author you had such a problem with. My case here really is that over prescription of medication that dulls your natural sense of emotion or pain is leading to people who act out acting even worse. The reports on James Holmes had cops saying that he "lacked normal emotional responses" and I put together an article here that shows that his various odd facial expressions matched the effects of various medication he was taking. His psychiatrist, who he called before the shooting, had actually been reprimanded for over prescribing various medications to friends and family - exactly the sort of overzealous handing out of pharmaceuticals that I have been saying is causing all this bizarre behavior.

    Mood altering drugs always do this. Watch the movie Walk the Line and see how Johnny Cash unraveled due to his ridiculous intake of amphetamines. I'm not arguing that the drugs should be illegal but some serious regulation needs to take place, just like you'd expect to regulate guns or anything else that dangerous. That's the point of government and law enforcement, right? To protect us?

    I could link to articles in Scientific American and Psychology Today that help the case too and even say stuff I haven't. I think those are journals of science - though I may be wrong, according to you? I think they're printed on glossy paper too but maybe I should try to go do a trip to the library and check for paper quality just to make sure it's up to your standards.

    I could send you New York Times articles about children becoming vacant zombies after doctors have literally prescribed anti-psychotics to toddlers. Based on your attitude, though, I'd guess that those wouldn't really change your mind. I would be sending you the internet version of those articles and apparently that's illegitimate - maybe my argument would have more weight if I sent you a physical copy of the New York Times article from the library to your mailbox? Send me your home address and I'll do so.


    by Orion on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 4:29am

    Orion, it's important to understand that much of the evidence for your position is still considered anecdotal. Unfortunately, it will take awhile for serious research to either validate or refute the claims about negative effects of SSRIs. In the meantime, though, keep doing it--just know that you will get some blowback and understand that there is some basis for the blowback.

    This will take years to work out--in the meantime, if I ran the world I'd tell everyone to be very cautious about prescribing SSRIs for developing brains. But I don't run the world....

     


    by erica20 on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 1:37pm

    But I don't run the world....

    Come on erica

     


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 1:48pm

    You wrote:

    "...because the average reader isn't about to go to a library, are they?"

    Thanks for making one of my points. If you make the claim, you back it up.

    You wrote:

    "Honestly, don't you think Peter Briggin may possibly be condemned by his peers because his peers make their livelihood on prescribing these medications?"

    I do not. And I've already answered this in another thread in which you make the claim "Use of SSRI will cause violent behavior." I have no idea why you are re-visiting this.

    You wrote:

    "And I linked to a lot of other resources besides the author you had such a problem with."

    And as far as I could see, they all pointed back to a single source. So there weren't really multiple resources.

    You wrote:

    "Watch the movie Walk the Line and see how Johnny Cash unraveled due to his ridiculous intake of amphetamines."

    Do you really mean to equate amphetamine abuse with prescribed SSRI use under the supervision of a psychiatrist? Seriously?

    You wrote:

    "I could link to articles in Scientific American"

    Link to an article by a journalist (not a scientist) writing an opinion piece. Does not support your thesis.

    You wrote:

    "...and Psychology Today"

    Your authority in this article is (emphasis added):

    "Lennard J. Davis is a Guggenheim Fellow who has written or edited more than 12 books. His latest book is Obsession: A History published by the University of Chicago Press. He is a Professor in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the College of Medicine, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences where he teaches disability studies, literature, theory, and the intersection between science, medicine, technology and culture--which he calls biocultures. He is the director of Project Biocultures. He also is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chicago Tribune among others and is a regular commentator on NPR."

    I don't see that he is a researcher in the area of substances such as SSRI. He is, apparently, a commentator on such things. What's his expertise? It's not clear to me that he has any.

    And no, Scientific American and Psychology Today are not scientific journals; they are for mass consumption, not much different than People or Vanity Fair.

    You wrote:

    "I could send you New York Times articles about children becoming vacant zombies after doctors have literally prescribed anti-psychotics to toddlers."

    I agree that anti-psychotics should not be prescribed to eighteen month old toddlers. What does that have to do your argument about SSRI causing violence? Apparently, I have to spell it out: anti-psychotics and SSRI are two different things.

    I do not see how a pediatrician (who should not prescribe such a powerful drug) engaging in what I would argue is malpractice supports your thesis that SSRI will cause violence.


    by nothere on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 7:19pm

    There's alot to work with and I think it might be best just to go in to some territory. Talking about Peter Briggrin's credentials seems too extravagant to really go in to.

    I agree that anti-psychotics should not be prescribed to eighteen month old toddlers. What does that have to do your argument about SSRI causing violence? Apparently, I have to spell it out: anti-psychotics and SSRI are two different things.

    They are - but what I have been saying consistently is that powerful mind altering chemicals are being given really liberally throughout the country to people of all ages for various reasons - to "help" with school, to "stabilize" moods, etc. SSRIs are the most commonly given because they treat depression.

    SSRIs specifically are all "guesswork" - doctors themselves say that they "don't know how they work." So we're left pointing to what has actually occurred - various incidents where kids on them have brought guns to school and not remembered it, the majority of school shooters being on the drugs or in withdrawal, etc.

    I bring anti-psychotics, amphetamines, etc. in there because they all are mood altering drugs. We've seen what amphetamine abuse can do - the liberal prescription of other prescription drugs is pretty much in the same territory. They're being handed out like candy, which equals abuse.

    Orion, it's important to understand that much of the evidence for your position is still considered anecdotal. Unfortunately, it will take awhile for serious research to either validate or refute the claims about negative effects of SSRIs. In the meantime, though, keep doing it--just know that you will get some blowback and understand that there is some basis for the blowback.

    This will take years to work out--in the meantime, if I ran the world I'd tell everyone to be very cautious about prescribing SSRIs for developing brains. But I don't run the world....

    Since drug manufacturers and doctors admit they themselves "don't know how" SSRIs work - "anecdotal" is literally all we have to go with. I do expect blowback but the blowback should also expect blowback, right?


    by Orion on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 10:34am

    Thanks for this chthonic. This is exactly correct as is your next comment. 

     


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 10:08am

    There's at least ten more or less common markers that make up the profile of recent rampage killers:

    One of the obvious, discernable traits of the shooters: mildly or very mentally ill, detached from reality.
    Two: Anti-social behavior. Few, if any, long term relationships.
    Three: On prescription medications (anti-depressants and/or other legal/illegal drugs) and allowed to purchase guns.
    Four: A personal emotional event/upheaval which starts a downward spiral; with weapons/ammo being purchased during the spiral.
    Five: The shooters are in their 20's-30's age wise.
    Six: The venues chosen by the shooters are mostly public places with numerous people sitting/standing in close proximity to one another. The shooters plan carefully for and intend a maximum number of deaths.
    Seven: The shooters bring multiple deadly weapons and numerous rounds/clips of ammunition; again, the intent is maximum number of deaths.
    Eight: The shooters are using credit cards to purchase their weapons and ammo. I think some of us remember the scene in M. Moore's Bowling for Columbine.
    Nine: The shooters are spending time on/posting on anti social/anti government/tin foil hat websites.
    Ten: Almost all rampage murderers are male.

    I put these together after the Loughner meltdown, looking at him and several other rampage killers.

    Number 11 could be the fact that numerous rampage killers use Glock pistols, with the Bushmaster AR-15 figuring heavily in some recent killings, notably Sandy Hook.

     


    by demunchained on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 9:08pm

    Good list placing different factors side by side.

     


    by moat on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 7:04pm

    Beyond all those factors and the ones I've brought up is the fact that the world is chaotic as hell right now. I just posted about that nightclub fire that killed 180 people, then there was a ship crashed in to the Bay Bridge in SF, Hurricane Sandy, social change via Obama's presidency, etc. The world has always been problematic but this sort of chaos is probably messing with alot of people's heads.


    by Orion on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 9:13am

    BAN HATCHETS

    Lizzie Borden took an axe

    And gave her mother forty whacks.

    When she saw what she had done

    She gave her father forty-one.

    Damn it, Ban Hatchets; they kill people


    by Resistance on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 8:54pm

    But could Lizzie kill 26 people in a matter of minutes with her little hatchet?  It's all about proportion.  There aren't many weapons that can kill 26 people in a matter of minutes.  Nor should there be.


    by Ramona on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 9:49pm

    A drone can.

    You say, " It's all about proportion"

    I say its all about perspective.  

    If someone alien were to peer to the Earth they would ask

    They cry when it's close to home, "we need to do something"  and never give it another thought, when their Nation does it to someone else.

    A killer profile?

    What is wrong with us?


    by Resistance on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 10:29pm

    Perhaps your best perspective Resistance, as an alien peering down at earth. Maybe you could do a blog as an alien.

    You're not really believable as an aborigine, a resident of Watts, or 'an Israeli in the event of a terrorist attack' (below).

    Of course the terrorists who the drones target, are better armed than you are, with their GUNS and bombs they wreak havoc and death on a huge scale in Pakistan. Seems guns don't always ensure democracy, personal safety or good government.


    by NCD on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 10:48am

    What is wrong with us?

    I'll answer the question, because I realize that, some folks lack empathy, unable to understand, unable to imagine themselves in others shoes. 

    But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

    (2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV)

    In some folks its so obvious, the truthfulness of the quoted scripture.

    Including the whole assembly of leaders unable to come to agreement.


    by Resistance on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 1:18pm

    In some folks its so obvious, the truthfulness of the quoted scripture.

    Matthew 7:3-5. wink


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 2:10pm

    A personal attack? Abusive?

    Who has the sawdust, who has the rafter?

    Why don't you explain for us all, why you thought the scripture you used, was appropriate for what discussion?  Without a reference someone might wonder and miss the point you're trying to make.

    Were you trying to be mean spirited? What? Were you telling me to remove the sawdust? What?


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 3:24pm

    I'm saying that you're guilty of the very thing you're accusing others of. I was not intending to offend you, but if it does offend you, then perhaps you should also recall the golden rule. That said, I apologize for obviously upsetting you.


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 6:30pm

    You didn't upset me; I was only trying to find out, if you were trying to remove what you perceived as sawdust from my eyes?  You made it appear you were a man of godliness,

    The last days comment, was a general comment about society as a whole, not directed at a particular individual.

    It could apply to those we see around us with those traits; that they are to be expected, they are much a part of the tribulation we all face, as the final days approach.

    As for the Golden rule, I know it well. “Those who have the gold, Rule”?  

    Fits in nicely with my above comment

    For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

    No wonder we're having so much tribulation.


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 7:14pm

    A drone can.

    So, are you suggesting:

    1. That drones should also be legal?
    2. That assault weapons would be an effective defense against drones?

    Or was there some other point you were trying to make with your implied analogy? That analogy was almost as good as your analogy between abolitionists and gun control advocates!


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 2:09pm

    What did you think the analogy of guns and abolitionists was?  


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 3:42pm

    It seemed to me that you were suggesting that abolitionists were to blame for bringing on the Civil War and that gun control advocates (such as those supporting very reasonable gun control laws such as those banning assault weapons or high capacity ammunition clips) could be responsible for the next civil war.


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 6:32pm

    Intransigence on both sides, led to civil war.


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 7:19pm

    Statements like this is why you need to write your own blog. It is provocative and worth talking about but it needs its own space to be discussed properly.

    Turning every post made at dagblog into a half assed discussion of the matter is not fair either to the topic you consider most important or to the people trying to talk about other things.


    by moat on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 8:08pm

    When I am asked to explain a comment I will.

     I don't need you, (as long as I don't abuse the TOS,) to tell me how to find the pleasure of dagblog.

    I know some would like to believe, they're protecting the Circle J Country Club from everybody, but the exclusive members only.  

    You've got free will Moat, let me exercise mine.

    No one says you have to read my comment, or reply or attack. Ignore my comments. 

    You dont have to click the reply button or try an end run with indirect attacks.

    This site is like smorgasbord of ideas, choose whatever you want. You don't like the soup or the salad, leave it alone.

    But don't presume, you can tell everyone else what to feed upon.

    I'm just a person holding an opinion, at odds with what is generally accepted by the mutual admiration society. So what, is it a life or death issue?  


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 9:13pm

    Criticism of your point of view and criticism of your commenting style is not censorship, it's exercise of the reason for the First Amendment.

    Furthermore criticism of writing style and choices in posting and how arguments are worded and presented is what good writers are looking for when they post on the internet; they are looking for the critical input to help them hone their communication skills. For some reason, you seem to think the opposite; when it happens, you think someone is trying to silence you, I suggest you think about what that means.

    Here's a related exchange we had recently:

    I want to make it clear that I didn't "file a complaint." Rather, I was directly addressing you about it and only you. And I was offering a critical opinion, as a reader of your comments, when this reader, and only this reader, finds the extreme polemics game you like starts to get extremely tiresome. Especially when it's the same exact point done in inumerable variations over a period of weeks.

    by artappraiser 1/17/2013 - 9:33 pm (re: Resistance)

    I am a student of the best political advisors; doing what Carville and Begala did: Stay on message.

    by Resistance 1/17/2013 - 10:01 pm (re: artappraiser)

    I actually found it offensive that you think so little of the other participants here that you would come here to practice political talking points on them. Most users don't come to a political forum like this to have 92 variations of a political talking point practiced on them, they come to have honest discussion and debate, including being interested in sharing deconstruction of political talking points. If you intend to use a forum like this to plaster a talking point in 92 variations with a political goal in mind, you should expect constant deconstruction and even dislike from other users.

    It works like this: Ramona is a fervent supporter of labor unions and sometimes tends to sound like a talking points machine on the issue. When she does so, people like Genghis challenge her with nuanced contrary points, and she learns from that to write more honestly and with greater nuance about her passion. Orion is an even better example, as he has readily admitted in several posts here that criticism helped him write better and also helped alter his thinking on certain things. For one example, he started out with a fervent belief that SSRI's were the main cause of rampage killings, but after being challenged on that, each time he writes on it now his opinion has become more nuanced and developed. He is honestly trying to learn from input, not shouting talking points at people over and over and not being intransigent in his beliefs.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 1:31pm

    people like Genghis challenge her with nuanced contrary points,

    So I'm a little bit more blunt, maybe not as nuanced?

    Never the less, a contrary view;  a dissenting view, not well appreciated by some who stir up trouble, against those who dare to dissent.

    Trouble makers who provoke arguments, intended to attack the dissenter, until the dissenting are silenced or censored.


    by Resistance on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 2:55pm

    Resistance, if your dissenting views stuck with the subject you might not be hearing from so many here at dagblog who feel you are deliberately taking over the comment sections with matters having nothing to do with the original posts.

    It's rude and unfair to the posters who put out their thoughts in hopes that they will generate some intelligent and thoughtful conversation.  So once again, have some consideration for the person who posted the original material when you make your comments. 

    We ask the same of everyone who comments here.  We have some excellent posters and commenters and we want to keep it that way.  Take your personal arguments elsewhere.


    by Ramona on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 3:21pm

    Ramona, notice Orion and I were having a discussion based upon what he had written and my dissenting view; until others, RUDELY decided to change the subject and turned it into personal attacks.

    But you'll have to excuse me, unless I missed it, no one spoke up?

    No matter where I go, these detractors will follow and will deliberately continue the insults and assaults.

    I am reminded;

    Reportedly, Vince Foster supposedly complained that in Washington
    D.C. "ruining people  is  considered  sport."

    Dagblog has it's own share of those, who enjoy ruining people

    We ask the same of everyone who comments here. 

    I'm sure glad you've admonished others, but anyone else in particular, or is that only for the dissenter?  

    IMHO I would have preferred, that you would have noticed the personal attacks earlier. But then again who cares about the odd man out?

    Like school yard bullies, unless the principle intervenes, the harassment continues. Let me guess, the solution is send the bullied kid to another school?

    I think I'll watch for a while and see who gets bullied next?

    BYE


    by Resistance on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 5:50pm

    No, your first comment was about banning guns, while Orion's piece is about drugs and the mentally ill, with shootings as the focal point.

    Geez enough already, can we just get off the

    Without guns,

    You'll have a civil war, before folks will give up the guns.

    You better find another way to deal with the root problem leading to violence.

    It's just as our forefathers figured it would be, therefore they wrote it in the Bill of Rights.

    Sheriffs Target Obama Gun Control, Vow to Resist

    But I'm not going to argue with you.  When you decide to comment on a post, try and give the author the courtesy of commenting on the contents of the post.


    by Ramona on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 6:21pm

    Hey hey we're all good people here. Let's ease up. =D


    by Orion on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 4:36pm

    Statements like this

    I don’t need to blog this Moat, do I?

    You just need to find a dictionary.

    but I'll save you the time.  

    Intransigence - the trait of being intransigent; stubbornly refusing to compromise.

    What’s there to discuss?

    Killer profile, .... killing dissent?


    by Resistance on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 9:30pm

    What there is to discuss is whether your statement is accurate in regards to the causes for the Civil War.

    In regards to the notion that I am "telling" you what to do, I am only asking.

    You have laid out your theories so many times in so many different contexts, I could write your stuff for you while you are out buying ammo. I am not trying to silence you but to discuss your ideas without having to hijack someone else's thread to do so. It really is just that simple.


    by moat on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 11:32am

    …and do you think it was wrong of the abolitionists to be intransigent? Should they have been patient and waited for a better time to free the slaves?


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 8:27am

    Scalia makes it clear that limitations are constitutional since there were limitations during the time of the founders. He often mentions a law called affrighting where carrying a large ax was banned since it was considered a very scary weapon. This at a time when an ax was considered more dangerous than a gun. People think the right to bear arms refers to guns but it meant much more in colonial times. People think they have a right to open carry AK-15's when the founders didn't even think you could open carry an ax. Its clear that affrighting would include open carry of AK-15's. So yes, you can certainly ban the open carry of an ax as well as other weapons.

    In Heller he references as a permissible limitations a supreme court judgement that banned sawed off shotguns as well as laws that limit or ban concealed carry and laws regulating who and how people can sell weapons.

     

    CHRIS WALLACE: You wrote in 2008, the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, the majority opinion that said the Second Amendment means what it says, people have a right to bear arms. Question: how far does that constitutional right go? Can a legislature ban semiautomatic weapons or can it ban magazines that carry 100 rounds without violating an individual’s constitutional right to bear arms?

    ANTONIN SCALIA: What the opinion Heller said is that it will have to be decided in future cases. What limitations upon the right to bear arms are permissible. Some undoubtedly are, because there were some that were acknowledged at the time. For example, there was a tort called affrighting, which if you carried around a really horrible weapon just to scare people, like a head ax or something, that was I believe a misdemeanor. So yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed. What they are will depend on what the society understood was reasonable limitation.


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 01/24/2013 - 10:39pm

    Good reference - if you have Scalia backing up 2nd Amendment limitations, pretty much a home run.

    But then, for a lot of people when Roberts backed the constitutionality of Obamacare (likely for the corporate benefits aspect, but whatever), a lot of right-wingers declared the Supreme Court had jumped the shark, and no longer would abide by its reasoning.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 2:18am

    The right wingers will be all over this. Goodbye Democrats at the mid terms. 

    Peracles do you know,  if Israelis see on a daily basis, some armed soldiers on the streets, in the event of a terrorist attack?   

    I suppose if you lived in Watts or any troubled spot, you'd cringe every time you saw a police cruiser, the neighborhood would become so "frightened". Whose going to be victimized tonight? Whose going to get tazed? Whose neighborhood is going to get burned down?   


    by Resistance on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 9:49am

    Maybe, but I think if Scalia got his way he'd probably piss off both sides. The gun control people by finding some of the laws unconstitutional and the gun nuts by finding any gun control laws constitutional.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 01/25/2013 - 2:43pm

    Here is a 2006 article on SSRIs, suicide and violent behavior.

    http://www.benthamscience.com/cds/samples/cds1-1/Henry.pdf

    I read it fairly quickly--it does not draw a clear connection between SSRIs and violence--but it identifies some problems with pediatric use of SSRIs, one of which is that some children diagnosed as depressed may actually be bipolar, and SSRIs can have a negative effect on people who are bipolar.

    So, research not done by the dreaded Briggin does indicate the problem, but I do agree that  little is definitively proven in scholarly research, so far at least.

    We shall see.


    by erica20 on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 11:45pm

    I am reminded of this

    The Fugitive - Provasic - YouTube

     


    by Resistance on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 12:06am

    Wow--is that Harrison Ford?


    by erica20 on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 12:33am

    SSRIs are stimulant drugs - my experience in the support group and my own use has been that they have acted alot like amphetamines by giving the user feelings of power and confidence in order to deflect their anxiety/depression, etc. Doctors I've talked to have only said "strange things happen" during withdrawal.


    by Orion on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 6:52am

    Orion, sorry I didn't have time to comment until now; wanted to do so when you posted the New Mexico story on the news thread, but wasn't in the mood to formulate what I wanted to say. 

    You added the comment there: Drugs, guns and - you know - it might also be worth wondering if something is inherently wrong with the country's boys. Just saying.

    First, there are no drugs in that story. I feel strongly that you're getting to the point of projection on the "killers on drugs" issue. Because you're running a forum where people who have used psychiatric drugs are all reporting their various forms of violent ideation while on them, you leap to insert that narrative into all of the rampage killings where there is no evidence that drugs are involved. There are some cases in the past, but we don't know about any of the more current cases. We still don't even know if James Holmes did what he did because he was on meds or because he went off his meds or that he never took meds.

    As to profiling, on the New Mexico story, I was struck immediately after reading the whole report at this link,  ABC News has more,  in your News One story. What is reported there is a classic, classic profile of both many rampage and spree killings. The tortured and torturing adolescent male (or similarly-minded twenty-something male,) finds a younger female adorer who sees him as a savior, and they form a team of "us against the world" and go off killing people.

    This profile is the subject of many movies, most notably Terence Malick's Badlands of 1973. ( Need I say there weren't many psychiatric drugs in 1973? And that people probably were saying  "something is going wrong with our boys" after news of the Starkweather killings, too.) Starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, it really is a masterpiece and I recommend anyone see it, but especially you.

    You could go back even further on variations of this profile to Bonnie and Clyde, but let's leave bank robbers and their "molls" out of this right now to not confuse the issue.

    We've read about this "us pair of hormone fueled angry rejects against the world, with no reverence for life" killer profile for many decades now and seen variations of it in other movies like Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia. Comes to mind there's also a variation of it in the depiction of Gary Gilmore and his girlfriend in the 1982 Executioner's Song with Tommy Lee Jones. There are others in film, I haven't done research, these are the ones that come to mind easily.

    And there are all kinds of studies of this type of young male killer. Like the ones where it basically concludes: "did he like to torture small living things as a kid? Then beware."

    Back to the New Mexico story. As I am trying to say, I was struck by the ABC News report like this: is the same old same old, extremely dysfunctional adolescent couple kill parents and then go on killing spree against the world, except the acting out is happening way younger, 15 and 12. Did he torture small animals? It doesn't say but it does say Deputies said he was "unemotional" and "very stern" during the confession. And it also relates a story where he planned to shoot up Walmart (the only "big city" he probably knew) and get killed by cops but then just couldn't get around to executing these plans after wasting hours away hanging with the 12 year old girl chick. They just didn't get around to doing it, thought they might kill those other people tomorrow? Plenty of time?  Doesn't that just scream "this kid has no concept about what being dead really means?"!

    What did I see new in the profile here as opposed to the classic "natural born killers" ? I've got to admit it. As the sister of brothers who "played army" as kids, with extreme violence bouncing around in their heads,  who grew up to be peaceniks, I been a big one in the past that is skeptical of the influence of violent video games with these cases.  But the description of his confession on the second page of the report regarding video games was just too stunning to ignore. The cops themselves seemed stunned.

    We've read it too many times before, James Holmes, Adam Lanza and many many more. It suggests that there must be something going on when the neural nets of these "natural born killer" types are actively forming and reforming, where the constant and longtime play of violent video games just pushes their brains in the worst direction possible. Add to that mix some readily available real guns, and training in them by parents or other authorities, and you've got a mass killing. 

    Back to drugs. The more I read on these cases, the more I think drugs are probably very low on the causative totem pole compared to the above. Drugs may ameliorate or exacerbate the situation; drugs could change the warped biochemistry that is operative here in a good way or a bad way. Psychiatrists and their prescriptions could make it worse or could make it better. Self-medication could make it worse or could make it better. But drugs do not seem to be a root cause, there is already something wrong with the brains involved! And those brains often have access to guns.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 2:54pm

    First, there are no drugs in that story. I feel strongly that you're getting to the point of projection on the "killers on drugs" issue. Because you're running a forum where people who have used psychiatric drugs are all reporting their various forms of violent ideation while on them, you leap to insert that narrative into all of the rampage killings where there is no evidence that drugs are involved. There are some cases in the past, but we don't know about any of the more current cases. We still don't even know if James Holmes did what he did because he was on meds or because he went off his meds or that he never took meds.

    You posted alot but I think this paragraph in particular is the most important as an attack on what I've been saying is happening here. (I will admit that I may be projecting quite a bit.)

    "We still don't even know if James Holmes did what he did because he was on meds or because he went off his meds or that he never took meds."

    We do actually - Holmes is actually the best case that drugs may be pushing people over the edge. He had blood drawn and was found to have toxic levels of Vicodin in his system. Police officers said he "lacked normal emotional responses" to things. He actually seemed to almost wait for the police to arrest him - very bizarre behavior for someone who just shot at 70 people.

    Likewise, the prison picture where his eyes were extremely dilated matched the appearance of many people taking SSRIs.

    Back to the New Mexico story. As I am trying to say, I was struck by the ABC News report like this: is the same old same old, extremely dysfunctional adolescent couple kill parents and then go on killing spree against the world, except the acting out is happening way younger, 15 and 12. Did he torture small animals? It doesn't say but it does say Deputies said he was "unemotional" and "very stern" during the confession. And it also relates a story where he planned to shoot up Walmart (the only "big city" he probably knew) and get killed by cops but then just couldn't get around to executing these plans after wasting hours away hanging with the 12 year old girl chick. They just didn't get around to doing it, thought they might kill those other people tomorrow? Plenty of time?  Doesn't that just scream "this kid has no concept about what being dead really means?"!

    You just proved my point! All of these cases involve individuals who murder other people and then go on about their business as if they were just doing the laundry.

    The killers in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood escaped to Mexico after their deed was done. Even if one is warped enough to kill, it takes something like high dosages of drugs to make them lose the anxiety that comes with having killed someone. Why don't they have that anxiety? Anti-anxiety medication!

    We have had guns and we have had serial killers for years but not until psychiatric medication started being sold like any other marketplace item did we have so many individuals killing others so nonchalantly.


    by Orion on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 12:30pm

    We do actually - Holmes is actually the best case that drugs may be pushing people over the edge. He had blood drawn and was found to have toxic levels of Vicodin in his system.

    You haven't provided any proof of that at all! If you've got a link, I'd like to see it.

    All you have here is a Gawker article that reports this anonymous leak to ABC news

    The source familar with the investigation indicated that police noted in reports that Holmes told them he took 100 mg of Vicodin.

    which in itself might not be true.

    But even if true, 100 mg. of "Vicodin," has very little to do with what you are talking about!  It is not a psychiatric med, it is pain medicine with a small portion of the opiate hydrocodone and a large portion of acetaminophen (better known as Tylenol). It is the most popular prescription in the US, taken by 136 million people, most of them probably for arthritis or back pain. You can buy it at any pharmacy in Mexico over the counter (and in many other countries) without a prescription.

    If he took 100 mg of hydrocodone bought off the street, and was calling it the mixture "Vicodin,' as a commenter at Gawker is just guessing,  that would be sort of like taking 5 or 10 prescription Vicodin, which would get  you a dopey sleepy high sort of like drinking a half bottle of the cold medicine Nyquil back in the 70's when it had some opiate in it, which many people did, or like drinking several bottles of Coca-Cola in the early 20th century when that had some opiate in it.

    Vicodin does not at all prove your argument! (And furthemore that he took it is just a rumour!)

    If you want to be taken seriously on this issue that you care about, you have to really need to tighten up your research and know what you are talking about. Opiates are basically not homicidal ideation drugs, they are the stuff of laying around in a opium den doing nothing. To suggest different is to sort of sound like the Reefer Madness movie, that marijuana turns people into violent maniacs. And Vicodin is not even illegal, tens of millions of arthritis sufferers and people with bad backs in US are taking it and would disagree with you that it is dangerous or mind altering, and once again, you can buy it over the counter in Mexico and many other countries without a prescription, it really isn't that dangerous!. Not only that but many opiates like Vicodin and more powerful than Vicodin were much more widely available and more easiliy available in the US in the first half of the last century (including in medicine for colicky babies-to calm them down, make them less angry,) so that hurts your argument too.

    And furthermore, yes opiates dilate the eyes just like in the James Holmes photo, (and like when you go for an exam at the eye doctor.) Matter of fact, upper class American women in the early 20th century used to buy eye drops with an opiate in them to do exactly that when they went out to a dinner party or dance, so they would look "wide-eyed" and adoring when they chatted with a man.

    Finally there is an essential contradiction in your entire argument that is encapsulated by this detail part of it. If a medication calms someone down, how can you argue that it also inspires acting out violent fantasies? Don't misunderstand-- I do get your point that an opiated James Holmes might have less emotional reaction to death than an un-opiated James Holmes, but then a highly opiated James Holmes over a long period wouldn't have the gumption or anger to plan a detail mass murder. Unless, that is, he has severe mental illness with a different biochemistry that reacts differently to all sorts of drugs than most people. In which case, it wasn't the drugs, (and I mean any drugs, pick one, it was the biochemistry of his mind that is the problem, a mind that reacts differently to both life and to drugs than most other people.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 1:43pm

    Back to the New Mexico story, because I can follow through with it on my last paragraph. We don't know for sure yet, but with the confession and story as presented so far, prescription psychoactive drugs don't seem real likely. Maybe glue sniffing or marijuana when with the girlfriend when away from the pastor Dad and hated Mom....who knows? That kind of scenario happens a lot without mass killings, though....

    How the story struck me was like this: this kid sounds like one of those "natural born killers" like the classic profile in the movies. And what are we as a society going to do with him? He is probably going to be examined by a couple local hack psychiatrists with low fees, and they will move on to violate their professional oaths by doing advocacy that he is sane/insane, then he will be ruled fit for trial, then we are probably going to try him as an adult and lock him in a prison where no one will pay any attention to him.

    This is going to go on while psychiatrists all over the country theorize about what causes someone to be like this and invent treatments that don't work and even make things worse. And theorize about video game effects and drug effects on young male brains and stuff like that. And write articles about it as if they knew what was going on with a kid like this when they haven't a clue.

    When something like this happens, why aren't we as a society sending in the best top psychiatrists to examine and test this kid? To like wire him up and watch what his brain does on video games, to wire him up and watch what his brain does when baby animals are killed, to watch what his brain does on SSRI's, etc. Why don't we have a priority that this happens? Especially when we have the rare occurrence of a full confession? Why aren't many top psychiatric researchers clamoring to have access to him?

    Because our legal system says he's a minor and we can't accept his confession? That he must have a lawyer and the confession must be fought? Well, that lawyer should be in support of declaring him insane, shouldn't he? Maybe because everyone and everything involved in dealing with this problem is pitiful, maybe? Maybe because we are still in the infancy stage of psychiatric medicine? Why don't we want to support advancing it more? Instead we send most of our mentally ill criminals to rot in prisons where one hack psychiatrist maybe visits once a week.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 2:05pm

    How the story struck me was like this: this kid sounds like one of those "natural born killers" like the classic profile in the movies. And what are we as a society going to do with him? He is probably going to be examined by a couple local hack psychiatrists with low fees, and they will move on to violate their professional oaths by doing advocacy that he is sane/insane, then he will be ruled fit for trial, then we are probably going to try him as an adult and lock him in a prison where no one will pay any attention to him.

    That is not what is going on at all.

    There was a book - years ago - called In Cold Blood. Two guys, one definitely the "natural born killer" type, kill an entire family in a small, rural town. They run out of dodge. According to Truman Capote's take and the take from the movie, when Perry Smith, the one who did the actual killing, is arrested, he is wrought with anxiety. He knows what he did was wrong even if he couldn't stop himself from doing it.

    James Holmes literally waited to be arrested in the back of a parking lot - after killing about double what the guys in that book did and shooting at about ten times what they did. He was also a graduate student in neuroscience, was tested to have toxic levels of Vicodin in his system and showed signs of heavy use of serotonergic drugs in his later photos.

    The New Mexico killer, in much the same fashion, seemed to go about his business as if killing his family were no big deal at all.

    I'm not sure you will ever do away with people who would kill others like that. However, before our very environment became as toxic as it now is, such individuals were rare, excommunicated quickly and felt the proper anxiety about their actions. They also had much smaller body counts.

    When something like this happens, why aren't we as a society sending in the best top psychiatrists to examine and test this kid? To like wire him up and watch what his brain does on video games, to wire him up and watch what his brain does when baby animals are killed, to watch what his brain does on SSRI's, etc. Why don't we have a priority that this happens? Especially when we have the rare occurrence of a full confession? Why aren't many top psychiatric researchers clamoring to have access to him?

    There was an article written about possibly doing that with Adam Lanza, which is bizarre. Holmes didn't kill himself and everything about him pretty much shows what this phenomenon really is at its core. He should be studied hardcore.

    The reality of the situation is this (I do realize the source of this is the Church of Scientology but their take on the situation is 100% accurate):

    Children are concocted as a prime target for early diagnosis of non-existent mental disorders, because in the past, a number of these children, diagnosed and drugged by psychiatrists, went on to kill people as a result of the drugs’ actions on their brains. That’s called irony. It’s also called a crime, in the very real sense that psychiatrists contributed mightily to the killings.

    So now, every child in school who twitches the wrong way or picks up a bubble-gum toy shaped like a pistol, or points his finger at a friend and says Bang, or looks sad and lonely for ten minutes at the back of the class on a rainy Tuesday, or draws pictures when he should be adding numbers in his notebook, or wears odd clothes, or gets angry for any reason at all, or objects to taking a vaccine, or wears a jacket with a small American flag sewn to the shoulder, or doesn’t play well with others, or makes a positive statement in class about the Bill of Rights, or reminds a teacher of a little criminal in a movie, or has a bottle opener in his pocket, or dreams in class about designing a rocket that will take people to Mars…can be referred to a counselor, who in turn will refer him to a psychiatrist, who will make some sort of off-the-shelf diagnosis, which will travel with the child for the rest of his life, making the child believe he has a brain problem, and the psychiatrist will prescribe that child drugs like Ritalin, Adderall, Zoloft, Paxil, or Prozac, drugs that scramble neurotransmitter systems and can very certainly cause that child to go violent.

    That is the reality.

    It warns of the effects of these drugs on the label. It is the core of the problem.


    by Orion on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 4:04pm

    There was a book - years ago - called In Cold Blood.

    You don't have to keep explaining that to me; Truman Capote is probably my favorite American writer, even though he failed woefully at reaching his full potential. The way he failed at it is also one of my favorite things. I was fascinated the first time I saw him on Johnny Carson as a kid and never let go.

    I've read In Cold Blood several times plus inumerable articles about Capote writing it, plus inumerable articles about why it can be categorized as a "nonfiction novel" and not "nonfiction," and articles on and on what he did and didn't include to what effect, including including Capote's strange tender relationship with Perry Smith (who you are calling a "natural born killer" but I wouldn't) I've also watched the documentary where Capote talks about writing it. I've also seen the 2005 movie Capote where his writing of it and his relationship with Perry is dramatized by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

    No, I am not talking about a Perry type, I am talking about the same profile type you are.  (The Perry type killer is also in the work of Norman Mailer in his relationship with Jack Abbott, if you want to understand the difference of that type of criminal profile and the kind we are talking about, I can't recommend enough Abbott's book, In the Belly of the Beast. You learn as much from his macho posturing in it as you do when he speaks truth. That book is actually the one thing that most turned me on capital punishment when I first read it, as I could see that capital punishment clearly verfied the kind of thinking of such a killer's mind, that it promoted that killing is the ultimate power and this verifies that profile's beliefs and desires, and love for feelings of power. Capital punished verifies all their "reasons" for killing, if you could call it reason.)

    Watch the movies Badlands or Natural Born Killers, you will see characters presented that are not running away from the law, they are having a fun killing spree that they have fantasized about and then basically going out in a blaze of glory, intending to committ suicide by cop. I really don't see much difference at all between those characters and the ones you are talking about. Yes, they are different from Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock and John Henry Abbott. (And Norman Mailer, who stabbed his ex-wife in anger and tended to glorify testosterone, was quite something different again. IIf he was around these days, he might be on some prescription drug to his mental health and behavorial benefit, mho.)

    Re psychiatrist will prescribe that child drugs like Ritalin, Adderall, Zoloft, Paxil, or Prozac, drugs that scramble neurotransmitter systems and can very certainly cause that child to go violent.

    What you don't seem to be accepting of to me is that there are many people out there who's neurotransmitters are scrambled naturally and there have always been such people. That it's not so simple as that the drugs are causing all the scrambling or all these killings, but rather the drugs are pitiful attempts at fixing the scrambling, and because they are so pitiful they make it worse in many cases. Still, you do not know how many cases of psychoactive drugs under psychiatric supervision have stopped mass killings, do you?

    James Holmes when off meds still is pounding his own head against the prison wall, and didn't look ready to apologize or get remorseful or be afraid of punishment. We shall see.

    I think it is much too facile to just attribute all recent mass spree killings to drug side effects since drugs like the aforementioned ones were introduced. So far all I see proof of is that incorrect prescribing of them  for a very few already mentally ill people with already violent tendencies and perhaps already adolescent hormonal surges causing more havoc, taking these might have made them go over some edge. Not only that, that does not mean they might have done something nearly as bad if not taking them! To accommodate your theorizing, you are ignoring any possible good Ritalin or SSRI's or whatever have done to stop some people with mental disabilities or mental illness from contributing to society or stop them from committing crimes they might have done without them.

    We totally agree on the research and we totally agree on how pitiful psychiatric knowledge is. I just see you making some of the same kind of leaps of judgment bad psychiatrists make!

    Your Vicodin assumption was one that really hit me. I am all for empowerment of the individual to use drugs that make them feel better, I don't like nanny state solutions to problems like this. If someone takes too much Vicodin to get high or doesn't monitor their own usage enough and gets opiate addiction problems, the rest of the people using it shouldn't be punished by making it so hard to get. (BTW, many believe the Tylenol in Vicodin is more dangerous in overdose than the hydrocodone, it is very toxic to the liver.)

    Likewise, they shouldn't take away the ability for individuals with neurotransmitter diseases like depression to experiment with  SSRI's that might help them a great deal  because a bad psychiatrist gave them to a mentally ill person where he has no clue what is causing the mental illness and didn't monitor the side effects.

    We may have a large number of poor reactions to neurotransmitter-altering drugs out there with, more importantly, very poor medical help in solving these side effects, that does not necessarily give proof that this is causing these kinds of killings,  which again, have NOT increased since before those medicines start being used. I have posted the proof that they have not increased since then. Your reliance on presenting that they have increased also hurts your argument. Also, to rely on this line of argument you are opening yourself to the argument that all of the people who admit to having homicidal ideation symptoms on your related forums to homicidal ideation side effects should be brought in forcibly for treatment until they can be proven to be safe for society?

    Perhaps I can best put what I am trying to say in the latter half of this comment this way:

    You do realize that homicidal ideation can easily occur with things like blood sugar imbalance from untreated diabetes onset? And that treatment with insulin, a drug made to mimic the body's insulin, rectifies this? That people can actually become mentally ill and homicidally ideate without using drugs? and that very few of those people end up committing a crime?


    by artappraiser on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 5:45pm

    To throw another wrench in the works, I would like to add that I have this inkling that studies of people like the young New Mexico killer might end up coinciding with better understanding of young suicide bombers. It's just intuition from the stuff I've read on that phenomenon, and I ain't got a whiff of proof, just throwing it out there without pretense to any theory.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 5:51pm

    Suicide bombers live in third world dictatorships and are driven by nationalism and religion.

    These shooters grow up with affluence, Wal Marts and video games.

    Suicide bombers believe in something significant enough to die for.

    These shooters believe in nothing because our society believes in nothing.


    by Orion on Wed, 01/30/2013 - 4:11pm

    You clearly haven't read a lot of the studies on all the young teen suicide bombers who are manipulated by their handlers into doing it during severe depression exacerbated by adolescent hormonal changes.  After being taken out of their home environment and indoctrinated in madrassah-like environments, or worse, for several years. (I vaguely recall some data related to interviews with one of the surviving young man-child perps from the Mumbai terror attacks that is quite striking in this regard, maybe I'll do a search for it later.)

    It is rare these days for a true believer to offer himself as the actual suicide bomber. They mostly send out young uneducated boys that they have picked out for the purpose and brainwashed.

    I think you are underestimating the whole "raging young male" problem, and also how it might exhibit itself much worse in mentally ill individuals, in order to stress that we shouldn't medicate it.

    Absolutely we probably shouldn't medicate it  when we haven't much a clue of understanding the biochemistry of it nor the biochemistry of the drugs we are giving out.

    But to imply that the drugs are the total cause of the trouble is a jump too far for me. Way before SSRI's and ritalin, we had the problem of society fearing, fearing "juvenile deliquents" and violent angry teens, rebels without a cause. Many societies have tried to deal with that in the past not by drugging but by using them for cannon fodder, forced military service precisely at the time brains were known to go haywire with a significant minority of them. They put em in boot camps with a mean drill sergeant, sent them off to maim and kill if need be.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 01/30/2013 - 5:10pm

    Absolutely we probably shouldn't medicate it  when we haven't much a clue of understanding the biochemistry of it nor the biochemistry of the drugs we are giving out.

    Yeah. That's pretty much all I have been saying. =D

    I also agree with everything that you just said as well about suicide bombers.

    Nevertheless, juvenile delinquents still had normal human mindsets enough, thanks to a less drug riddled environment for kids, that you had the James Dean, etc. archetypes develop. No one would ever idolize what my generation got raised to be.


    by Orion on Wed, 01/30/2013 - 5:23pm

    James Dean was an actor, who played a character in a movie. Real motorcycle gang members were not as good looking and had significantly less glamorous lives.

    I agree with aa that looking back at how good things used to be or over at suicide bombers as examples of people who believe in something enough to die for it is an activity fraught with potential problems.

    Being traumatized as a child and then raised in a manipulative, cultlike atmosphere doesn't necessarily create a young person freely choosing a heroic death.

    And I believe (incorrectly, perhaps) that the kinds of troubled individuals who commit these crimes have always existed. In the old days, there was

    1. generally more space for them to separate themselves from others,

    2. less reporting of bad acts,

    3. in smaller, tighter communities, people knew each other and word could get around to avoid the creepy guy who kept threatening to kill people.

    4. bad people did not have access to weapons capable of killing so many people so easily. If the creepy guy caused a lot of trouble, there was a good chance he'd end up in a fist fight, not a bloodbath.

     


    by erica20 on Wed, 01/30/2013 - 5:48pm

    Yeah, I definitely agree with all that. Most important certainly is your last two points. In tighter communities, expectations for life in general would be alot clearer and the desire to be violent (violence comes from confusion most the time) would come up alot less.

    Also, obviously, a world in which you may get punched in the face for getting out of line would not be as scary as a world in which you have the risk of getting shot with an AK-47 someone can get at a damn hunting store.

    Your observations are good enough for another article, me thinks.


    by Orion on Wed, 01/30/2013 - 6:21pm

    I wrote a big response to this one, artappraiser, and the computer quite literally ate it. I'm going to try again but I'm not sure if it will be up to snuff. Sorry.

    The natural born killer types you brought up sound quite interesting - although I'm not sure that takes apart the original point. I thought about this while doing errands today - Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, all the most famous serial killers - were conniving and sociopathic. Alot of commentators compared Holmes to Ted Bundy in regards to having a real deficit of empathy. However, none of those serial killers were so obvious, open and theatrical when they killed. Serial killers were traditionally known to murder prostitutes or other social outliers or sneak up on their victims, leaving clues but not obvious guilt - not go in to places like movie theaters or elementary schools and just let rip. Lanza and Holmes were both in the modern psychiatric treatment where, I can tell you from experience, antidepressants that warn of "homicidal ideation" are handed out as the first action to anyone who walks in.

    We may have a large number of poor reactions to neurotransmitter-altering drugs out there with, more importantly, very poor medical help in solving these side effects, that does not necessarily give proof that this is causing these kinds of killings,  which again, have NOT increased since before those medicines start being used.

    I have to disagree with this. The first major mass shooting like in recent memory was the Columbine High School Massacre, which was followed by Virginia Tech, then all of these. People have brought up that sniper shooting at the Texas university back in the 1970s but there really was never anything like this before SSRIs specifically came on to the market. Gun violence used to be synonymous with the inner city.


    by Orion on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 6:13pm

    Don't misunderstand-- I do get your point that an opiated James Holmes might have less emotional reaction to death than an un-opiated James Holmes, but then a highly opiated James Holmes over a long period wouldn't have the gumption or anger to plan a detail mass murder. Unless, that is, he has severe mental illness with a different biochemistry that reacts differently to all sorts of drugs than most people. In which case, it wasn't the drugs, (and I mean any drugs, pick one, it was the biochemistry of his mind that is the problem, a mind that reacts differently to both life and to drugs than most other people.

    Well then - where is the argument? I'm confused. SSRIs themselves cause homicidal ideation, of course Vicodin doesn't. However, large doseages of Vicodin would damage someone's emotional responses. SSRIs really only come in to the picture as regards the second photo released of Holmes - where his eyes are heavily dilated. There was actually a Slate article that asked if that - a condition called "mydriasis" - was a sign of mental illness - I actually found that it was a sign of serotonergic drugs after searching on Google for pupil dilation. I wasn't even looking for anything regarding SSRIs.

    I brought up the In Cold Blood case to show what serial killers traditionally behave like - before prescription drugs started being handed out like Mike and Ikes. The case I'm trying to sell, and I'm sure there are contradictions in it because there is alot of emotion involved, is that both guns and prescription drugs need to be better regulated so that people would be more emotionally normal and less able to blow each other's brains out.

    Prescription drug companies used to not be able to sell their products on television. (I may be wrong but I think that changed about when Viagra was introduced in the late 90s.) There also used to be an assault weapons ban. There are actually actions that can be taken to make this problem better.


    by Orion on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 4:49pm

    Why Improving Mental Health Would Do Little to End Gun Violence
    Keeping guns away from the mentally ill sounds like a promising way to prevent mass shootings. But studies show it might have little impact.

    By Margot Sanger-Katz, National Journal, Jan 25, 2013

    [..... ] Perhaps most important, although people with serious mental illness have committed a large percentage of high-profile crimes, the mentally ill represent a very small percentage of the perpetrators of violent crime overall. Researchers estimate that if mental illness could be eliminated as a factor in violent crime, the overall rate would be reduced by only 4 percent. That means 96 percent of violent crimes—defined by the FBI as murders, robberies, rapes, and aggravated assaults—are committed by people without any mental-health problems at all. Solutions that focus on reducing crimes by the mentally ill will make only a small dent in the nation’s rate of gun-related murders, ranging from mass killings to shootings that claim a single victim.

    It’s not just that the mentally ill represent a minority of the country’s population; it’s also that the overlap between mental illness and violent behavior is poor. . Although people with certain types of psychotic illness are more likely than the general public to commit violent acts, the rates of violence in that group are still small. A large international study found that among people with schizophrenia, a disease with the highest rates of violent behavior, only one person in 140,000 will kill a stranger. Demographic factors such as age, gender, and race are almost as reliable as predictors of violence.Although mental-health professionals have become more skilled at predicting which patients may commit a violent act, the accuracy of such judgments is still “only slightly better than chance,” [....]

    “It appears risk for violence in psychotic illnesses is highest early in the course of illness, frequently before people are identified as mentally ill and receive treatment,” says Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who met with Vice President Joe Biden’s task force on reducing gun violence. Jared Loughner, the schizophrenic shooter in the 2011 Tucson massacre, had no psychiatric diagnosis at the time of his rampage.

    Better screening and treatment could, however, make a significant difference in preventing one type of violence. Those who suffer from mental illness are much more likely to harm themselves than other people. Suicide rates among schizophrenics or people with major depression are as high as 15 percent in the United States [....]


    by artappraiser on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 6:32am

    Whether you agree with me or not, this post just past 800 views. I've never seen numbers like that in my writing and I haven't really seen it on Dagblog for anyone else's writing. Cheers everyone!


    by Orion on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 1:39pm

    You're neck-and-neck with the Jews who control American media! :^)


    by erica20 on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 3:27pm

    ORION, IMHO;  STAY AWAY FROM THERE !!!!


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 4:07pm

    Orion, have you considered taking or auditing courses on how medical or health services research is done and presented? I can see what you're trying to say, and I'm glad you are compiling anecdotal reports about violent and suicidal ideation that may result from use of SSRIs and other psychiatric drugs. But if you want to get real traction, you will need to be much more rigorous and numbers-driven about the way you present what you are doing. That's what you're hearing from the crowd here--I don't think it's an attack on the concept that SSRIs may be inappropriate drugs to prescribe to young males, it's that you are running far beyond any available research in making your statements. (Hint: anytime you make a statement that includes the word "obvious," there's a strong possibility that it isn't. :^)

    Also for your consideration, here is an article that looks at one aspect of how the "teenage brain" functions. (Meaning the brains of 13-24 year olds, somewhat beyond the teen years.)

    http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/

    I thought of you when I read the descriptions of differences in the ways teenagers perceive fear, and how fearful memories seem to implant themselves more forcefully in the teenage brain than in either the child or adult brain. I also noted the discussion of how dopamine is especially active in the teenage brain. It may be that drugs which affect serotonin do not play well with dopamine, and it's possible that future research will bear this out. But if you want to look at this stuff and talk about it in print, you will need to use the thinking process, statistical methods, and the lingo that researchers use.

    Regarding video games--in both the Griego and Lanza cases, the use of video games was reinforced by the actual use of guns. Certainly in the Lanza case, and possibly in the Griego case, there was also a "prepper" mentality--the idea that one would have to use the guns, eventually, for real, in some kind of apocalyptic future. I suspect that a parental admonition that fantasy could soon turn into a violent and fearful reality would have enormous impact on a mind already vulnerable to fearful or violent thoughts. 

    I believe you will find ways to present your material in a more ordered and circumspect fashion--and you will have much more success with it when you do.

     


    by erica20 on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 3:00pm

    I did actually spend some time after my breakdown talking with doctors/psychiatrists at Harborview, etc. and actually got secondhand stories of kids in SSRI withdrawal "eating the furniture." (Seriously, not making that up!) You are right about the suggestion. If I'm going to get really serious, too, I need to meld this in a way so it does sound like a Scientology sales pitch.


    by Orion on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 4:26pm

    PS--always track down and quote original scholarly research papers or studies, rather than quote a general-interest publication that mentions the research--it's much more elegant and besides you will learn a lot of useful information! :^)

    (You're not the only one who runs into this. Artappraiser and moat quite rightly nailed me on a certain lack of depth and seriousness in my "Cheney and the Decider" post a few days back. I have to decide myself if I want to dig through all that stuff, or just let the matter fade back into the mists of time.)


    by erica20 on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 3:08pm

    I'm really trying to figure out how to talk about this - alot of effort has been put in to reshaping my writing style to be more attractive to others. What I have are really suspicions - I'm going to have to figure out how to push those suspicions out there in a way that seems more serious, I guess?


    by Orion on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 4:23pm

    Yes--it's a somewhat different style than essay writing. Much more about presenting facts  then making an incremental advance from what's already known. 

    The more scholarly articles you read, the more you'll get into the mode!


    by erica20 on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 5:57pm

    Okay will do. =D


    by Orion on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 7:57am

    If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
    Henry David Thoreau
     

    If the other side wants to present evidence contrary to your life's experience, let them do the work.

    With some folks it's all about vanity, they'll try to get you chasing the wind.

    If you have an opinion or a life's experience maybe you see things differently? 


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/29/2013 - 9:22am