Why do these shooting tragedies keep happening?
The assault weapon ban expired in 2004. School shootings started in 1988, coincidentally, the year Prozac was introduced. Or perhaps not so coincidentally. Evidence points to suicidally depressed teens as a common "type" in these catastrophes. Further, many were being treated for their depression by a class of drug called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) which have been linked to violent behavior and even being the cause of suicide. We need to ban SSRIs and find new ways to treat depression.
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Suicidally depressed teens cause most of these school shootings
Rachael Maddow covered this recently when she interviewed Dave Cullen, author of "Columbine". If you go to the link, skip to 6:00 where Rachael introduces Dave. Dave refers to two studies. One by the FBI, the other by the Secret Service and the Department of Education. I'd love to read these, but have been unable to find them. Dave advocates annual screenings of all teens for depression. But before we single out depressed tens, we need to find safer, more effective, ways to treat depression.
Legal drugs linked to shootings
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been widely used to treat depression. Five SSRIs made Time's list of drugs "disproportionately linked to violent behavior": Prozac (#2), Paxil (#3), Luvox (#8), Effexor (#9) and Pristiq (#10).
Prozac comes with a warning that the drug may cause thoughts of suicide.
SSRIs have been widely blamed for many of the school shootings. The most detailed source I've found is ssristories.com. The website indexes 4,800 violent events linked to SSRIs along with links to media reports of the incidents. Over 50 are "school incidents". This sites says that school incidents started occurring in 1988, when Prozac, the first SSRI, was introduced.
It seems the AK-47 and AR-15 have teamed with big pharma to create a perfect storm with deadly consequences. Banning assault rifles is not the whole solution. These incidents started before the assault weapon ban expired in 2004. We need to stop proscribing these dangerous drugs. Those on them should be weaned carefully as a reduction of dosage has been linked to violent behavior. We need to find new, effective, less harmful ways to treat depression.