[The E]

Okay, this is getting a bit too heated for my tastes. Please cool it down a bit. This is not the topic to discuss the merits of gun ownership.

PH, stop the sniping. Calling all gun owners aspiring murderers or making all of them collectively responsible for gun deaths is not a debating tactic you should continue to pursue.

[jr2]

Edit: didn't see the cool it post, so redacted cause it was on that topic.

[Aesaar]

wait, are you really using a handgun or an assault rifle for your target shooting?

It's illegal to shoot handguns outside of an official range in Ontario (barring actual self-defense) and I don't own one, but how do you define an assault rifle?  Automatic weapons aren't legal anywhere in Canada, but semi-automatic civilian versions of assault rifles are.  I own an M14, which is a military semi-automatic battle rifle (well, it's a Norinco knockoff, but whatever), and I do use it for target shooting.

[Dragon]

wait, are you really using a handgun or an assault rifle for your target shooting?

Ladies and gentlemen, the discovery of the day. Target shooting is done with actual guns.

Why wouldn't you do target shooting with a handgun? While I'm personally not fond of handguns (mostly because I'm bad with them ), my sister uses a pneumatic handgun, and will probably want to try out a "real" 9mm or something if we get the chance (shooting in Poland is an extremely niche sport). And assault rifles? Well, borrow and shoot one someday. An old AK-47 was one of the best rifles I've fired, and I'd love to get my hands on a Lee-Enfield or an M-14 someday. It's simply a great experience and a sport of great traditions. Target shooting with real guns is a great way to relax, if you don't mind expense. Even wimpy pneumatics can be fun, but it can't compare to a real gun. I'd own a gun if I could (even the license is bloody expensive here, especially if you don't have a "good reason" for it), will probably have one if I decide to take up hunting (like my great-grandfather, who had both a rifle and a shotgun) and I don't plan on shooting anyone with it. Heck, I don't think I'd have much chance, since I'm a long rifle guy, and those aren't much good for personal defense (well, you can use it as a club if you've got a wooden stock... ).

You don't need a gun in your house for target shooting. There are other ways you could allow people to do all the target shooting they want in a safe, controlled environment without endangering other people.

As a person from a country that actually does it (unless you're an actual sportsman/woman, you can't have a target rifle), I can tell you that lending rifles doesn't work that well. You can't have a gun you want, but only a gun they give you, not to mention that every bloody time you're going to have to fiddle with the sights, stock and everything, because once you're gone, someone else will get to play with that very gun. Takes a lot of "recreation" out of recreational shooting... If you have your own gun, keep it in your house and maintain it yourself, then you don't have those problems. In Poland, you need to be "serious" (i.e. actually a part of a shooting section) about it to have a gun on which you don't need to reset everything every time you want to go shooting.

[Phantom Hoover]

Target shooting is in general a really really stupid reason to oppose gun control. I'll be diplomatic and leave it at that.

[Aesaar]

It's a perfectly decent reason to oppose gun bans though.  And a fine answer to the question "why do you want to own a gun?"

[Dragon]

Target shooting is in general a really really stupid reason to oppose gun control. I'll be diplomatic and leave it at that.

Quite the contrary, it's a very good reason to oppose gun control as it's commonly understood, i.e. "restricting people from owning guns". Now, I have nothing against stricter regulation (mandatory psych evaluations, for instance), as long as the assumption is that if you're fit to own a gun, you don't have problems with getting a license. A lot of people own guns for target shooting, even up to .50 BMG (target shooting with one of those is one of the things I really want to try before I die ). If someone wants a gun to shoot a few tin cans in their own backyard, or targets at a shooting range, they should not have problems with obtaining a gun for that. Of course, as long as they're mentally and legally fit for owning a weapon. Similar checks are done (at least in Poland) for driving license applicants, so this shouldn't really be a problem for a normal person. That sort of "control" I can agree with, as well as tracking guns themselves. Again, much like with cars. I think that better gun tracking would actually help legitimate owners, since if someone manages to steal a gun (though guys who try to rob a known gun owner are prime Darwin candidates), it'd be somewhat easier to recover.

[Ulala]

The US Constitution guarantees liberty, not security. 'Tis the tradeoff of living in America, I'm afraid... though maybe not for much longer considering how much the Constitution gets **** on. I'm looking at you, NSA/4th Amendment.

[AdmiralRalwood]

The US Constitution guarantees liberty, not security. 'Tis the tradeoff of living in America, I'm afraid... though maybe not for much longer considering how much the Constitution gets **** on. I'm looking at you, NSA/4th Amendment.

[Dragon]

The US Constitution guarantees liberty, not security. 'Tis the tradeoff of living in America, I'm afraid... though maybe not for much longer considering how much the Constitution gets **** on. I'm looking at you, NSA/4th Amendment.

Well, that's because people seem to want both liberty and security, which is kinda hard. Ever heard of Brave New World? It's a dystopia which sacrificed liberty for security. I think that for quite a few people, the world presented there would be surprisingly appealing. If you've got liberty, you've got to take care of your own security. It requires much greater responsibility, something many people simply can't handle. Indeed, I think that most people are like that, in spite of what they think. In general, I think that society should go either in one direction or the other. Either a high-security, more or less authoritarian system designed around make sure it's citizens are safe and comfortable, or a high-liberty, loosely governed system designed around mostly making sure people don't violate each others' liberty. The problem with the former is that it tends to devolve into a oppresive dictatorship, the problem with the latter tends to devolve into anarchy and subsequently warlordism. The problem with fooling about the middle is what America is facing right now. Moves towards greater security result in cries of "Big Brother, we're being repressed!" and attempts to move towards liberty result in "You're useless, do something!".

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Oh christ, not the gun-control thing again. Can we resume talking about the mental health issues and not the rooty-tooty-point-n-shooty things?  Pretty much all of these mass shootings have one thing in common: the shooter needed HELP. Twisted worldviews, psychosis, paranoia, etc. Seems the public opinion (not necessarily the public meaning people on this board, because most of you are more reasonable than the average person) is to leave these people to the wolves, but I don't think that approach is working out very well.

[The E]

I would really prefer that to happen. The gun control thing is a derail that isn't going to go anywhere productive.

[Ulala]

Pretty much all of these mass shootings have one thing in common: the shooter needed HELP.

Completely agree. I think the hard question is how do we recognize people who need help if they don't seek it out themselves? How do we respond to those people? Obviously there is no single correct or simple answer... it's very complex. 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

The problem is with the way mental health care is handled.  You go see doctors for preventive care starting when your born.  It should be the same for mental health care but it isn't.  If everyone had regular mental health care checkups then there wouldn't be the stigma associated with mental health care. 

Of course on the down side the doctors would be pushing drugs to those that don't need them but that's another issue. 

[jr2]

There was a little list somewhere that gave all of the mass shooters and the heavy duty drugs they were on for psych issues... shocking, really.  If you're on those caliber of drugs (some of which have side effects that are the same as what they treat<--!!), you really shouldn't be messing with firearms unless under close supervision, and I dunno about even then.  (The side effects thing... well, it seems terrible, but if it works for 95% of patients, then you just monitor and change the prescription for the other 5%, problem is these things change, they stop taking their meds (usually after they start feeling better cause they "don't need them" ) etc.)

Extremely quick Googling reveals:

http://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/

Fact: At least 34 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 167 wounded and 78 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs).  The most important fact about this list, is that these are only cases where the information about their psychiatric drug use was made public. (See full list below)
The below list includes individuals documented to have been under the influence of psychiatric drugs and not only includes mass shootings, but the use of knives, swords and bombs.  22 international drug regulatory agency warnings cite side effects including mania, violence, psychosis and even homicidal ideation.


1.   Seattle, Washington – June 5, 2014: 26-year-old Aaron Ybarra opened fire with a shotgun at Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and wounding two others. Ybarra planned to kill as many people as possible and then kill himself. In 2012, Ybarra reported that he had been prescribed the antidepressant Prozac and antipsychotic Risperdal. A report from his counselor in December of 2013 said that he was taking Prozac at the time and planned to continue to meet with his psychiatrist and therapist as needed.

2.   Milford, Connecticut – April 25, 2014: 16-year-old Chris Plaskon stabbed Maren Sanchez, also 16, to death in a stairwell at Jonathan Law High School after she turned down his prom invitation. According to classmates and a former close friend, Chris was taking drugs for ADHD.

3.   Sparks, Nevada – October 21, 2013: 12-year-old Jose Reyes opened fire at Sparks Middle School, killing a teacher and wounding two classmates before committing suicide. The investigation revealed that he had been seeing a psychiatrist and had a generic version of Prozac (fluoxetine) in his system at the time of death.

4.   St. Louis, Missouri – January 15, 2013: 34-year-old Sean Johnson walked onto the Stevens Institute of Business & Arts campus and shot the school’s financial aid director once in the chest, then shot himself in the torso. Johnson had been taking prescribed drugs for an undisclosed mental illness.

5.   Snohomish County, Washington – October 24, 2011: A 15-year-old girl went to Snohomish High School where police alleged that she stabbed a girl as many as 25 times just before the start of school, and then stabbed another girl who tried to help her injured friend. Prior to the attack the girl had been taking “medication” and seeing a psychiatrist. Court documents said the girl was being treated for depression.
6.   Planoise, France – December 13, 2010: A 17-year-old youth held twenty pre-school children and their teacher hostage for hours at Charles Fourier preschool.  The teen was reported to be on “medication for depression”.  He took a classroom hostage with two swords. Eventually, all the children and the teacher were released safely

7.   Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – September 21, 2011: 14-year-old Christian Helms had two pipe bombs in his backpack, when he shot and wounded Socastee High School’s “resource” (police) officer. However the officer was able to stop the student before he could do anything further.  Helms had been taking drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.

8.   Huntsville, Alabama – February 5, 2010: 15-year-old Hammad Memon shot and killed another Discover Middle School student Todd Brown.  Memon had a history for being treated for ADHD and depression.  He was taking the antidepressant Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.” He had been seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist.

9.   Kauhajoki, Finland – September 23, 2008: 22-year-old culinary student Matti Saari shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself.  Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine. He was also seeing a psychologist.

10.   Fresno, California – April 24, 2008: 17-year-old Jesus “Jesse” Carrizales attacked the Fresno high school’s officer, hitting him in the head with a baseball bat.  After knocking the officer down, the officer shot Carrizales in self-defense, killing him.  Carrizales had been prescribed Lexapro and Geodon, and his autopsy showed that he had a high dose of the antidepressant Lexapro in his blood that could have caused him to be paranoid, according to the coroner.

11.   Dekalb, Illinois – February 14, 2008: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system. He had been seeing a psychiatrist.

12.   Jokela, Finland – November 7, 2007: 18-year-old Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School in southern Finland, then committed suicide.

13.   Texas – November 7, 2007: 17-year-old Felicia McMillan returned to her former Robert E. Lee High School campus and stabbed a male student and wounded the principle with a knife.  McMillan had been on drugs for depression, and had just taken them the night before the incident.

14.   Cleveland, Ohio – October 10, 2007: 14-year-old Asa Coon stormed through his school with a gun in each hand, shooting and wounding four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon had been placed on the antidepressant Trazodone.

15.   Sudbury, Massachusetts – January 19, 2007: 16-year-old John Odgren stabbed another student with a large kitchen knife in a boy’s bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. In court his father testified that Odgren was prescribed the drug Ritalin.

16.   North Vernon, Indiana – December 4, 2006: 16-year-old Travis Roberson stabbed another Jennings County High School student in the neck, nearly severing an artery. Roberson was in withdrawal from Wellbutrin, which he had stopped taking days before the attack.

17.   Hillsborough, North Carolina – August 30, 2006: 19-year-old Alvaro Rafael Castillo shot and killed his father, then drove to Orange High School where he opened fire. Two students were injured in the shooting, which ended when school personnel tackled him. His mother said he was on drugs for depression.

18.   Chapel Hill, North Carolina – April 2006: 17-year-old William Barrett Foster took a shotgun to school and took a teacher and a fellow student hostage at East Chapel Hill High School. After being talked out of shooting the hostages, Foster fired two shots through a classroom window before fleeing the school on foot. Foster’s father testified that his son had stopped taking his antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs without telling him.

19.   Red Lake, Minnesota – March 21, 2005: 16-year-old Jeff Weise, on Prozac, shot and killed his grandparents, then went to his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation where he shot dead 5 students, a security guard, and a teacher, and wounded 7 before killing himself.

20.   Greenbush, New York – February 2004: 16-year-old Jon Romano strolled into his high school in east Greenbush and opened fire with a shotgun. Special education teacher Michael Bennett was hit in the leg. Romano had been taking “medication for depression”. He had previously seen a psychiatrist.

21.   Red Lion, Pennsylvania – February 2, 2001: 56-year-old William Michael Stankewicz entered North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School with a machete, leaving three adults and 11 children injured. Stankewicz was taking four different drugs for depression and anxiety weeks before the attacks.

22.   Ikeda, Japan – June 8, 2001: 37-year-old Mamoru Takuma, wielding a 6-inch knife, slipped into an elementary school and stabbed eight first- and second-graders to death while wounding at least 15 other pupils and teachers. He then turned the knife on himself but suffered only superficial wounds. He later told interrogators that before the attack he had taken 10 times his normal dose of antidepressants.

23.   Wahluke, Washington – April 10, 2001: Sixteen-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage. He had been taking the antidepressant Effexor.

24.   El Cajon, California – March 22, 2001: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, on the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor, opened fire on his classmates, wounding three students and two teachers at Granite Hills High School. He had been seeing a psychiatrist before the shooting.

25.   Williamsport, Pennsylvania – March 7, 2001: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was taking the antidepressant Prozac when she shot at fellow students, wounding one.

26.   Oxnard, California – January 2001: 17-year-old Richard Lopez went to Hueneme High School with a gun and shot twice at a car in the school’s parking lot before taking a female student hostage.  Lopez was eventually killed by a SWAT officer.  He had been prescribed Prozac, Paxil and “drugs that helped him go to sleep.”

27.   Conyers, Georgia – May 20, 1999: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with the stimulant Ritalin when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.

28.   Columbine, Colorado – April 20, 1999: 18-year-old Eric Harris and his accomplice, Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves. Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox.  Klebold’s medical records remain sealed. Both shooters had been in anger-management classes and had undergone counseling.  Harris had been seeing a psychiatrist before the shooting.

29.   Notus, Idaho – April 16, 1999: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school, narrowly missing students. He was taking a prescribed antidepressant and Ritalin.

30.   Springfield, Oregon – May 21, 1998: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 25. Kinkel had been taking the antidepressant Prozac. Kinkel had been attending “anger control classes” and was under the care of a psychologist.

31.   Blackville, South Carolina – October 12, 1995: 15-year-old Toby R. Sincino slipped into the Blackville-Hilda High School’s rear entrance, where he shot two Blackville-Hilda High School teachers, killing one. Then Toby killed himself moments later. His aunt, Carolyn McCreary, said he had been undergoing counseling with the Department of Mental Health and was taking Zoloft for emotional problems.

32.   Chelsea, Michigan – December 17, 1993: 39-year-old chemistry teacher Stephen Leith, facing a disciplinary matter at Chelsea High School, shot Superintendent Joseph Piasecki to death, shot Principal Ron Mead in the leg, and slightly wounded journalism teacher Phil Jones. Leith was taking Prozac and had been seeing a psychiatrist.

33.   Houston, Texas – September 18, 1992: 44-year-old Calvin Charles Bell, reportedly upset about his second-grader’s progress report, appeared in the principal’s office of Piney Point Elementary School. Bell fired a gun in the school, and eventually wounded two officers before surrendering. Relatives told police on Friday that Bell was an unemployed Vietnam veteran and had been taking anti-depressants.

34.   Winnetka, Illinois – 20 May 1988: 30-year-old Laurie Wasserman Dann walked into a second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, Illinois carrying three pistols and began shooting children, killing an eight-year-old boy, and wounding five others before fleeing. She entered a nearby house where she shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself. Dann had been seeing a psychiatrist and subsequent blood tests revealed that at the time of the killings, she was taking the antidepressant Anafranil.

For more information read Another School Shooting, Another Psychiatric Drug? Federal Investigation Long Overdue

[BlueFlames]

http://www.cchrint.org/

jr2, you've stepped down from citing the CATO Institute to citing a Scientology front group.  You need to check the veracity of your sources.

[Phantom Hoover]

ah, i see jr2. all we need to do is lock up everyone with depression as a potential mass-murderer. it's important we find solutions like this that don't infringe on our fundamental civil liberties like gun control would

[Scotty]

PH, you already got a warning from another moderator to stop trying to derail the topic into gun control, and more specifically to stop the drive by sniping.  Taking a look at the issue beyond gun control does not invite you to put words in other posters' mouths just because they're not focusing on your favorite part of the discussion.  Knock it off.

[headdie]

Going back to the topic, the sense I got was a lack of understanding on the way mental health actually impacts the person by the article's author.

For example even when i am consistent on my medication I can have marked swings in my mood within a day let alone day to day and even with that medication certain events can push me dangerously in any given direction (even "good" frames of mind in this state can be very bad, especially for my sense of responsibility or ability to register anything outside of myself)

and so to identify an issue with someone unaware or unwilling to admit they might have a problem takes prolonged observation by someone who is trained in order to correctly identify both the type and severity of the issue, for example Bipolar needs handling differently from outright depression to ADHAD because if you don't them you will make the problem worse.

As for posts online... yer that is a no go, certainly not on it's own, people tash talk more readily online, they adopt different personas and will happily act out of character for many reasons including bigging themselves up and just to get a reaction.

As for gun control.  start a thread on it, but please keep it reasonable, those things get locked so often its not funny.  while it is relevant to this thread its been talked about here that often that its old news unless a gun control issue comes up.

[Mikes]

The US Constitution guarantees liberty, not security. 'Tis the tradeoff of living in America, I'm afraid... though maybe not for much longer considering how much the Constitution gets **** on. I'm looking at you, NSA/4th Amendment.

Well, that's because people seem to want both liberty and security, which is kinda hard. Ever heard of Brave New World? It's a dystopia which sacrificed liberty for security. I think that for quite a few people, the world presented there would be surprisingly appealing. If you've got liberty, you've got to take care of your own security. It requires much greater responsibility, something many people simply can't handle. Indeed, I think that most people are like that, in spite of what they think. In general, I think that society should go either in one direction or the other. Either a high-security, more or less authoritarian system designed around make sure it's citizens are safe and comfortable, or a high-liberty, loosely governed system designed around mostly making sure people don't violate each others' liberty. The problem with the former is that it tends to devolve into a oppresive dictatorship, the problem with the latter tends to devolve into anarchy and subsequently warlordism. The problem with fooling about the middle is what America is facing right now. Moves towards greater security result in cries of "Big Brother, we're being repressed!" and attempts to move towards liberty result in "You're useless, do something!".

That's a rather simplistic assessment of "government".