Product monographs for almost every antidepressant to reach the market now carry "black box" warnings to the effect that one of the potential "side effects" is suicidal or homicidal ideation in people who have not had such thoughts before. This "side effect" may occur in up to 3% of those taking the drug.

Also rarely mentioned is that newer antidepressant are de facto addictive and have a "discontinuation syndrome" which can last over a year. In some cases, discontinuation or even a reduction in dosages, can lead to psychotic and at times violent behavior in people who have not exhibited it before.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? While I do believe that almost all of these killers were taking the drugs, I haven't yet seen enough evidence that says the drugs caused this behavior, or if the behavior was natural to begin with and the drugs were just along for the ride.

The first thing I learned in graduate school was that people taking antidepressants typically are more likely to commit suicide or exhibit violent behavior just as they begin to feel better. Generally, depression leads to feelings of powerlessness, as well as lack of energy or motivation. Hence, while the condition has not yet been fully alleviated, the patient then has sufficient energy to harm self or others.

As to medications used to treat psychotic conditions--well, if properly diagnosed, such persons were psychotic, after all, which may cause some to be more prone to such behavior.

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

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

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

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

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

That will make all the loony libtards drop their bongs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Absofuckinlutely.

And now there is a political crusade to force medical treatment on emotional and mental illnesses. Their methods have failed, and with many catastrophic events, but we're supposed to find more ways to diagnose mental illness? That is insane. But that's how things are done today with our crony approach to laws.

We don't know which way the causal vectors go. Maybe people took psychotropic meds and they didn't work or didn't work well enough. Probably most people who present at a clinic with a serious illness attempted to treat it with OTC pain relievers first.

Focusing on mass shootings is focusing on the wrong problem. They're very rare. Most shootings involve one or two victims. Even if laws geared toward stopping mass shootings were effective, it would be a small change in the overall number of shootings.