Police LIne Photo Credit www.esbtrib.com

Photo Credit www.esbtrib.com

While some have linked school shootings to “lack of mental health services” and hint that there would be fewer such incidents if people were under the watchful eye of mental health specialists, the true facts are either buried or obscured.

A recent Fox News report admits that “Researchers lacked data on a lot of factors that can influence gun violence, but they did find fewer school shootings occurred in states with mandatory background checks and higher spending on mental health and education.” 1

According to this report, spending more money on mental health equals less gun violence. If that were the case then one would expect to find the violent offenders were not receiving mental health care. But the exact opposite is true.

National Institute of Mental Health Admits Violent Link to Psychiatric Drugs

These observations were made in a NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) report:

“And, of course, scripts linking guns and mental illness arise in the aftermath of many US mass shootings in no small part because of the psychiatric histories of the assailants. Reports suggest that up to 60% of perpetrators of mass shootings in the United States since 1970 displayed symptoms including acute paranoia, delusions, and depression before committing their crimes…. Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooter James Holmes ‘was seeing a psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia’ before he opened fire in a crowded theater…Isla Vista, California, shooter Elliot Rodger suffered from Asperger’s disorder and took psychotropic medications.” 2

Psychology Today Contributor says Suicide and Violence Related to Psych Drugs

Lennard J. Davis bolsters this viewpoint in a piece he wrote for Psychology Today:

“It’s been well known that adolescents and young people have an increased risk of suicide when they begin to take SSRIs. But what we may forget is that suicide is an impulsive behavior that is turned against oneself. But impulses, particularly violent ones, can be turned against others.

“An accompanying effect of SSRI’s is the dulling of feelings that cause depression—and one of the main feelings in this line is empathy. If empathy is dulled and violent impulses increase when young people are on SSRI’s, then certainly that is a recipe for causing harm to others.”

Davis seems to realize these drugs are dangerous as he then states, “…we also have to entertain the idea that those drugs may have directly or indirectly contributed to the violence that resulted…After all, drugs are drugs—with effects and side effects. We need to know more about how these drugs work before we decide that the best policy is to get as many trouble adolescents on them as possible. The physician’s motto: ‘Do no harm’ is more relevant than ever in this scenario.” 3

Scientists in PLOS Report Warn of Serious Adverse Effects

It has been admitted in a Public Library of Science (PLOS) report that “acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline [Chantex], which increases the availability of dopamine, and antidepressants with serotonergic [denoting a nerve ending that releases and is stimulated by serotonin] effects were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. Prospective studies to evaluate systematically this side effect are needed to establish the incidence, confirm differences among drugs and identify additional common features.” 4

While researchers ponder further studies to “evaluate systematically this side effect”, the public remains at risk.

What is the Solution?

The real perpetrators of violent behavior are the psychiatrists peddling and the drug companies that continue to manufacture these drugs.

If only one person died at the hands of a murderous maniac on a psychiatric drug, that would be one person too many. But the number of lives lost to violent mass shootings since the year 2000 is over four hundred.5

How many of the perpetrators were on psychiatric drugs? Many times those facts are hidden so one can only speculate. But as the NIMH revealed, there are several shooters openly acknowledged as having been under the effect of psychotropic drugs during their shooting rampage.

What will it take to remove the offending drugs from the marketplace? Apparently, concern for humanity on the part of drug producers and psychiatrists is not forthcoming. Profit and greed have replaced the Hippocratic oath in the so-called medical profession known as psychiatry. It is time we all raise our voice on this issue.


1          http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/12/13/gun-laws-mental-health-spending-tied-to-fewer-school-shootings.html

2          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

3          https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/obsessively-yours/201212/newtown-shootings-caution-about-violence-and-ssris

4          http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015337

5          http://time.com/4368615/orlando-mass-shootings-chart/