In the past few decades, America started to experience the horror of school shootings. These awful events have taken far too many young lives; even in just the past few years, there have been hundreds of students killed.
The left says gun laws are to blame; the right says it’s mainly a mental health and family breakdown crisis.
Now information is being exposed about just how many school shooters are taking mainstream antidepressant drugs. Is there a link?
SSRIs and Mass Shootings
Gun control laws and gun-free zones have done zero to stop mass shootings. This is why some researchers have begun to look deeper into a potential link between medication and shootings.
The fact is that mass shootings mostly by mentally ill young men are taking place in gun-free zones, 97.8% of mass shootings to be specific.
The answer is obviously not banning guns. This is when it’s time to take a closer look at the pills many of these disturbed young men are taking: SSRIs.
Antidepressants or SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) have been linked to many mass shootings.
Did you know:
SSRI's greatly increases suicide rates, and often can make you up to 10x more likely to be violent.
37 million Americans are currently taking them, many more have taken them.
Including the perpetrators of nearly EVERY mass shooting.
— Reverend Calvin Barnes (@VoiceofCal) April 25, 2021
Depression is Massively Over-Diagnosed
First of all, many mass shooters have mental issues. So, it makes sense that they would be taking medication.
Though how can we differentiate those who might commit violence while on SSRIs from those who wouldn’t have become violent without being on SSRIs?
Everybody feels hopeless at times, but turning this into a reason to take pills has been a fairly new invention of the highly corrupt mental health industry.
An estimated 38% of Americans diagnosed officially as depressed are actually clinically depressed.
The rest are just sad and having a very difficult time in life, including losing loved ones, undergoing a breakup, or feeling hopeless about their career future, for example.
It’s not the same thing in any way. So, we know for a fact that Americans are massively diagnosed with happy pills.
Now, it’s time to take a look at whether there’s evidence they make disturbed people more likely to commit violence.
its not even 930am and i saw a tweet saying everyone on SSRI’s should be executed and that would stop the mass shooting problem. i fucking hate it here!
— Xtine (normie in training) (@Xtinekro) May 25, 2022
Looking at the Evidence
Antidepressants first started hitting the market in the 1950s. By the 1990s, they had begun being prescribed to adolescents and millions more Americans, over 38 million at this point.
When taking SSRIs, it’s possible to experience increased aggression and violent fantasies, leading to a black box caution from the FDA on these medications.
These SSRIs can provably cause more impulsive behavior and mania, as well as the risk of suicide and a feeling of “not caring” what happens in the future.
In terms of major school shootings, just a quick look back shows the horror of this possibility.
1989: Joseph Wesbecker goes into his past job and kills nine people in a mass shooting only a month after starting Prozac.
2001: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard was on a high dose of Paxil and Effexor. He started experiencing strange side effects and went to school, taking 23 classmates hostage.
He has no memory of the event. More mass shooting killers who were doped up on SSRIS?
1995: Jarred Viktor, 1996: Kurt Danysh, 1997: Luke Woodham, 1998: Kip Kinkel, 1999: the Columbine massacre by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
More: 2001 mass shooting by Christopher Pittman. 2001: Andrea Yates drowned her kids. 2005: Jeff Weise. 2008: Steven Kazmierczak. 2012: James Holmes. 2013: Aaron Alexis,. 2014: Ivan Lopez.
More: 2015, Dylann Roof. 2016: Arcan Cetin, Zephen Xaver, Ian David Long, Travis Reinking, Nikolas Cruz, Devin Patrick Kelley, and many, many more.
The Bottom Line
There are people with chemical imbalances and clinical depression who are helped by SSRIs. That’s a fact.
Though the dangers of SSRIs need to be looked into more fully, particularly when prescribed to highly mentally unstable, violent young men.
This article appeared in StatesmanPost and has been published here with permission.
