Posted on 02/15/2008 1:51:19 PM PST by DCBryan1
I can believe the permanent damage part, for sure. I recently saw the sudden withdrawal problem in a young Iraq war veteran I know who decided to go off the anti depressants he had been given.
Only the presence of some good LEOs prevented a tragedy.
Michael Frazier
You will never hear media follow that line of questions which is much more pertinent than their reflexive 'evil guns' response.
To see why that is so, just count and compare for one evening how many gun manufacturers commercials you see on TV and how many from the pharmaceutical industry. The "news" media lapdogs are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. The Big Pharma has them bought, along with "health" businesses and bureaucrats, as well as lawmakers at all levels.
I’m a layperson and not in the medical field. But it seems to me there’s a possible corollary between prescribed medication and tragedies such as this. And the factor of the patient having gone off his medications seems a frequent event.
That to me is something that needs to be addressed. That is, if we’re indeed sincere about wanting to cure this problem as apposed to mouthing populist platitudes.
This is just one more tragedy in a long list of tragedies. My thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families. No one should ever have to go through something like this. Nothing is ever solved, nor any situation improved by knee-jerk reaction or playing the blame game. I suppose, it is just a natural human response when trying to cope, to deal, to rationalize such events.
Long before there were firearms and SSRI’s, there were tragedies and mass slaughter of the innocent. Who is likely to shoot someone? Someone armed with a firearm of course, since it is hard to shoot someone without one. How likely is it that someone who is psychotic enough to go on a killing spree would be taking an SSRI? There are a great number of people on these drugs and a great many people who own firearms. The percentage that go on a shooting spree, however, is very small.
So you get rid of guns and SSRI’s and we can live in a non-violent Utopia? Of course not, and if you have to blame someone or something blame those who have allowed the society to devolve into one that no longer values life. A society that seems more interested in protecting the rights of criminals, than seeking justice for victims. A society that limits or prohibits an individual the basic liberty and freedom to protect themselves. We search for answers to resolve our own fears. Sometimes, there are no answers, and certain acts, by their very nature, defy explanation.
That is a good question.
Yes, you do, it's called a Firearms Owners Identification Card, although you can get it before you attempt to purchase a firearm, you don't have to wait until the after, if fact you must get it before.
From the NRA-ILA factshet for IL:
A buyer is required to show his Firearms Owner’s Identification Card (FOID) when purchasing any firearms or ammunition. Any seller is required to withhold delivery of any handgun for 72 hours, and of any rifle or shotgun for 24 hours, after the buyer and seller reach an agreement to purchase a firearm.
In fact you used to be able to get handguns at WalMart, and some time before that, at Sears and Wards. Back when people rarely shot up classrooms with them.
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
—Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764).
Yesterday seven people lost their lives to a madman. It is tragic, but equally as tragic is the sheeple have abandon their responsibility for their own safety and outsourced that responsibility to a government that is not legally bound to protect them!
As hard as this may sound, they were complicit in their own deaths by the inaction not to secure their own safety.
Another shooting in a “gun free zone”. The folly of it all, if it were not so tragic.
Maybe the survivors and next of kin should sue the state for issuing the FOID? Oh I forgot, can't sue the King unless he allows it. Might as well try to sue the police for taking minutes to get their when seconds counted.
Well, it didn't happen often. There was Charlie Starkweather, right across the river from you there in Iowa. You might remember. I do, and I'm a couple of years younger than you. Of course I lived in Lincoln, where the rampage got started. In fact my Dad and his friend were the ones who reported the empty gas station, that was empty because Charlie had taken the attendant a mile or so away by the creek and killed him with a shotgun. There were 3 shotguns in the car Dad was traveling in, his, his buddy's and his buddy's fathers. They were going duck hunting that day. They had left the station before the police arrived.
Of course Charlie and Carol Ann didn't off themselves. The state offed Charlie, with the now banned "Old Sparky", just over year after his was caught. Maybe that is why that sort of thing rarely happened in those days?
They’d probably qualify blood pressure or thyroid medication as having to do with mental health.
If so, I’d be screwed.
From what I've read the police response was excellent. The campus police were on site within 28 seconds and city police within 2 minutes. But by the time they entered the facility it was over.
I don't know what you expect of the police but they get my kudos for a job well done. The simple fact is, if no one on site is armed, things such as this are impossible to prevent from happening. Armed citizens on site can insure the carnage is minimized, but still can't prevent it from beginning.
I apologise for my broad statement. I should have been more specific about the mind and behavior altering meds, routinely prescribed by shrinks. Maintainance meds like for blood pressure, diabetes etc are not of the mind altering variety.
I would be interested in knowing what kind of prescribed meds the shooter was on. I would suspect ritilin or something of that class.
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