Connecticut School Shooting

[Shelley & Beans]

Hoping and praying that none of my fellow Doodle Lovers are effected by this, but wanting to send my thoughts and prayers to those that are and to let you know your Canadian friends are feeling for you. How heartbreaking that society (and lost individuals) can be so cruel. Children under 10 years old don't deserve this fate for any reason.. God Bless!!

[Adina P]

The dogs would alert before anyone got to standing over my head with a gun, I hope.  But they also wouldn't DO a thing to the guy.  They would wag their tails the whole time.

[Bonnie and Kona]

My two have the biggest, deepest barks! They would scare me, if I didn't know they were wagging their tails and the barking means, "Come here quick and pet me!"  

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

More stringent gun laws do not impact people who break the law.  And I think a huge part of the issue is what is happening to our society that makes people think it is okay to randomly shoot stangers as they do in these mass killings.

I think people who kill themselves or people they know, such as the NFL player would have found a way to do so with or without a gun because they are most often crimes of passion.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Here's a good article on gun ownership in the US. Basically, according to this, the number of households with guns has gone down, but the number of guns each person has has gone way up; in other words, fewer people own more guns. This article puts the number of households with guns at 32% and of course that would be low when you account for all of the people who have guns illegally and/or don't register or report them.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/31/politics/gun-ownership-declining/inde...

And another good article with statistics on how many guns are manufactured, sold, etc. The percentage of the world's guns that are owned by Americans is pretty staggering: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/guns-in-america-a-sta...

 

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Karen, did you notice in that first article that it said 1 in 10 women owns a gun??? So if you know 10 woman one of them is being forthcoming with you! LOL!!!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Well, it's true that I don't ask every person I know if they have a gun. But I think it's more likely that it's regional, as mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. In my neighborhood, there might be a lower percentage of gun-owning women, and downstate in a more rural area there might be a higher percentage of women with guns, but overall they average out to one in ten.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Guns in the hands of women don't scare me anywhere near as much as guns in the hands of men, either. I can't think of the last time I heard of a woman going on a shooting rampage. Too bad we can't make a law that only women can have guns!

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

That's a great idea and while we're at it I think we should have a law that requires all politicians must be women too! LOL!

I only remember Bonnie of Bonnie and Clyde because I saw the movie. But I'm sure it was all Clyde's fault.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I hate serial killers in books but in fiction and reallife they are nearly all men. I would bet at least 90% of murders are by men.

[Thuy & Hops]

Morgan Freeman:

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations­, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem."

[Shelley & Beans]

Well spoken! or Written...

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

Good points raised by Thuy and Hops. Here's some information, it might be important to share...The source is Dr. Peter Breggin, a Harvard trained psychiatrist who has acted as a medical expert in criminal and malpractice cases.  He's been involved in landmark cases in regards to antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs.  I'll include a link for anyone who wants to know more but here are some of his insights that got my attention...

The problem is not solely in identifying someone with mental illness.  Most, if not all, of the young men involved in these school and theater shootings since Columbine were on meds (indicating that they were receiving some kind of psychiatric or medical care).The result may be that we diagnose and drug with antidepressants (AD) and antipsychotics (AP) with the best of intentions but with sometimes tragic results. 

Why?

A growing body of evidence shows that for a small but significant percentage of the population, these drugs do more harm than good resulting in abrupt disinhibition, lack of impulse control, lack of empathy, and sudden violent or suicidal behavior.  Dr. Breggin indicates the reason may be that some people lack the enzyme that normally clears the drug out of their system.  Because the liver can't break down the drug, a young person getting a 50 mg dose might actually be getting 150 mg dose --in other words, overdosed. 

Dr. Breggin noted that Ely Lily has internal research that shows as much as 14% of the population on psychiatric drugs (2 to 3 million people(?)) may be walking "time" bombs because, in combination with their underlying mental health issues, AD or AP are building up in their system. A "trigger" can be anything or nothing.

My understanding is that blood tests could identify those at risk, but pharmaceutical companies have not pushed for this:(  I believe you can ask for a blood test though to identify the risk.

I'm certainly not minimizing intelligent gun control, violent video games, media, etc. which all play a role, but I think we need to know more about when and how prescribed drugs may push one person over the edge yet help another.  Whether or not this played a role here, I don't think all the info is out yet.  

SO, is this another piece of the puzzle/solution? ( Sorry for the long post but just thinking it might help someone out there.)

http://www.breggin.com