It also makes him feel brainy and superior to those who don’t “get it”.
There are not really that many of these shootings, but when you have a dozen or so cable channels that are nothing but news 24 hours a day, they have to fill the time with something. Things that normally wouldn’t have made the national news, or at best would have been a three second blip mentioned once and over with now become hours and hours of coverage.
I think though that the reason these idiots go out and kill more people than just themselves isn’t anti-depressants. It’s that we have taught them that they will become famous for it. The glamorous image of criminals and the promise of instant fame is quite a lure for a nutjob.
Especially when they come back with such lame replies and keep throwing around ‘dumbass’ as a verb. I don’t know if it makes me feel ‘brainy and superior’…but it sure makes my eye’s roll a lot…
-XT
I don’t think that there’s anything like proof that SSRIs cause these things, but there is undeniably a correlation (it certainly may be common cause- if you do this you are likely depressed or otherwise psychologically pained, and if you sought treatment for such a condition, they probably gave you antidepressants).
If I may conjecture, it seems like (especially with young people) malaise and depression are increasingly hit with these drugs as a matter of course, and then there is a period in which the person stops taking them or is weened off them, and something snaps and then this sort of thing happens.
It may be a willy-nilly distribution of these powerful drugs combined with insufficient follow-up care in a population that is known to react strangeley to these types of drugs.
In any event, the announcement that the person was on or more likely, recently off antidepressants has been a predictable part of these incidents.
Could it be we persist in talking pro or anti guns at times like this because it’s easier than questioning the society we live in, and what it’s like to live in it?
This killer was a sociologist. Maybe he was driven mad by all the practical political types out there who insist on the tangible, quantifiable, nuts & bolts approach to every problem people have.
I just wonder why the hell nutbars always go off at schools. You never hear about some dude just walking in to some bar where all the drug dealers hang out and shooting it up for no reason.
Copycatting. I can remember when it was post offices that nut cases would go into (or other work related areas) to shoot up. Fast food joints were in vogue for a while…or bell towers (though I guess that was at a school to). Now it’s schools.
I’m just hoping that none of these idiots gets the bright idea to make pipe bombs and walk into a crowded mall during Christmas shopping season or something. 
I wish there was some way that we could get the media to report these kinds of things differently. To make the loser nut case BE a (nameless, obviously dickless) loser nut case, to ridicule them and scorn them…and to make the victims the main focus of the story.
Ah well…c’est la vie.
-XT
I’m pretty sure 15 people getting shot in a college classroom, with 5 deaths, would have made the papers in 1960.
It would have…and it would have been sensationalized even then. I remember doing some research on this and you could find instances in the news of folks snapping and taking their flint lock pistol or a knife or what have you into school or work or whatever. It’s to good a story for the press to pass up on…they eat this kind of stuff up. And in fairness obviously the public really wants to hear about this kind of thing.
-XT
Obviously they are shooting the cheese. Which, come to think of it, is worse than cutting the cheese.
Bus Guy I am so glad that your daughter and her friends are OK. My wife is an NIU alum and she just kept shaking her head as we watched the news, sickened that it happened again and especially in a place she knew so well. She said it felt like part of her youth was violated.
Banning guns or putting stronger restrictions on gun ownership will only prevent law-abiding citizens from getting them. Admittedly, Florida has the most liberal (wow, that’s a strange word to use when describing gun laws) gun laws I can think of, but telling the average person they cannot purchase a gun means nothing to a criminal.
I do believe that besides the waiting periods that gun owners should be forced to attend mandatory training on weapon usage and safety. As to what to do with mentally unstable people, I am not sure. We can’t perform sanity checks because it will violate privacy and civil rights.
Well, it wasn’t really an illusion because nobody ever thought about actually shooting up a school. I mean, they may have thought about it, but they never actually did it. Our threshhold for terror was a lot lower back then. We really were safer in that our fellow humans weren’t so damn bent on killing people they didn’t know.
I know the immediate reaction is to confiscate all guns, but the truth is that Timothy McVeigh killed more people on one instant than all the school shooters have since 1998.
My prediction: Hospitals are next. The crazies have already done malls, courthouses, schools, universities and churches. Hospitals are next. And the targets can’t run.
Devil’s advocate, I don’t know if I get this. We perform credit checks to limit peoples’ access to certain transactions. Why not mental health checks?
I suppose it could be abused, but so could any system.
Hey, I understand what you’re saying. But mental health advocates will cream about discrimination, there will be concerns about medical records getting out (HIPAA law violations), etc. What is considered “unstable”? If I went to a counselor for only a couple months 10 years ago when I lost my job does that make me as much of a risk as someone who was recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital where they had been on heavy courses of Thorazine. How does my seeing a psychiatrist who makes sure that my Ritalin is properly regulated for my ADD compare to someone seeing a psychiatrist for anti-psychotic medication?
That’s the question, right? Maybe if you just tied it to a prescription for a certain ledger of drugs. That avoids value judgements. However, it may also encourage the prescription of certain drugs as a backdoor for nervous doctors to get someone on a “no guns” list. Which my head is opposed to even if my gut thinks it’s a perfect solution. Ideally there would be a way for docs to put someone on a list without risking vengeance should the patient try to get a gun and get negged.
I don’t advocate this, but it’s interesting to think about. If these things start to blow up and become a monthly occurrence, there might be steps taken, in which case it will be good to have thought about it.
CNN, don’t show me that fucker’s smiling face. And lay off his dad. His son’s dead too.
If I were a gun control advocate, I don’t know that I would start such a discussion in a thread about a shooting in Illinois of all places. It’s easier to get a gun in freakin’ California.
Good data. I know of several cases of death by alcohol poisoning. My daughter goes to a state school, and since drinking is illegal under 21 (or, more accurately, purchasing or being given alcohol) they expect the rule to be enforced. Obviously it is not, 100%, but it does keep things under control. Since I don’t like alcohol very much, for genetic reasons as far as I can tell, I can easily be holier than thou.
I know you don’t, but surely you’ve seen the advocates of hidden carry laws and of permitting guns in schools and churches claim that these things can be stopped if everyone is armed? Having people armed would change the tactics of the shooter, no doubt, but having him shoot from cover while the targets are in the open is not going to affect the death rate much. Plus, those with guns would clearly be the first targets, so it isn’t something I’d want to do, unless I’m convinced of my own mortality. Shit does happen, but the fact that people still die in car crashes isn’t an argument against seat belts or airbags.
I wonder if leaving these people out for the vultures would be any sort of discouragement?
Just to make sure Godwin gets involved, Hitler killed tens of millions and it can almost entirely be attributed to one thing:
His ability to speak.
If Germany had passed a law in the 20s making it illegal on punishment of death for citizens to engage in public demonstrations or public speaking, Hitler would never have rose to power.
When I was in college, I boarded airplanes without any sort of security check. (I took my hamster in my camera case once.) That doesn’t mean it is a good idea now.
I also wonder how many non-fatal shootings got covered up. There was one in the hall outside the cafeteria in my high school (which was a good school in a good neighborhood) in about 1967. Never heard a word about it - you would today.