Alex at Ammo.com sent this article my way, and I haven’t ignored it. I had to ponder it a bit before weighing in.
Regardless if depression is overdiagnosed and America has a habit of over-prescribing mind-altering medications, there’s little doubt that SSRIs have a risk of increasing violence in patients, even in patients who have no previous history of violence or aggression before taking the medication.
This risk of violent behavior, both to the individual taking the medication and those around them, is so significant, it has led to the FDA mandating a black box warning on all SSRI medications. These black box warnings are designed to provide information and draw attention to the fact that the medication has serious and life-threatening risks.
As of 2004, all antidepressants in the U.S. are labeled:
“Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia, hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric.”
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Some of the side effects caused by SSRIs can increase the risk of violence against others. Perhaps the most risky, emotional blunting (or detachment) has been linked to SSRI use and many people who’ve taken the drugs report “not feeling” or “not caring” about anything. There’s also been an established causal relationship between SSRI use and psychosis and hallucinations, both of which are known to increase the risk of violence in individuals.
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In most cases, the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illness are nonviolent. Even those who self-harm are highly unlikely to hurt others. In fact, these individuals are more likely to become victims of violent crimes than the general public.
Yet after each mass shooting tragedy, the media fills with psychiatrists who say that the individual didn’t seek the help they needed and that with the proper treatment, the tragedy may have been prevented. But research doesn’t support that philosophy.
In fact, depression in particular doesn’t lead to violence, yet since the increase in SSRI antidepressants being widely prescribed, the rise in mass shootings has increased right along with it. And evidence shows that many mass shooters were either taking or had recently taken SSRIs.
He gives a number of examples, and the number of examples he gives isn’t trivial. So the initial reaction to all of this could be, “Well, if SSRIs can cause violence behavior, then put them on a list and prevent them from purchasing guns.”
But lists are exactly what the controllers want, and even more to the point, it’s exactly what the controllers want the soccer moms to admit that we need. And the only ones who could manage such a list? Why, it would be FedGov. Presto. More power for the controllers, and after the soccer moms admit that lists are needful, it’s a simple thing to keep adding to that list.
I am not asserting that there is no danger in SSRIs. Anything that powerful to affect your psyche must be managed properly. And there is no doubt that such things are over-prescribed today by doctors in America. The flip side of the coin is that such medications do help with pain management, and there are certainly patients who do okay with them – for a while.
Other than pain management, I see this as a reflection of the depression not of individuals, but an entire society which has rejected God, His holy law for our lives, and the saving grace bestowed in His only Son. My former (and now decreased) professor, Dr. C. Gregg Singer, wrote in the preface of his book “From Rationalism to Irrationality,” that the west is sick unto death. That was decades ago.
The society reflects its individuals, and individuals make the society. The world and life view of modernism has led us to where we are today, and lists won’t be of any help getting us back. Lists will help the controllers be more controlling, and we all know about mass shootings on behalf of the state and what that did to the world in the twentieth century (170,000,000 dead).
As for what to do, if someone calls for lists, its as out of balance as our society is. God’s economy is three-pronged: the state, the church, and the family. None are supposed to be subservient to the other. The solution lies in something other than lists, and thus I’m where David Codrea is on this: “Anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian.”
Exactly what form that takes is another discussion, but a ban-list for guns for some SSRI patients isn’t nearly enough, as they can always go to the local tractor supply for several loads of fertilizer. And that doesn’t help the SSRI patients who do okay on the medications one whit.
