Antidepresants and teen violence

But which of the factors is the trigger in the rise in school shootings?

1. Increased use of pharmaecuticals?

2. Increased exposure to violence on TV?

3. Increased exposure to violence in video games?

4. Unknown/unrecognized societal factors and pressures?

I can't say positively Mike, but:

1. Increased use of pharmaecuticals?
They gave us a spanking if we were bad enought in the 1950's, not drugs

2. Increased exposure to violence on TV?
When I was a boy in the 1950's we watched TV after school and it was pretty darn violent, mostly westerns and war movies maybe not as graphic but plenty of shoot em ups.


3. Increased exposure to violence in video games?
We played outside and got plenty of exercise running around and shooting at each other playing cowboys and indians and war. Good guys against the baddies. lol.


4. Unknown/unrecognized societal factors and pressures?
Don't know about that but I'm sure it has some merit with the breakdown of the family and it's values.
 
Well, like the OP and I am sure many others here. I don't remember hearing anything about mass shootings when I was growing up. The closest thing was the ex-marine Vietnam Vet that went UT sniper mid 60s.

Truthfully I probably don't actually remember the event on TV as I do all the documentaries on History channel and such over the years.

But now, well now it's just crazy. And people still want to blame the inanimate object and not the individual. And something or things that are having a dramatic effect on his life and what it is that is motivating him.

And let's not fail to forget the media and two weeks of fame for someone who has decided they are a loser. The media knows the effect they are having and they have not a care one. As far as I am concerned, when the media lost their objectivity and their cherished journalistic professionalism, that's when they gave up their right to their journalistic liberties.

I shut them all off, no satellite, no cable, no TV at all. I no longer care what any news network has to say. When I pick up on a story or event I hit the internet and look for the local papers on site.
 
Lcpiper, your right, I'm 45 and growing up I honestly never remember hearing about a mass shooting ,( might have been one at a McDonald's in like 84'). I don't know if it was just no internet, or 3 channels on TV, you just didn't hear about it. So when that happens you don't get copycats doing it. I'm sure there was one guy who was going to kill himself and said "hey why don't I take as any people as I can with me". So with that mindset, a school, mall, theater, etc is the perfect place to do that. You have to wonder, if no one every committed a mass shooting or other violent things, where would people get the ideas to continue to do them.
 
Mike Irwin said:
Just about every drug can have side effects, including psychological side effects.
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Not directly. Not every drug directly manipulates dopamine, serotonin, or norepinephrine concentrations in the synapse.

It's well documented that SSRIs, over time, affect the post-synaptic serotonin receptor density, leading to tolerance. It's suspicious that people who have been on these drugs long-term claim to receive benefits from them long after their last dosage increase. If there are any studies showing continued efficacy after a year or two of taking this class of drug at the same dosage, saying "it just works" begs the question: how? What mechanism of action is allowing these drugs to work if the brain has adapted to that increase in serotonin availability by decreasing serotonin receptor density?

If people were being prescribed cocaine (another neurotransmitter-related drug, although it affects more than serotonin) long-term, by the millions, and for psychological problems, would you not be the least bit skeptical, and would you not encourage them to investigate other solutions before they resort to such drastic measures?

Here's a hypothesis for why SSRIs might be psychologically harmful:

Serotonin levels vary a certain amount without medication, but apparently not much:
1740-3391-3-6-2.jpg
(that's from a journal article on circadian rhythms: unmedicated serotonin levels)

I have not found similar graphs for serotonin density in the synapse, before and after taking a SSRI, but I would expect there to be a more dramatic variation when taking a SSRI (due to the drug concentration and therefore its efficacy fluctuating over the dosage period), except in the case of continuous-release / sustained-release versions available for some SSRIs.

If there is higher variance, that must not be a major problem for most people (or else it would show up in medical trials), but who knows what effects that might have on someone who's already unstable.
 
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My friend has been through hell and back with doctor prescribed medication cocktails the past fifteen years. There were certainly times a firearm within reach would not have been a good idea, although now things have stabilized tremendously.

I'm on the fence about the whole mental health/gun ownership thing. On one hand there are plenty of people that shouldn't be anywhere near a gun, but the flip side is mental health professionals are so eager to diagnose pretty much everyone with a disorder and treat you like a guinea pig.

I also suspect some gun owners will be skipping appointments for fear their psychiatrists will report them to the courts. Right now they can do this only if you expressed actual threat to harm oneself or others. This will change.
 
"Not directly. Not every drug directly manipulates dopamine, serotonin, or norepinephrine concentrations in the synapse."

Can you tell me how you read my original statement and arrived at the conclusion that I meant every?


"It's well documented that SSRIs, over time, affect the post-synaptic serotonin receptor density, leading to tolerance."

That's exactly what they're supposed to do. It's why it's now know that there needs to be a withdrawal period from these medications, to allow the body's natural chemistry to regain it's full functional status after being propped up by the medications (which is, again, exactly what they're supposed to do).

My sole argument is that these medications have proven to have life saving capabilities, and that far too many people scapegoat the easy target in order to find easy "answers" to difficult questions (sounds like OMG ACCESS TO GUNS! OMG HIGH CAPACITY MAGAZINE CLIPS! doesn't it?)

If you want to have an argument about neuropharmacology, go argue with the goddamned appropriate MD.
 
Maybe the higher rates of antidepressants with teens or anyone is the symptom of the breakdown. How many violent teens parents are on prescription meds? I keep wondering how the killers mom did not know what he was capable of? How come the killers friends did not know what he was capable of? How is it possible no one knew, how come no-one questioned a thing...
 
Maybe the higher rates of antidepressants with teens or anyone is the symptom of the breakdown. How many violent teens parents are on prescription meds? I keep wondering how the killers mom did not know what he was capable of? How come the killers friends did not know what he was capable of? How is it possible no one knew, how come no-one questioned a thing...

Good point. You won't see the media questioning why these seeminly senseless rampages seem to have one common denominator and it's not guns, the people committing these horrible acts have used knives, bow and arrows and other weapons besides firearms. The media is a bussiness and makes it's money from advertisments, (commericals) nothing wrong with that, but, their not going to bite the hand that feeds them and it's not in their best interest to question or accuse the drug companys (huge advertising dollars) like they accuse gun companys (little to no advertising dollars). Firearms manufactures don't advertise on television. To throw up our hands and say it's just an unslovelable mystery, a sign of the times, we'll never know, is wrong. There is a reason, and examining the common denomanators of these events is how it will come to light. Drugging our children to get them to behave is just wrong. I'm not trying to scapegoat anyone or thing. But I want to examine all possibilities and only then will the truth come out, and I will accept the truth. This is too important to brush under the rug and hope it will go away, it won't, it will happen again if we don't get to the bottom of it.
 
There is a reason, and examining the common denomanators of these events is how it will come to light.
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Right, and the very common denominator is that all of these folks, children and adults, had diagnosed mental health issues.

It should be pointed out, again, that the website cited in the OP is specifically an anti-ssri website. The information presented in it is not completely accurate and appears quite biased to supporting their point as I pointed out here in various posts...
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=512374&highlight=ssri
 
. Increased use of pharmaceuticals?

2. Increased exposure to violence on TV?

3. Increased exposure to violence in video games?

4. Unknown/unrecognized societal factors and pressures?
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All the above and that does not mean government should "fix" or pass laws however right now those in charge prefer to blame an inanimate objects "firearms" for all the problems in our society and in my opinion we have larger issues including the above 1-4.
 
Ok let me just say this. I've been on a few different SSRI medications off and on for more than half of my life so far, not because I was depressed but because I used to have a problem with being shy, and they've done nothing but improve my life. They helped me become much more of a confident, bold guy. I've also been around guns my whole life, and I've never even had the slightest thought about using them to harm another individual (unless for defense purposes). Pretty soon I will start to withdraw from my current medication hopefully for good. Normally I wouldn't hand out this information to everyone... But I feel it is a good example of what Mike Irwin said, that they can help. Of course they didn't save my life because they were NOT for depression as I said, but they still helped.
 
My sole argument is that these medications have proven to have life saving capabilities
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Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no arguing with that statement. This class of drugs has done more to prevent suicide and preserve quality of life than all the talk-therapy and psychoanalysis of the past ever did. Even if there is an occasional bad side effect, the overall net positive benefit is huge.

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Everyone is assuming that the rate of mass shootings has increased in recent years. By recent I mean that there have been more in the last couple of decades than there were in previous decades. I am skeptical. I am skeptical that we are measuring the right thing.

For one thing, there are a lot of mass shootings which are not random mass shootings. Mass murder is relatively common among rival drug gangs, and often involve inocent family members of the intended target. But gangland mass murder is not what everyone is talking about. It is random mass murder that concerns us.

Random mass murder seems to be carried out by deeply disturbed young men who are socially withdrawn loners, and who have an over-riding sense of bitter resentment against some slice of society. They hope that their final shocking act of brutality will bring them recognition and vindication, sometimes posthumously. For brevity I will call these kinds of killers Murderous Loners.

So if we were to look at the rate of heinous crimes committed by Murderous Loners, I think we would find something interesting... I suspect that the nature of their final murderous spectacle has changed over the decades, but the rate of occurance has not.

In the 1960s, the Murderous Loners sought recognition by assasinating someone famous. John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Dr. M.L. King, all were murdered by someone fitting the classic profile of a Murderous Loner. Reagan was shot by another one, and so was Pope John Paul. John Lennon was mudered by one as well.

So perhaps there have always been nutjobs in our midsts, but they act out today in different ways then they did in the past.
 
I agree they are acting out in different ways than the past. Unfortinately in more destructive ways...

Individuals that are struggling with life, especially our teens and children, when they reach the end of their rope…. They are now very aware there is a way to make a statement against the society that would not accept or cater to them. They have a point to make, and we will listen and help them become who they want to be or it will happen again. With or without guns but they certainly will pick the easiest route....

I think part of the solution lies within the family structure. Not too long ago there was nothing else to do but watch TV on a few channels on the one TV in the house. Even with an hour of I Love Lucy, families participated together. Now, there is a TV in every room with hundreds of channels, computers, phones, tablets with endless media and information, games that consume the entire mind with participation, and drugs to help you with your depression instead of family time… all can be used for good, but also all requiring no interaction with others can be a set up for the worse. This recipe is set for disaster and needs to be fixed.

Maybe this is why nobody knew what the killer was capable of, or about to do.
 
I think part of the solution lies within the family structure.
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I couldn't agree more with that statement.

Family values are going downhill quickly, because parents are having to work more hours to make ends meet, and everyone is too into technology. There isn't as much family time in the average household these days, and that can have a huge mental impact on a kid when they have problems and there are no parents to listen or help.

Not only that, most kids these days get the wrong idea about guns if they weren't brought up around them. I don't think it has as much to do about video games as it does the media. If they were never brought up around guns then all they know about them is what the media has told them, or maybe what their parents have seen and told them. They get told that they are a device used to committ mass murder and a device that gets you all over the
media.

Just my opinion, but I think part of what we could do to solve this problem is not only better family values, but children need to be taught what a gun is all about, at an appropriate age of course.
 
1. Increased use of pharmaecuticals?

2. Increased exposure to violence on TV?

3. Increased exposure to violence in video games?

4. Unknown/unrecognized societal factors and pressures?
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1. Americans prescribe more medicine for mental conditions than any other country, PER CAPITA (meaning not just the number period, because we have a huge population, but the number per person) and some of the LOWEST per capita pyschologist/psychiatrist therapy sessions. Basically, we are replacing drugs with human interaction.

2. and 3. We have pretty much the same TV programs as most other countries, but they don't have an issue like we do. The same is even more prevalent with video games. There are some really REALLY messed up video game mods (someone taking a pre-existing game and changing the story, characters, etc) that are coming from Europe and especially Japan. So that's not necessarily what the problem is either.

4. BINGO. America is a unique "melting pot" of cultures, and in this case, causes of violent behavior. It's not ONE thing causing it. It's a lot of things, but the biggest is that 99% of these shootings are from people who are screaming for attention, and aren't getting it from their friends and family. So they look up and see us holding these people like Adam Lanza up on a pedestal, all over the news, getting MASSIVE amounts of attention, for what? For shooting people, innocent people. So now these kids see this and think in their messed up, jacked up head of theirs "Hey, thats how I get attention." Next thing you know, a school, a mall, an office building, whatever the place, it's being shot up.

I don't know if you have ever heard of the guy, but Mr. Colion Noir does a good video summing up this subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR3t7j2tUec

WARNING: There is one little "bad word" in there.
 
The problem with teen violence today doesn't lie within violent movies or video games, it 100% comes down to their family life and parenting. You need a strong parent figure/figures there to teach you values, rights and wrongs, and to discipline you when needed. I grew up playing violent video games, I was never not allowed to watch violent movies even at a young age, yet I turned out just fine. I have no criminal record, I am not violent despite all the shooting games I played growing up and the guns I own, and I have no desire to use them to harm anyone or anything. Heck, I cant even bring myself to go squirrel hunting let alone shoot a deer.

I am still relatively young at 26 and am closer to the current generation than probably most of you on here. I grew up about a 10 minute walk and a 2 minute bus ride from Boston. About 80% of the kids in my old neighborhood are in jail, just got out of jail, or are hard time drug addicts. Out of most of those kids just about the only two who really turned out alright were me and my cousin who lived down the street from me. Granted I was having to drag my cousin out of bad situations every now and then because he liked to follow the crowd, but both of us stayed out of trouble and went on to live good lives. We both have clean criminal records, went to college, graduated with business degrees, he ended up getting into law enforcement and I am in marketing. I can honestly say all this is owed to my parents.

The main difference between my cousin and I and the rest of the kids we grew up with were we had a strong family life and parents who where always there for us. Not only that, but if I did anything wrong I had to fear the wrath of god, aka my father. Because the last thing I wanted to hear from my mother back then was, wait till your father gets home! Anyways, most of these kids I grew up with, their parents were either drug addicts or alcoholics and just were either never their for them or just didn't care.

One of the kids I knew growing up father died when he was 13 from alcoholism, his older brother got him hooked on drugs at 15, and by 17 he was a hardcore heroin addict. Ended up stealing his blind grandmothers wedding ring and pawning it for a fix and is constantly in and out of jail. Steals from everyone he ever knew and pretty much got cut off from any family or friends.

Another's parents were heroin addicts. Never home half the time and just didn't care what their kids did. Him and his older brothers would constantly just beat the crap out of each other and snap for no reason at all. Started selling and using hard drugs since he was probably 14. As much as you want to feel bad for him, and I still see him from time to time, he is the biggest scumbag you will come across. He picks fights with people for no reasons, especially smaller people, and has been known to beat people unconscious pretty much for fun. A few years back he was showing off a picture of his bruised foot from where he kicked someone in the head so many times that he broke his toes, as if that was something to be proud of. Just a sick sadistic SOB.

I could literally go on for pages with similar stores like these, but they all pretty much start and end the same way.

I have seen first hand what difference a strong family life makes on the outcome of a person. Alot of these kids I grew up with never had guidance, they were allowed to do as they like and come and go as they please with no consequences. Their parents never showed them any attention or cared enough to discipline them when they did the wrong thing. Any problems I had I knew I could talk to my parents, my grandparents who lived below me most of my life, my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins and etc... I had people their to teach me right and wrong, I knew from a very young age there were consequences for my actions, I had people to talk to when things were bothering me or I needed advice. Bottom line is, it is the responsibility of a parent to shape and turn their children into respectable people with good morals and values. Let them run around like wild animals and do as they please and that is what they will grow up to be.
 
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Unfortunatley all I see is a downward spiral. We will never have a world without violence, but if we let the anti's mastermind a solution to this problem we will end up a world without guns. The pro 2A community needs to find the solution...
 
but children need to be taught what a gun is all about, at an appropriate age of course.
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Just what is a gun all about? A gun is all about launching a projectile down range in a controlled manner, usually with the intended goal of hitting some sort of target, often with the goal of damaging that target in some manner, sometimes with the hopes of stopping or killing the target.

I am fairly certain most of the shooters noted here are very familiar with what a gun is all about, even if they aren't all that particularly proficient with them.
 
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