Nearly Every Mass Shooting In The Last 20 Years Shares One Thing In Common, And It Isn’t Weapons

It is interesting to note, That the Chief side effect of many mind altering drugs is an increased risk of Suicide.

Can that be extrapolated to include Suicidal behavior, and a lack of caring for others that some how triggers or lends to these events?

The overwhelming evidence suggests the single largest common factor in all of these incidents is that all of the perpetrators were either actively taking powerful psychotropic drugs or had been at some point in the immediate past before they committed their crimes.

Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox)

Dylan Klebold aged 18 Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.

Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.

Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.

Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.

Mathew Miller, age 13, hanged himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.

Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.

Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.

Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..

Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.

TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.

James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school
killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania

Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California

Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.

Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.

Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.

Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.

Alex Kim, age 13, hanged himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.
Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.

Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.

Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hanged herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil…”)

Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002,
(Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death and killed himself.)

Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hanged herself in her family’s detached garage.

Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.

Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.

Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.

Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.”

Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.

Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.

Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.

Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school…

nearly-every-mass-shooting-last-20-years-shares-one-thing-common-weapons/


If true, does this not raise a host of concerning questions about the FDA approval process, and the culpulbility of Pharmaceutical companies, which is never brought up or addressed when these incidents occur. AT least not in any real way.

Multiple credible scientific studies going back more then a decade, as well as internal documents from certain pharmaceutical companies that suppressed the information show that SSRI drugs ( Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors ) have well known, but unreported side effects, including but not limited to suicide and other violent behavior.

Before I opened up the post, I knew the answer. I had to come in to see if I was right...

Anti Depresants!

How sad

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Before I opened up the post, I knew the answer. I had to come in to see if I was right...

Anti Depresants!

How sad

We have to be careful, as Correlation does not equal causation.

But it certainly merits further research and concern.

I have no doubt anti-depressants help people, the question is are their unintended side effects, that IF they where stressed, could perhaps be accounted for and protected against.

Gee the fact that over 85% of north America is on prescribed medication should raise the hackles on the back of your neck .Never got into it and had to refuse the doctors that wanted me to ...Many of the people I know are and they are a sort of Zombi when I talk to them .You can tell them something that should raise their eye brow but they are almost docile ...Makes you wonder when they may be the next one to snap ...S&F

a reply to: benrl

Read my last rant thread...his parents refuse to medicate him.

I have seen this topic brought up quite a bit, B, but I always have the same questions...what were these children like BEFORE the meds?
Perhaps if therapy were used first, but hardly any insurance covers it so it's up to the family doctor to give psychotropic drugs when thats not their specialty.
Most studies have also concluded an increased risk with adolescents and these drugs. The brain doesn't stop developing until about 22-23...

There is also the bullying/copycat thing coming into play as well.
Kids are messed up! It's a fact of life. We were young once, we know. I lived in a small rural town and a kid pulled his rifle on people several times, years before Columbine.

I cant JUST blame the drugs. There are lots of kids on them. If it were just the drugs, schools would be like shootouts at the OK corral. All of them.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
Gee the fact that over 85% of north America is on prescribed medication should raise the hackles on the back of your neck .Never got into it and had to refuse the doctors that wanted me to ...Many of the people I know are and they are a sort of Zombi when I talk to them .You can tell them something that should raise their eye brow but they are almost docile ...Makes you wonder when they may be the next one to snap ...S&F

That is another interesting point, we could simply be seeing the rise of a VERY RARE side effect, that only manifest on a large enough sample set of data.

Which would account for it not being a concern during clinical trails.

a reply to: benrl

Agreed. Still I keep recalling the warning message on all of those commercials.
...if you have suicidal thoughts...


This is what the FDA found (SOURCE)

What Did the FDA Review Find?

In the FDA review, no completed suicides occurred among nearly 2,200 children treated with SSRI medications. However, about 4 percent of those taking SSRI medications experienced suicidal thinking or behavior, including actual suicide attempts—twice the rate of those taking placebo, or sugar pills.

In response, the FDA adopted a "black box" label warning indicating that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some children and adolescents with MDD. A black-box warning is the most serious type of warning in prescription drug labeling.

The warning also notes that children and adolescents taking SSRI medications should be closely monitored for any worsening in depression, emergence of suicidal thinking or behavior, or unusual changes in behavior, such as sleeplessness, agitation, or withdrawal from normal social situations. Close monitoring is especially important during the first four weeks of treatment. SSRI medications usually have few side effects in children and adolescents, but for unknown reasons, they may trigger agitation and abnormal behavior in certain individuals.

70% of americans are on prescription drugs but we can't really count that because that's all prescription drugs. But!

Here are a few other stand-out statistics from the report on antidepressants:
•23% of women in their 40s and 50s take antidepressants, a higher percentage than any other group (by age or sex)
•Women are 2½ times more likely to be taking an antidepressant than men (click here to read a May 2011 article in the Harvard Mental Health Letter about women and depression)
•14% of non-Hispanic white people take antidepressants compared with just 4% of non-Hispanic blacks and 3% of Mexican Americans
•Less than a third of Americans who are taking a single antidepressants (as opposed to two or more) have seen a mental health professional in the past year
•Antidepressant use does not vary by income status.

Source


I'm also finding that 1 in 10 americans alone are on antidepresants


1 in 10!!

That's a lot of sadness...

originally posted by: benrl

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Before I opened up the post, I knew the answer. I had to come in to see if I was right...

Anti Depresants!

How sad

We have to be careful, as Correlation does not equal causation.

But it certainly merits further research and concern.

I have no doubt anti-depressants help people, the question is are their unintended side effects, that IF they where stressed, could perhaps be accounted for and protected against.

Once again your brilliance is applauded, my friend.
Yours is a most treasured gifted voice of Reason on ATS.

originally posted by: the owlbear
a reply to: benrl

Read my last rant thread...his parents refuse to medicate him.

I have seen this topic brought up quite a bit, B, but I always have the same questions...what were these children like BEFORE the meds?

I read it, and I responded, I think you are being reactionary.

The decision to if he is a danger needs to be made by Trained professionals, you could be ruining a childs life with such knee jerk responses to a child that could be in need of help.

Just not from his own violent tendencies, he could easily be reacting to violence perpetrated against him.

Interesting find.

This doesn't necessarily point to the fact that everyone prescribed these drugs will have suicidal tendencies (or feelings of lashing out), but there is some correlation here.

I think it may be more that these individuals need more help than having a doctor simply giving them a prescription and parents (if any) ignoring them and not teaching them values and to be mature in a society.

I might go a little further and suggest the main commonality they share is psychiatric issues.

The best way to stop depression in most people is to slightly lower copper levels. Also, lowering tyramine consumption helps. You don't fix the problem by adding more tyramines. That brings up octapine levels and may actually cause a person to snap. Give the kids some coffee, and a piece of smoked fish or some aged meat. Don't give them hydrolyzed soy products or carrageenan or MSG. Naturally aged meats in moderation and limit overconsumption of foods containing copper. Balance the diets and these kids do not need antidepressants. The people running the health agencies in this countries need some good advise. They shouldn't be believing the people selling these chemicals without investigating the validity of the information. .

it's pretty hard to ignore the evidence isn't it? S&F nice find.

originally posted by: ArnoldNonymous
Interesting find.

This doesn't necessarily point to the fact that everyone prescribed these drugs will have suicidal tendencies (or feelings of lashing out), but there is some correlation here.

I think it may be more that these individuals need more help than having a doctor simply giving them a prescription and parents (if any) ignoring them and not teaching them values and to be mature in a society.

I might go a little further and suggest the main commonality they share is psychiatric issues.

Yes, that could also be the case.

People who have heart attacks, tend to be on medication to prevent them.

That does not mean that the heart attacks are caused by the medication, just that people who take heart meds tend to be people who are at risk for them.

So yes, that could be at play, and we do see cases where NONE med taking people do these things.

I have said this in another thread before.

These drugs are taken all over the world not just in the US, so connecting them to shootings or killing sprees should happen everywhere in the same rate as in the US, that is not happening.

So no, there are no sideeffect from these drugs that causes people to go on a killing spree but most likely these shooters are allready lost and therefore taking the drugs.

This

a reply to: benrl

Charles Whitman was only taking Excedrin for migraines when he climbed a bell tower in Texas.

Anthony Barbaro seemed like the perfect kid when he began sniping random passerbys at Olean High School. He wasn't on a single medication.

People with mental illnesses have a tendency to go "off-meds". My stepsister was schizophrenic and routinely went off meds until she died.

Dylan Klebold's toxicology screen came up negative for drugs. His cohort, Eric Harris had Luvox in his.

Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho had no drugs in his blood although he had been prescribed Prozac.

Adam Lanza's blood screen showed no signs of drugs.

There's more, I'm sure. The one thing that all of these young men had in common was that they were insane....that's why some of them had been prescribed drugs in the first place.

a reply to: benrl

Great point. Correlation is not caustion

In this case, however, you have some grand level of uncertainty. THe medications are breakthroughs for many patients. some SSRI's are used for psychosis, and have decreased inpatient treatment needs significantly. The downside: they tend to make you agitated and aggressive (calm words for "murderous").

In this instance, i am not sure that we should distinguish between correlative and causative. The studying needs to begin somewhere, and it is completely prudent to study the medication first, since this seems to have become a huge issue (rather than occasional incidents) since the release of the modern classes of psychotropic drugs.

originally posted by: WhiteAlice
a reply to: benrl

Charles Whitman was only taking Excedrin for migraines when he climbed a bell tower in Texas.

Anthony Barbaro seemed like the perfect kid when he began sniping random passerbys at Olean High School. He wasn't on a single medication.

People with mental illnesses have a tendency to go "off-meds". My stepsister was schizophrenic and routinely went off meds until she died.

Dylan Klebold's toxicology screen came up negative for drugs. His cohort, Eric Harris had Luvox in his.

Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho had no drugs in his blood although he had been prescribed Prozac.

Adam Lanza's blood screen showed no signs of drugs.

There's more, I'm sure. The one thing that all of these young men had in common was that they were insane....that's why some of them had been prescribed drugs in the first place.

No one is arguing that they where sane.

I am asking if the increase suicide risk with certain drugs could possibly extrapolate to an INSANE person, deciding that Suicide, is not just enough for them.

Certainly it merits study?

originally posted by: Mianeye
I have said this in another thread before.

These drugs are taken all over the world not just in the US, so connecting them to shootings or killing sprees should happen everywhere in the same rate as in the US, that is not happening.

So no, there are no sideeffect from these drugs that causes people to go on a killing spree but most likely these shooters are allready lost and therefore taking the drugs.

How many other countries do you know that have the same gun laws as the US?

Of course you can see the difference. You cannot say that just because other countries don't have the same issue, it's not the cause. We are a gun in hand country. Other nations are not.

Not to mention, WE have an issue with giving everyone antidepressants, other nations do not.

Throw up some numbers if you want to compare them.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

In this instance, i am not sure that we should distinguish between correlative and causative. The studying needs to begin somewhere, and it is completely prudent to study the medication first, since this seems to have become a huge issue (rather than occasional incidents) since the release of the modern classes of psychotropic drugs.

Brain chemistry is so unique, that people have to go through several of these drugs before finding whats right for them.

Often what the medical community doesn't like to bring up, that when it comes to brain issues, its much more art than science.

So much so, that more Research into potential side effects would only be prudent.

Speaking of clinical trials, they usually only last a couple of months, which doesn't give any long term evaluation, imo. I remember speaking out against the addictive component of benzodiazepines and being hammered with so-called clinical trial evidence to the contrary. Yet now they can't deny it. So I think your premiss should be investigated further by researchers if they are brave enough to stand up to big pharma. Barring their participation, I wonder if some good investigative journalism body would undertake it?