Mart Dr. Paul Alone. Again.
After the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech in April, many predicted that the feds would respond by passing yet more gun control. Sadly, the House of Representatives did even better (that is, worse) than that today, with the overwhelming passage of a bill that "strengthens" the national background check system by requiring states to create and share databases documenting mental health and criminal records. States that comply will be given money; states that do not will have federal grants cut.
Lest you miss the aggravating element here, in addition to another federal gun law, we are talking about a database with your mental health records in it, and a powerful incentive for your state to intrude upon your once-confidential interaction with your doctor. If guns aren't your issue (and they're not mine), this should still give you pause.
The silver lining in today's debacle?
The only dissenting vote in the short House debate on the bill was voiced by GOP presidential aspirant Ron Paul of Texas. He described the bill as "a flagrantly unconstitutional expansion of restriction on the exercise of the right to bear arms protected under the 2nd Amendment.
Where were Representatives Tancredo and Hunter when the Constitution needed them?
4 Comments:
Incredible. The congress is so far behind Ron Paul, I hope they realize the mistake they are making.
I don't think they have any idea; that's what's so frightening about this. Even the NRA got behind the bill--which means that, in a bizarre twist, Dr. Paul's vote here will probably *hurt* his NRA ranking. Sigh.
Most of the major shootings in America have been done by people taking mind altering antidepressants. Instead of more gun control laws there should be more control on the use of antidepressants.
Think about it... if the antidepressants creates a disconnect from reality so you don't feel sad. Then what if it also causes other reality disconnects?
Brain altering drugs when used are just as or more dangerous than a loaded gun.
For me I will just try and get more sunshine, Omega3s, sleep and exercise.
anonymous is on the right track here. Ever watch a T.V. commercial for a popular SSRI antidepressant such as Zoloft (the drug that the late actor/commedian Phil Hartmann’s wife was on when she shot and killed him and then herself)? “Do you suffer from feelings of sadness, hopeless, guilt, …?” What is guilt? The conscience! By their own admission — nay, by their own proud proclamation in their own advertising — these drugs inhibit the conscience! And that’s when they&rquo;re working right and doing what they’re supposed to do! That isn’t a side-effect! That’s part of the intended effect!
Some may say that the reason that statistics show a disproportionate percentage of SSRI users as perpetrators of school shooting sprees and other such crimes is because only people who are mentally ill need such drugs, and only the mentally ill commit such crimes.
Normally, such would be a proper observation, since indeed correlation ≠ causation. But, we have much more than simple correlation here.
For one thing, the rate of such crimes has drastically increased in the past two decades (starting with the rash of postal worker rampages that was so out of the ordinary that it caused the two-word phrase “going postal” to be added as a brand new American English idiom that persists to this very day as a new part of our very language!), and that coincides with shortly after such drugs began to be widely prescribed, first among government employees such as — you guessed it — postal workers.
Then the rash of school shooting sprees that began on February 2, 1996, mere months after then-President Clinton’s federal act banning guns in schools nationwide went into effect (didn’t work, did it!?!?). Notice that nearly all of these have happened in middle-class to upper-middle-class small towns and suburban communities? Littleton, not Denver. Pearl, not Jackson. Also, all but two of the perpetrators to date have been white middle-class or upper-middle-class male youth, and both of the exceptions (Jeff Weiss on an Indian reservation, and, of course, Cho of Virginia Tech) have been very recent, long after the peak. Not one black kid. Not one taking place in an inner city “da ’hood” ghetto. Why would such things be more prominent among the “nice, quiet” small communities and upper middle-class? Maybe because those were the first people who could afford to give their kids psychiatric (not psychological — psychologists can’t prescribe medication) care and afford the drugs themselves (which cost several times the price of gold or even platinum by weight!)? And note that the exceptions happened later, as once treatments become popular, the welfare state tries to make them available to the economic underclasses as well, notably American Indian reservations (Jeff Weiss, who was known for a fact to be on Prozac).
If it were just that mentally ill people who would commit such acts are the ones who need and thus take such drugs, then the rates of such crimes should’ve been higher before the drugs existed and became widely available. They should’ve been happening among the classes that did not have access to the drugs, more than the ones who did, if, that is, the drugs actually helped the people who would otherwise commit such crimes. Obviously, this isn’t the case.
There’s more — a lot more — but this post is too long already.
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