JLC: Wow! That is a fantastic article...and one of the things I noticed on all of the photos, I've seen before, of these lone gunmen was their zombie-like stares.

Quote the article: "What we might call the "zombie effect" seems to come up in many of these cases. Also common is that the violent behavior tends to occur when the patient is either having the dosage adjusted, or has just stopped taking the pills. "
http://www.realitysandwich.com/shooters

So, it's not the guns that kill people it's the drug-induced people that use guns that kill people. And if they don't have guns they will use clubs and knives...like in the many times this has happened in China where guns are banned. Maybe instead of targeting (pardon the pun) the NRA and gun owners we should be targeting the DEA and other parts of our government that lets these pharmaceutical companies market these dangerous drugs.

Or, if you are going to try to ban guns...at least ban only those who are taking dangerous psychoactive drugs like some anti-depressants.

There could be a direct real-time communication line between those prescribing and/or selling pharmaceuticals and the regulating arm of our government so that if someone in a residence is prescribed a dangerous drug then their guns have to be turned in, or they can't purchase these weapons to begin with. Don't blanket the whole population with strict gun laws.

And, thanks to the CIA and the US Government that took part in making the drug problem what it is today, who smuggled Heroin and Cocaine into the US on a massive scale, and who gives the pass on other dangerous "legal" drugs, we have atrocities occasionally flaring up that kills masses of people. The article mentions the book "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred W. McCoy which I haven't read but I have read "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press" by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair.

With over two million unemployed losing their unemployment benefits and any means to feed and house their families, there may be a lot more people so depressed that they are likely to do anything...maybe the government will put them on anti-depressants.

This is the beauty and appeal to being a Conservative politician. (A) You do your job by doing nothing and (B) Your bribery benefactors have the deepest pockets.

None of those pesky responsibilities or hard decisions to run the country. And plenty of golf, booze and women.

Can't get through on the phone lines but I am a Tennessee resident living in the district of Dr. Scott DeJarlais. The Congressman that was found to have pressured his girlfriend (who just happened to be his patient) to get an abortion. But he was reelected even after all this had come to light. Actually I am in Rep. Diane Black's district until the new congress begins and the redistricting beginds. Diane Black has been named the most conservative member of congres. Over all I am disgusted byt the Democratic Party on the State Level.

I was able to get through to Thom on the phone but got dropped, Thanks verizon.

When I first moved to TN I worked within a stones throw of Al Gore's home in South Carthage TN. This area has been solid Democrat many years. Al Gore's father was Senator for many years I believe as well. Not long after 1988 things started to swing. Now it is solidly entrenched Republican. Is it the corporate right wing media? Limbaugh and Faux News etc.?

I would love to get out and get involved in party politics more but being disabled it is hard to do.But I can write letters, emails and make phone calls which I have been and will be doing to my elected officials ASAP. Including Corker, Alexander and DeJarlais. When I do contact them I get canned responses writen by some corporate lobbyist it seems.

And I was wrong. Ashley Judd is in Kentucky. They are trying to recruit an oppenent to Alexander.

I think we should get ready for Phase II of the 2008 mortgage takedown now that people have less and less money.

I know more than several people who stopped paying their mortgage payments the last several years because of a company's inability to find the original loan papers.

I think this paper chase was a stall on the part of the banks, to create a lag in a massive plan to foreclose, and to do it after the election. Now the time is ripe for more and more legal action to be taken by banks. Payments are bound to be higher for those who haven't paid into escrow.

This will ball up the Administration, and as well banks will threaten that if they can't foreclose some of these loans they are going to fail.

There are no free houses in America and these years of no payments will be taken out of all our hides one way or another.

With further and further dependency on JOB CREATION, which is a travesty in light of tectonic shifts in the technologies of production that destroy and devalue jobs, eventually resulting in taxpayer-supported government welfare, the United States has a bleak future ahead unless our leadership, academia, and the national begin to address income inequality resulting from OWNERSHIP CONCENTRATION of the productive capital of our economy, and implement financial mechanisms ala an Economic Marshall Plan that empowers ordinary Americans that are non- or undercapitalized to acquire ownership in the FUTURE growth of our economy's business corporations.

Palindromedary – After reading the article you refer to, I am appalled, yet not surprised by your comments concerning antidepressants and people committing horrific crimes against fellow human beings. Your insensitivity towards people who have a legitimate medical problem like depression and suffer from this disease on a daily basis is simply wrong. As usual you rant on about something you know little about, yet you take the freedom to compare those who take medications to treat this illness with psychotic killers. To start with, not all antidepressants are of the same class or type as the S.S.R.I. medications. And those who do take this class of medication are not prone to be madmen waiting to wreak havoc on society. With your usual bravado you link a conspiracy by the drug manufacturers and the C.I.A. and others who legalize these dangerous drugs. Again, as in the past, you read one article and come up with an all-consuming theory with very little knowledge of what you speak of. Just to set the record straight I do not use antidepressants, but I do have friends that do. And, they are far from the pyscho's you seem to link to these medications. I have seen the benefits of pharmaceutical drugs that are prescribed to patients in the correct dosage for specific ailments. I do agree that these lifesaving drugs need to be monitored, as any drug needs to be, to make sure the effects are not harmful to the patient or society. One of the people I speak of is a teacher and a leader in his community. But to hear your rants, one would be led to believe that everyone taking medications for a biological problem ends up enemy no.1 on the F.B.I.'s list of criminals. I really thought there was some meaning behind your rants on several subjects, but again I see I am wrong. I not only find your comments to be thoughtless, but also highly offensive in the way you portray these highly tested drugs as have been given a "pass" by the government agencies you mention. And to compare antidepressant drugs to heroine shows just how uninformed you actually are concerning this subject.

If you want to prevent people from owning weapons who use drugs that could result in people being murdered, you will have to start with the legal and lethal drug known as Alcohol. This drug has been involved in more deaths by the hands of others than any prescribed drug. I often wonder if you make these comments to get attention or you actually believe what you rant on about. No my friend we are not more alike than different. Your comment on several subjects has shown this to be the case.

The individuals involved in these horrific crimes against humanity had psychological problems much greater than simple depression. And to assume all individuals that do have this medical problem and are treated by doctors could somehow become psychotic and present a risk to society is simply an uneducated and moronic statement to make as a generality of all the tens of millions of people who are treated for this medical problem.

And having said that, I hope you have a healthy and happy New Year.

Mathboy - The voters in this state realized that going into the election. We have a Democrat Governor, a Democrat majority in the Senate and Assembly. Not too bad for a state most people like to take jabs at. We also increased the taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year for seven years and voted in a 1/4 cent tax increase on goods purchased to prevent any further down grading of our schools. We will have enough teachers in the coming years to afford the students enough teachers on student time to learn what is necessary to have a more complete education. And who would guess there has not been this great exodus out of our state by the wealthy or the business community that the Republicans said would happen! Who would have guessed!

Did somebody forget to take his meds today? I think so! It sure sounds like it.

Oh, wait a minute...of course...that's it...there's a full moon tonight!

You've heard the phrase "...he died of a thousand paper cuts". The transfer of wealth has many faces, many avenues in the thousands hiden behind laws favoring the Rich. The Republicans want to increase the Social Security Insurance threshold for retirement to age 70 as the excuse for reducing the budget deficit and SSI has nothing to do with the budgit deficit, since it is over 2 Trillion dollars to the good. The Republicans want to increase the threshold for Medicare to age 67 and Medicare has nothing to do with the deficit. We paid into these insurance programs and they are separate from the deficit. But, the Rich have had laws favoring their wealth and they are greedy and what they can't get from the "Front Door" they go to the "Back Door". The Republicans want to reduce Unemployment Insurace for the Unemployed which the workers paid for. These transfers from the insurance programs when the wealthy paid taxes on only the maximum of 15% of their earnings when the working class paid on the full dollar is an insult! The transfer of wealth is shrouded in the guise of budget deficit when they spent our way to shoot "Santa Claus"...

I hear ya, George Reiter! The Republicans are the Grinch that stole America for their own selfish ends. But the Democrats let them because the Democrats don't really represent the majority of Americans either...they are part of the illusion..or is it "delusion"? And the American people let the Democrats get away with telling their lies and not holding their feet to the fire...and even re-electing the liar...so that he can do it again. The ruling elite uses both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party to keep us beguiled, bewildered and befuddled.

And by the way...Shooting Santa Claus isn't really such a bad idea...by that I mean...hell..let's do away with Christmas and all the other holidays and celebrations where the merchants cajole us into wasting our money on trashy gifts that will just end up wasting storage space. We all need to break their hold on us. We're all like puppets..they pull the strings with their contrivances and commercials to get us to want things we can all do without.

Remember right after 9/11, all Bush could say was for us all to just "go shopping"? They want us all to shop till we drop and then they totally own us. Yard or Garage sales never recoup much of what you spent in the first place. I guess we're all hopelessly enamoured of collecting junk and throwing our money away. But the worst of it is that they are controlling us and jerking us to their every whim.

Let's just shoot Santa Claus...tell our kids that he doesn't really exist right off the bat so they don't all grow up with delusions and lies that we eventually will have to set straight. But, I guess one lie begets another bigger lie that many adults refuse to admit. People need to be shaken out of their fantasy worlds so they can recognize reality in order to properly deal with it.

Maybe they wouldn't need so many psychotropic prescription drugs for their inability to cope with reality. Yes, there are those whose conditions may be from physical maladies affecting the brain but it works the other way as well. A society that panders superstitious beliefs can't but help have a big problem with mental disorders. It all starts with Santa and the Easter Bunny and other equally ridiculous lies...like casting demons out of swine...walking on water...bringing a dead man back to life...dying on a cross and arising 3 days later...born of a virgin..that the great and all-powerful Oz knows all, sees all...hell, no wonder so many people need their meds.

In response to your comment on the unemployed, I feel you are right on. It seems the American condition is to look at a problem from the surface, ignoring the point of origin. There are as many unemployed off the record, either homeless on the streets or staying with family who usually can't afford the extra burden for more than 6 months, give or take a month or two. It is a demeaning system which pretends to provide incentive, but no one can really see it or feel it. We allow ourselves to be lead by the corporate sound bite. Fiscal cliff? We went over that the better part of a decade ago. We are now on the bottom scratching and climbing up, however the slopes are slippery and those who have all the resources are not sharing and never will of their own free will. Whether it be oil, corporate media, agricultural conglomerates, pharmaceuticals, ammunitions dealers[put those next to each other for the recent bloggers, I agree], or the Wall St. banksters and bullies who keep it comfy for them, we have to act. I have never seen a bully come around to being civil and a real team player without it being forced upon them by a democratic consensus, whether it be on the playground or in the big leagues. They are a few steps ahead and love to design our debate and discussions to keep us out of the real action zones. That is why I am truly grateful for entities like Democracy Now, Coomon Dreams, The Nation and other sources. We have to break up the conglomerates and mean it. They have been going for the internet and have made great strides in doing so on a global level. The only solution for the unemployed is to start getting active and not being willing to go by the established practices that keep them down, like outsourcing and union busting. Enough from me, time to get to work, self-employed, financially struggling, moving forward.

Don't you understand!? He's helping the poor by giving TAX CUTS to BILLIONAIRES and he's protecting the FREEDOM of the poor by cutting off their unemployment insurance benefits.

Your question is founded on many presumptions that have, at best, a shaky basis. How do you purport to speak for the middle class and if a portion of the middle class accepts certain assertions why is that?

Saul Alinsky described middle class prejudice very well when he wrote about how the success of his organizing project of impoverished stockyard workers affected those workers' thinking. Initially they were all poor, powerless, beaten down, without any self esteem remaining. They crafted a manifesto in which they declared that all men were brothers and rightfully equals, equally entitled and deserving regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, etc.. Then what happened was their project succeeded. The workers collectively gained power, won their battles, won a higher income and standard of living. The group of some 250 predominately Polish stockyard workers all bought neighboring houses in a new, middle classish development in Bridgeport, which is a neighborhood of Chicago a bit upper scale from Back of the Yards, where they were from.

No sooner had that happened than they forgot their passionately written manifesto and started complaining that they didn't want these types of people and those types of people and these other types of people moving into their nice new neighborhood.

Pat Brown, former governor of California and Jerry Brown's father, wrote in his book about Ronald Reagan that the Democratic Partyb was a victim of its own success. It moved the U.S. out of the Depression, moved the blue collar worker out of poverty and into the middle class. What happens when people start making money and bringing in higher incomes? They start buying stock and voting Republican. When I worked in newspaper circulation I knew many union truck drivers, many of whom had an income of $50,000 per year. With that money they started construction or rehab firms, towing services, bought bars, restaurants and income properties and so on. They began to employ people. Sometimes a driver/entreprenneuer would have his own workers organize or he'd have to deal with an existing union in his industry. It was amazing how the same driver who spoke so solemly and passionately of the importance of the Teamsters and of his labor union of drivers would, when talking about the organizing of his own employees and wokers, would denounce any idea of those workers' combination with equal passion. It is, in fact, a rare person who will vote against their own vested interests for the sake of abstract ethical principle.

In the case of welfare programs, there is a divisve strategy employed wittingly or not by welfare administrators and mandated by welfare legislation called "means testing". Means testing is the requiring of an applicant for welfare to prove that they are of a low enough income to qualify for the program they are applying for. Not only does it stigmatize the recipients of the program's benefits, causing them to be defined as people to disdain, but it creates what is called "middle class resentment" for the program and its recipients. Members of the middle class who don't qualify for the program, particularly those near the border line who could probably really benefit from it as they often have to choose between paying a medical bill, buying groceries or keeping tyheir electricity or heat on, acquire a resentment for trhose who do qualify for no other reason than because they are poorer and have less income than those who don't.

This contrasts with a government program whose benefit is treated as a basic human right, e.g., single payer healthcare that all are entitled to regardless of income. Because all are entitled to it there is no division and no resentment towards it or its recipients from any part of the society and the program tends to be well thought of and supported by all members of society.

Unemployment insurance is not, to my knowledge or perception, thought of negatively by the "middle class" or the blue collar part of the middle class, i.e., that part of it that consists of people who are employed by someome else. The part of the middle class and above that consists of owners of businesses may, in fact - and to my knowledge, does -have a dislike for UI.

Whether and to what extent UI and, for that matter, welfare, cause dependency is another controversy and another conversation.

Quote SHFabian: " If government extends UI once, they'll be asked to do it again, and again, and we'll end up with a welfare system, putting us all in danger of UI dependency. Right?"

So, are you saying that "moral hazard" is not just a bankster phenomenon? ;-\

Problem is that banksters and corporations are the biggest "welfare queens" expecting not only handouts for their reckless and feckless actions, but huge handouts that wreck economies. And they'll continue to expect these huge handouts over and over again. The big difference is that when the masses of little people get handouts they spend them for necessities to survive while the banksters (etal) just stash their booty into offshore accounts or into another Wall Street Casino roulette wheel. Spending by the little people will help the economy while it has been proven that these high roller scamsters have wrecked the economy. The workers or retirees or unemployed did not cause the multi-trillion dollar deficit. The deficit was mostly caused by the scams of the high-roller robber barons and Pentagon spending on illegal wars....and now a massive surveillance state to spy on every citizen. That's what caused the massive deficit. And now these scoundrels are trying to blame people laid off of their jobs or cheated out of their homes. The robber barons are not content with all they have stolen...now they want our Social Security and Medicare. How low can you get?

PLSzymeczek: I'm not so sure that what you say about Loughner is true...there are a number of Google Search hits that indicate that he may have been taking something...Yes, schizophrenic but also that his whole mood changed abruptly. But, of course..I doubt that it is always because of these medications...sometimes it may have nothing to do with being medicated...some people are just mentally unbalanced. Some people need these medications to cope and fit in to a more normal life. But if you have actually looked at that huge list of people who murdered other people who were on, or just stopped taking, their meds and concentrate on just that one who may never have taken these meds it is only one example compared to a great deal more who did. The contraindications of these medicines usually warn of the potential side effects so it should be no surprise to anyone that if side effects such as "aggression" or "delusions" etc. are a result of taking these medicines then people like this should not have possession of dangerous weapons...assault weapons...knives...or clubs...or even their cars. Take a good long look at that huge list...what more evidence do you need here? But what I am saying is instead of an irrational, over emotional, over reaction and making the majority of good people suffer for what a few have done why don't we look at the root causes of these occasional atrocities? And if you don't look at the root causes of why so many people need these medicines in the first place...at least keep these people from owning or accessing weapons. That mom in Connecticut should never have had these kind of weapons in their house because of her son's condition. She paid the price for her mistake. Unfortunately, so did so many others who were innocent victims. You can't just "shotgun" a problem with blanket over-emotional and irrational decisions. You'll never fix the problem that way. We need to recognize and remedy the root causes. Let's even explore what kinds of things would make people think of killing others in a school. What is it about schools that cause people to target them? What kinds of attitudes do some teachers or other children convey to these future killers when they went through school? What kinds of attitudes do parents pass on to their children who may make fun of some people in school? What kind of attitudes does our businesses and government pass on to the parents, who pass them down to the children, who make fun of other people in our schools? What kind of an example is it for a government to illegally invade and murder so many innocent civilians and then portray the lies of bravery and righteousness of these deeds on TV, in the movies, and in video games? I really don't think most people want to address the root problems...they really don't want to know...all they want to do is lash out emotionally and let themselves be herded into irrational ideas...just what some in power want...for you to be emotionally irrational so they can do with you whatever they want.

Hola;............NO deals.......Wait for the new Congress in January 2013.................

JohnR: I had also heard this several times in the beginning but then after that all we ever saw on TV was pictures of the AR15 Bushmaster. Looks to me like someone is really trying to play mind games with us here. Are these people showing pictures of containers of anti-depressants? No, of course not, there is no way they can elicit a fear response showing a bottle of pills compared to an AR15 Bushmaster. And even the handguns, which were most likely the only weapons actually used, are not quite as scarey as an AR15 Bushmaster. What we have is a bunch of people who are trying to ban all guns as their goals. And I believe most of those people are either unsuspecting dupes or they are pretend liberals or progressives who are really working for the people who want to totally disarm America...the ruling elite. The criminals, especially the top criminals, would really love it if no one else had any way of fighting back. It would be "shutup and do what I say...not do what I do...although you can envy all you want".

Quote Aliceinwonderland:" ...that those twenty Chinese kids attacked by a knife-wielding assailant ALL SURVIVED..."

But you are referring merely to the last attack in China...there have been many other similar knife and/or club attacks on school children in China* that had occurred previously and many of those children and teachers died. So, yes, it is easier to kill lots of people with an assault rifle than it is with a club or a knife but it is still possible to kill many with just a knife, a machette, or a club.

And the problem still remains that by banning such weapons, you are just banning them from law abiding people who may not have mental problems or who may not be taking psychotropic drugs like some SSRI anti-depressants.

You are still not getting at the roots of the problems. The roots of the problem are not the weapons..the roots of the problem are what the people will do because of their mental condition...the pills that they swallow...or need to swallow. The root of the problem is why so many people even have to take these pills to begin with...what is it about our society that stresses these people out to the extent that it creates the production of certain chemicals in the brain that makes people flip out? I believe most mental problems are created by the environment...various stresses. But there is an ever present reluctance on the part of those that cause the environment to admit to the problem. It is so much easier to put the blame on deceptive surface issues that won't actually solve the problem or even help remedy it. It is just an elusive action that will never solve the problem. But the politicians will never tire of shifting the blame to someone else, or something else, if they can get away with it. And many people are easy to look to so-called experts and news media talking heads who are all just pontificating on the regurgitated refuse handed down to them from the ruling elite. Name of the game is to keep the people confused and disarmed so that no matter how hard it gets, no matter how much they lie to us and use us as their foot stools, we will never really be able to fight them.

*

Quote article:"A series of uncoordinated mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in the People's Republic of China began in March 2010. The spate of attacks left at least 25 dead and some 115 injured. Analysts have blamed mental health problems caused by rapid social change for the rise in these kind of mass murder and murder-suicide incidents."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_%282010%E2%80%93201...

And, of course, everything else you said is true...I agree but how many more victims would there have been if instead of guns, or knives, or clubs....they used incendiary bombs...molotov cocktails...are we going to ban gasoline and bottles? Or even fertilizer? Remember OKC Federal Building...how many were killed then? Although, I don't think anti-depressants were involved..I don't know. Just what was the root of the problem there? Any guesses?

With all the guns in US how come no one ever seems to have one when these terrible things happen.

Back to the fiscal cliff as a Canadian I am told to mind my own business so this is just a suggestion. Raise taxes to people who make $500,000 plus 2% and lower everyone else by 2% and cut every federal deptments budget by 2%. Done. Happy New Year everyone.

Quote Aliceinwonderland:" I find it more than a little ironic how, here in the Wild, Wild West, there are more bureaucratic hurdles to deal with purchasing something like Sudafed than there are for purchasing a gun. Sorry my friend, but I've got a problem with that."

Well, I certain agree with you on that one! Why do you need prescriptions from a doctor to get medicines you know you need, and had already been prescribed by doctors before anyway, for chronic diseases like asthma...or even blood pressure medicines? I don't see a problem with Sudafed either...except it is used to make illegal drugs. But our government has no righteous, holier-than-thou position on illegal drugs anyway since they have been importing them since before Vietnam. They are just protecting the real pharmaceutical racket monopolies..the real drug lords of the US.

"SHFabian said: "The middle class made it very clear that extended periods on aid (regardless of what one calls it) drains a person of the incentive to get up and find a job. This is why it was decided that any sort of poverty relief provided to the able-bodied must be very time-limited..." and "If government extends Unemployment Insurance once, they'll be asked to do it again, and again, and we'll end up with a welfare system, putting us all in danger of UI dependency. Right?

Wrong, Mr. Fabian. First of all, who appointed you as Spokesman for the Middle Class? As if they all were in lockstep with their thinking, like those Teabagger ditto heads. I'm sure it would suit you just fine if they all looked down on those less fortunate than themselves. I've more than a hunch it's really just yourself you're speaking for rather than an whole class of people.

During past radio shows I've heard Thom Hartmann point out how unemployed people in other countries receive such benefits for longer periods of time, if not indefinitely. But hey, that's not the American way! Here in the good ole USA, we kick 'em when they're down. When the economy crashes & burns, and people lose their homes and their livelihoods, who cares if it's not their fault- let's just blame the victims anyway! Let 'em fend for themselves against the elements. After all, for anyone desiring to make an honest living, there's plenty of jobs around. There's no excuse for joblessness. Anyone who's unemployed and on unemployment insurance is simply a deadbeat and a loser... Right? Nope. I'm not buying it. - Aliceinwonderland

Geez PD- You're tiring me out! But I remain unswayed. Have a lovely weekend. - Aliceinwonderland

Aliceinwonderland: Sorry, not my intention. And good for you...sticking by what you believe.

Holy crap Ken we agree on something. With all do respect Palindromdary I think Ken W is right on this one. Wow I can't believe I agree with something Ken Ware said. I better go see the doctor I may have a chemical imbalance or something.