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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Random mass murder seems to be carried out by deeply disturbed young men who are socially withdrawn loners, and who have an over-riding sense of bitter resentment against some slice of society.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.