The Minneapolis Church Shootings

You have no doubt heard, read, and seen, about another mass shooting; at a church in Minneapolis. The shooter was “trans.”

There is some dispute, as there always is with statistics. Some are saying transvestites are disproportionately likely to engage in such mass shootings. Others insist this is a myth. I submit that they are, and it is predictable that they will be.

Let me explain why.

First, anyone declaring themselves “trans” is a narcissist. It is an ego claiming the right and the ability to overrule the physical world: to decide its own sex in defiance of biology. This is equivalent to declaring yourself God—extreme hubris. Acting as the other sex also attracts attention, which the narcissist craves.

This is why there are suddenly so many transgenders, when the tendency was almost unheard of in North America or Europe a hundred years ago. It is because our childrearing has shifted to “unconditional love” and building “self-esteem,” encouraging narcissism.

Inevitably, this narcissism involves a desire to dominate those around you. You will insist on others submitting to your imposed reality; they are not to be left alone, but must be made to assent publicly to your claimed reality. They must not, for example, “dead-name” you. They must use your preferred pronouns, even when you are not present. This also establishes your command over the English language.

This is necessarily a spiritual or psychic dead end. In the end, reality around you will not bend to your will. This causes built up anger, frustration, despair: the symptoms classified by current psychiatry as “depression.” 

Unfortunately, psychiatry and any therapist you go to will not recognize the problem, will not give any advice, but just prescribe you pills for the reported symptoms: SSRIs to dull the despair and anxiety.

SSRIs, like alcohol, deaden emotions, and this includes empathy. They reduce anxiety by silencing the voice of conscience. So, while arguably helpful for true depressives, they exacerbate narcissism.

So you are more likely to act out your anger and frustration on those around you. You will want to punish the world for not submitting to you. You will especially want to influence and to harm children, because they seem most innocent and vulnerable—the domination is most complete. But you will also want to lash out at God, as he is your obvious rival for complete dominance.

It is all perfectly predictable, and we are seeing it again and again.

It is a criminal misdirection to call for a ban on guns. And it is a well-meaning but disastrous error to call instead for more funding for “mental health.” The mental-health complex is causing the problem. The problem is not transgenderism, as such, but narcissism, which may or may not be expressed in transgenderism; and the problem is prescribing SSRIs for narcissists.

A more religious society is the ultimate solution.

Kennedy on SSRIs

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is getting a lot of heat during his current confirmation hearings for having criticized SSRI antidepressants in the past. Specifically, he is alleged to have said that they cause school shootings, and that they are addictive.

Obviously, there is a lot of money for drug companies in SSRIs, because people who take them are usually on them for a long time, often for life. We ought to be suspicious.

Doctors, in turn, like pills; it is their entire business. You go to your doctor with a complaint, and they will prescribe one, even if they do not believe it will do anything. You have to keep the customer satisfied. They pride themselves on the “placebo effect.”

And insurers, patients, and the government like pills too. A pill for depression looks ideal: no expensive and intrusive therapy sessions with a psychiatrist. No need for any life changes.

Moreover, “Big Pharma,” the drug companies, finance the campaigns of many politicians. Their advertising sustains a lot of the media. So they are in a position to silence any doubts, as they seem to be doing here.

We ought to begin from the suspicion that SSRIs are being overprescribed. 

RFK Jr. is right. 

Whenever another mass shooting happens, there is always an outcry to ban guns. Which is either folly or deliberate misdirection. There are lots more guns in private hands in countries like Switzerland or Israel than in the US, yet no more school shootings there. The number of mass shootings per capita is actually pretty constant country to country across the developed world, despite varying gun laws and levels of gun ownership. Even take away all guns: those intent on mass murder can resort to cars, or IEDs. The UK government has actually, absurdly, recently introduced a bill banning the sale of knives. Guns are not the issue.

Those wanting to defend the right to bear arms then resort to blaming the shootings on mental illness. After all, the shooters invariably have a history of mental illness. So what is needed is not fewer guns, but more money for mental health. These people must get treatment.

This idea, however, is equally folly or misdirection. The killers have a history of mental illness. That means they have been diagnosed; they are in the system; they have been receiving treatment. Treatment has not worked. The incidence of mass shootings or mass killings is consistent across jurisdictions despite varying levels of investment in the mental health system. Lack of treatment is not the problem.

Further, this association of violence with mental illness is profoundly discriminatory towards the mentally ill. The mentally ill as a demographic are actually statistically less likely to be violent than the general population. Stigmatizing them as violent and dangerous gives them more stigma and more problems when they are already the most stigmatized and suffering among us. It is scapegoating the most vulnerable.

RFK has rightly deduced that the problem has to be with the treatment. These killers are all taking SSRIs.

And it is not hard to see what is going on.

So far as we know, there is no such underlying disease as “depression.” This is true of everything we class as “mental illness.” What we have is a set of symptoms, listed in the DSM, which may be caused by all kinds of underlying conditions. We prescribe SSRIs for a certain set of symptoms, called “depression,” in the same way we might prescribe aspirin for pain or fever, without knowing what is causing the pain or fever.

This means SSRIs are at best only suppressing symptoms while leaving the underlying condition to fester and perhaps grow. Without SSRIs, the problem might instead be addressed and solved. Instead, tragically, modern psychiatry, given their present SSRI approach, expects most with symptoms of depression to recur in time and only get worse as the patient ages.

The initial thesis on which they were introduced, that depression was caused by a “chemical imbalance in the brain,” specifically a lack of serotonin, has been disproven by subsequent research. If they work, we do not know why they work.

But what they do, subjectively, is to deaden emotions. This includes happiness, love, laughter, but also unpleasant emotions like anxiety, fear, and sorrow—the symptoms labelled “depression.” 

This means that, rather like alcohol, they also deaden the conscience. They deaden feelings of guilt.

This is good for those feeling unwarranted anxiety and sorrow, usually as a result of being abused. 

This is bad for those feeling anxiety and sorrow due to their past bad actions or their overblown self-esteem being frustrated by the realities of life.

The former, when they feel bad, want to kill themselves. They see themselves as worthless. The SSRIs, unfortunately, can make them more likely to commit suicide, by taking away their fears and inhibitions. This problem is well known.

The latter, when they feel bad, want to kill anyone around them, as many other people as possible. Hence, mass shootings.

And the awful truth is that either form of “depression” does have a cure, that SSRIs, psychiatry, and the pharmaceutical industry suppress.

It is called religion. Religion can recalibrate one’s sense of values and self-worth. It has worked for thousands of years. 

We have been moving away from it in recent years, largely due to the rise of psychology and psychiatry as a “scientific” substitute.

Mass murder is only one of the results; along with a rising tide of depression, mental illness, drug addictions, social breakdown, family breakdown, and suicide.

All the Way with RFK

 

I am glad RFK Jr. is in the race. I might disagree with him on many things, I might never vote for him, but he is speaking sense and raising important issues others are not talking about.

RFK is right in this clip on the connection of mass shootings to SSRIs. 

The problem is not guns. Other countries have stricter or looser gun regulations than the US, more or fewer guns, but this does not correlate with the number of mass shootings. Nor do they correlate state by state.

The problem is not mental illness. We do not need more money for mental health. The reality is, all these shooters were already being treated. And other nations spend more or less money on “mental health,” but this does not correlate with the statistics on mass shooting. 

What does correlate, and possibly 1:1, is the treatments we are using for “mental illness”: the problem is SSRIs. That is, Prozac and its kin, the standard treatments we use for depression and anxiety.

Or rather, the problem is our inability to diagnose. SSRIs may be helpful for many, for those suffering anxiety and grief over false guilt and moral confusion produced by an abusive childhood or other abuse. But many others also suffer anxiety and grief, but over their own bad behaviour. The anxiety and the grief are actually their conscience calling them to account.

SSRIs deaden the ill-feelings in either case. 

In the first case, this is beneficial. They can allow the unjustly suffering to lead relatively normal lives—at the expense of never dealing with the problem causing the pain. 

In the case of the latter, this is catastrophic. It frees the narcissistic predator of all restraints. 

Modern psychiatry/psychology cannot see the difference, and cannot accept the difference, because it will not recognize, and denies, all moral issues. All it sees are the symptoms, of anxiety and grief, and so prescribes the same pill.

In either case, the better treatment is a call to true religion; to straighten out a smashed moral compass.

Nor is it that hard to make an accurate diagnosis, were we not in denial of morality generally. The effects of SSRIs are like those of alcohol. Either eases inhibitions. 

So observe someone drunk. If they remain good company, and simply become more talkative and sociable, they are safe for SSRIs. If the difference is notable, they are naturally too inhibited. If they just become sleepy and dopey, this is a bad sign, they are an addictive personality, who do not need more comfort, but at least they will not likely become violent. If they become critical of those around them, pick fights, or show outbursts of anger, they are a risk for violence with SSRIs. They need what inhibitions they still have.

If a true depressive feels bad, they blame and may harm themselves. If a narcissist feels bad—and they inevitably will, for the universe will always disappoint their sense of their just desserts—they will blame and seek to harm whoever else is available.

The Culture of Death

Just a quick, common example of how environmentalism has become an anti-human creed implicitly  justifying mass shootings. Friend Xerxes writes, in his latest column:

"At the planetary level, I wonder if we’re becoming a cancer. I don’t like the idea of encouraging deaths. But maybe we should re-think our incessant urge to prolong life indefinitely."

The Growing Toll of Environmentalism

Save our people?

It occurs to me that the entire structure of Pharisaism—in modern times, the education system, the press, the legal system, and the government bureaucracy—is there to inculcate and sustain the shared delusions of the matrix.

A current and critical example is the rash of mass shooters in the US. To read the press and watch the mainstream media, you would think they are all white supremacists and Trump supporters. The manifesto of the Christchurch killer was even aggressively suppressed in order, it seems, to further this idea.

And this is a particularly pernicious example. It is sacrificing innocents to Moloch in order to preserve the power of the powerful. Unless we examine the true causes of these killings, they will no doubt continue and get worse.

None of these killers have been Trump supporters, and none of them have been white supremacists.

Looking at the most recent shootings, in Dayton, El Paso, and Gilroy, and also at Christchurch, what is the real common thread?

It is environmentalism.

All of these killers were animated primarily, it seems, by the idea that human beings are destroying the sacred earth. This gives implicit warrant to kill people.

And, of course, if overpopulation is strangling the planet, it is transparent madness to let all kinds of people into the country. We will then ultimately need to fight them over the last water hole. It is simple urgent survival to keep their numbers down by any means necessary. While it is still possible…

The second consistent thread of thought among these killers seems to be multiculturalism/cultural relativism. This links culture with race, as the Nazis did. If new immigrants flood in, there is no question under multiculturalism and the banning of “cultural appropriation” of their assimilating and becoming like the rest of us. Instead, any large migration is an invasion by a permanently alien entity. Allow enough of them in, then, and necessarily, by this logic, it will end the existing American culture. If you suppose America is even a little better than the average among nations, or have some sentimental attachment to things like Mom, democracy, equality before the law, and apple pie, this would seem to demand action in defense of the country. Sheer self-reservation again demands action before it is too late.

But this idea comes entirely from the left, not the right; at least in North America. The traditional doctrine on the North American right has always been that neither Canada nor America is an ethnic nation, but are founded on certain shared ideas or values—on common culture. This multiculturalism and cultural relativism rejects.

Next to this, a common thread for many of these cases—I do not know if this is true in these present cases—seems to be the effective absence of a father in the home of the killer.

And again, it is the left that is promoting the idea that fathers are unnecessary.

Guns and Mental Illness on the Rampage in Florida. Why Won't the Politicians Do Something?

The usual suspect.

Seventeen people have been killed in a random mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. And, with annoying predictability, politicians are exploiting the catastrophe, as they always do, to blame Republicans for not bringing in some new law further restricting gun ownership. As if the solution to the problem were obvious, and the Republicans were just being evil. They’ve all been bought by the NRA.

The real problem is, there is no good reason to suppose that any possible law involving gun ownership would make such events less likely. As this painstaking statistical analysis shows, mass shootings are actually no more common in the US than in other developed countries. Folks in the US suppose they are, first, because the population of the US is much larger, so that there are inevitably more such events there, and second, because in America, mass shootings in other countries are given less media coverage.

These different countries have different gun control laws, and indeed different policies in many areas. This is strong evidence that no law is going to make any difference; and no law on gun ownership is going to make any difference.

Those in support of greater gun control point to Australia. Oz significantly restricted gun ownership after a mass shooting in 1996—about 20% fewer guns in private hands now—and, the gun control advocates point out, there have been no mass shootings in Australia since.

Still, this is not strong evidence. Mass shootings are rare; there having been none in Australia since 1996 might only be a small statistical anomaly. There have also still been mass killings in Australia, but not using guns. Does it really matter what weapon is used? There have even been attempted mass shootings, but they did not succeed well enough to meet the standard threshold of four people dead.

Overall, violence involving guns in Australia has indeed declined since the tougher gun laws were passed. However, gun violence has declined in the US over the same period, and even at a faster rate. And the US, during that time, has somewhat loosened its gun laws. In the first three years after the laws were passed, in which one should have seen the most dramatic effect, gun violence in Australia actually grew.

Nothing there that counts as scientific evidence. Nobody knows why the rate of violent crime has been declining, in the US or in Australia. My bet is improved technology leading to more efficient policing.

In sum, there is no reason to think that new and tighter gun control laws would do anything but win some politicians some votes. And, if there is any valid reason for the US Second Amendment, that too goes out the window.

Alongside the demand for stricter gun control laws, there has been a demand to attack the “real problem,” which is supposedly putting more money into mental health. President Trump just made that call, and it is almost as familiar a response.

It is no more sensible. Just as the various other developed countries have various other gun laws, yet do no better at preventing mass shootings, they have various mental health systems, yet do no better. If there is a problem here, then, it is not with the particular laws or resources surrounding mental health, but with our general understanding: with the mental health field. For the “science” of mental health will be more or less the same in all those countries.

Actually, many studies show that the “mentally ill” are in fact no more likely to commit violent crime than the general population. There seem to be no studies showing that they are more likely. Accordingly, putting more money into mental health, while it might be a fine idea for other reasons, would do nothing to reduce mass shootings.

Those advocating this “more mental health” approach will point to the fact that, although statistically the mentally ill are not killers, statistically, the killers are mentally ill. Again and again, when someone has gone somewhere with a gun to shoot everyone in sight, it turns out he was either taking antidepressants, or had just gone off antidepressants. This column makes that case. Other studies show that, while there is no statistical connection between mental illness and mass shootings, there is indeed a more specific statistical connection between [diagnosed mental illness with substance abuse] and [mass shootings].

So is putting more money into the treatment of mental illness indeed the answer? No—all the killers examined by Leo Knight in his column are actually united not by being mentally ill, but by being treated for mental illness. They were already in the system and receiving the standard treatment. More of the same will not make matters better. The problem is not that people are being overlooked, missed by the mental health system, not receiving needed treatment.

In fact, you could as easily argue from this data that the problem is with the treatment. Was the violence caused by the depression, or was it a side effect of the drugs? If the latter, the best way to prevent mass shootings might be to put less money into mental health, not more.

So, okay, is the problem with antidepressants, then? Not in itself; that cannot be so. When statistics show that the mentally ill are no more likely than the general population to commit acts of violence, how do they determine who is mentally ill? This almost has to mean anyone who has this medical diagnosis, and anyone who has this medical diagnosis will, as a matter of course, have been given these same antidepressants.

Another important question is going begging here. How can it be that, one the one hand, the mentally ill are no more statistically likely than the general population to be violent, yet violent people are statistically more likely than the general population to be mentally ill? The solution to that puzzle should give us the answer to the mass shootings.

I think the only possible explanation is misdiagnosis. There are two quite different phenomena, two quite different classes of people, being diagnosed and treated as depressive or mentally ill. One group is significantly less likely to be violent than the general population, and the other is significantly more likely to be violent than the general population. Since we use the same diagnosis for both, the stats for both get thrown together, it ends up a wash, and we miss important data.

My hypothesis: the symptoms we call depression, and more broadly the symptoms we call mental illness, can come from two sources. In the first—the non-violent group—they are essentially caused by PTSD. They are caused by trauma; by being abused; or by experiencing some intolerable life situation. In the second, the violent group, the same symptoms, of sadness and anxiety, are largely the voice of the individual’s conscience. They are caused by his or her own tendency to choose to do evil. They are anxious because of instinctive fears of cosmic justice; they have negative thoughts about themselves because they have, in fact, done negative things. A narcissist or psychopath will also feel they deserve whatever they want. Life and other people will not give them whatever they want. As a result, they will feel a general ennui, dissatisfaction, depression, if you like.

While the first group might want to kill themselves, this second group, with the same superficial symptoms of sorrow and anxiety, will instead want to kill everybody else.

These are opposite tendencies. In fact, the people with tendency two are probably the people who originally abused those suffering from tendency one.

It is a crowning injustice, if I am right, that the very victims of injustice are now being accused of and blamed for the acts they suffered. This is what happens when you conflate the two groups.

The problem with antidepressants, and psychiatric drugs generally, is that they only treat symptoms. They are like taking an aspirin for pain. The leg is still broken. For the first tendency, this may be worthwhile. But for the second group, the narcissists and psychopaths, the antidepressant will largely serve to numb conscience. Allowing them to dig their grave that much deeper. It is telling that this violent group is the same group that tends to abuse alcohol and drugs—these work the same way, numbing conscience, “inhibitions.”

To reduce mass shootings, and violence in general, we need to become aware of this vital distinction. We need more accurate diagnosis, and different “treatments” for some. But legislation has nothing to do with it, and can do nothing.

More Examples ...

... of armed civilians taking down "active shooters."

Roseburg and Guns

The deadly English longbow. For national defense, every English freeman was drilled in its use. It could take down a knight on horseback. Result: human equality.

Another mass shooting in the US, in Oregon, and another general call for tougher laws on gun control.

First point: appearances to the contrary, and for what it is worth, mass shootings in the US are not becoming more common. They are becoming less common. Nor are there actually more mass shootings in the US than in other developed naions. Apparently, there have been more proportionate to population in Finland and Norway.

Second point: tougher control of guns will probably do little to prevent mass killings. If it amounts to anything less than banning all guns, the killers will just adapt accordingly; they will use a different model. Security checks are of slight use; they will only catch previous offenders, who will then, being criminals, probably acquire what they want on the black market. As for the mentally ill, we are totally incapable of predicting who is dangerous and who is not. Banning all guns would obviously be unconstitutional in the US, even if desirable.

Nor would banning guns necessarily reduce mass killings. How many people were killed on 9-11? How many guns were used? How about at the Boston Marathon? How about suicide bombers? Why wouldn't the method simply adjust?

Third point: banning guns is not desirable. The Second Amendment exists because an unarmed citizenry is vulnerable to an oppressive government. The historical evidence is plain that a yeomanry armed with the longbow, effective against armoured men on horseback, was the critical factor in the development of human rights and then democracy in England. From there, the British right to bear arms, enshrined in the British as well as the US Bill of Rights, spread it throughout the Anglosphere. The right to bear arms was an important protection for blacks in the South in quite recent years.

Fourth point: if we want to reduce mass shootings, there is one simple thing we could do that probably would be rather effective. Ban publication of the name of the shooter, or his or her photograph, or any details that would allow him or her to be identified by the public. The public has no legitimate need to know these details; they probably have little interest. This would withdraw the single strongest motive behind the killings: the chance at fame.

Fifth point: it is no coincidence that these mass shootings always take place in advertised “gun free zones.” Such places are a natural magnet to mass killers. Would you post a sign on your front lawn saying “no guns in this house”? Why not “no dangerous dogs, no alarms, and doors are unlocked”? I suggest that any institution that enforces such a “gun-free” policy is implicitly taking responsibility for protecting the safety of all on the premises. If someone gets shot in a “gun-free zone,” they or their family should be able to sue the institution. Big time.

A recent Rolling Stone article claims, more or less against this, that no mass shooting has actually been stopped by a civilian bearing arms in the last thirty years.

Eh? Canadians will immediately want to say, “but what about Kevin Vickers?” The assault on Parliament, of course, like the recent incident on a train in France, happened outside the US, and so will not show in US statistics. But they also would not appear for another reason: something is called a “mass shooting” when at least four or five people are killed. When there is a civilian nearby with a gun, things are unlikely to go this far, and they did not in either of those cases. Rolling Stone's evidence actually works against its point, and shows what a disaster gun free zones really are. For what it's worth, BuzzFeed cites a variety of other cases in recent years where armed civilians prevented mass killings.

Two action items, then: ban all publicity for the killers, and put the kibosh on gun-free zones.

By contrast, just calling for more gun control is revoltingly cynical.

How to Really Stop Mass Shootings

All right, banning more guns is going to do nothing to prevent incidents like the recent Connecticut shooting. What will?

One idea is to lock up anyone who is mentally ill and shows violent tendencies. The problem with this is that professional psychiatrists and psychologists have demonstrated no ability whatsoever to identify who is and who is not a threat of violence. In fact, studies suggest they are worse at this than the general population.

But this may not be a problem. Most of the mentally ill, let alone the violently mentally ill, do not want to live in society. Living in the community is the last thing they want to do. The community has driven them crazy. I bet they would voluntarily remove themselves from the community, given half a chance.

They don’t so it now, firstly, because they are not allowed to, and second, because the asylums have for some mad reason generally been designed to be like prisons. Instead, a lot of them die on the street.

Portrait of an Insane Woman, 1854

The trick is to design an asylum that is not too attractive to an ordinary, simply lazy person, gives the (perhaps violently) insane what they want, and separates them from the rest of society.

In a country like the US or Canada, with lots of land, there does seem to be a simple solution: offer the self-selected “mentally ill” free accommodation in small communities remote from the rest of us. An abandoned mining town, for example, where accommodations would be cheap. Offer no entertainment, no TV, internet, radio, or movies; the insane will not care, while those not insane will miss it enough for this to be a deterrent. The non-insane will also be deterred by separation from their families, friends, and familiar social networks; this will be an attraction for the insane.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it should. I’m describing something a lot like a monastery. There is a good reason for that.

Most of the mentally ill probably most need time to think, and time to deal with the spirits who are trying to communicate with them. Our current practice does everything we can to prevent this. Allow it, and I suspect most of the mentally ill will be able to cure themselves, most fairly quickly.

One of our biggest mistakes is in trying to coerce the mentally ill. Why do we do this? Probably because of the universal human urge to bully the weak. The runt gets pecked to death by the pack. But if the “mentally ill” are living apart, there is no longer any real need to force anyone to take medicine. Let them do it if they want, not do it if they want. Let them wander freely; into the woods away from everyone if they prefer.

The town would need most of the facilities of any small town: a restaurant for those who cannot manage to cook for themselves, a laundry for those who cannot manage to clean. A police force to keep people from eating one another. A doctor; ministers and churches. Postal service. But for the most part, treat these people as adults who know what is best for themselves, and have the right to decide things for themselves, while reducing stress where possible.

Besides preventing people from going off and shooting everyone in sight, this would almost certainly be far cheaper than what we do now for the “mentally ill.” Far more humane. And far more effective.