Why are we tolerating this madness?

NewsWithViews.com
February 19, 2008

Once again Americans sit transfixed in front of televisions, soaking up the images of violence emanating from Northern Illinois University. Six are dead including the shooter — a 27 year old man; a former student at NIU who, like so many before him, was a “nice young man” who had gone off his meds and started acting erratic.

The talking heads are at it again. News anchor after news anchor, rehash after rehash, focuses on guns on campus; talking head after talking head makes the preposterous and unsubstantiated claim that more guns means more violence.

The American people sit in front of their television sets and gobble it up like the latest tasty creation in candy, marketed with the promise of keeping the consumer thin.

That such might not be the truth goes right over the heads of people who want to believe, wholeheartedly, that their government would never lie to them, much less those nice people who deliver what little real news doesn’t end up on the editing room floor before the daily news airs.

There is one commonality in all of these shootings that, while mentioned, is lost in the subterfuge focusing on guns.

Not long ago, a young man was arrested in the parking lot of a high school in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. On the front seat of his car was found a loaded shotgun; three other high-powered rifles were found in the trunk; the result of a burglary at his uncles’ home the night before in which the young man was suspect.

What was to come out in the days following this incident was that the young man had recently been on mind-altering anti-depressants.

Here we go again. Kip Kinkel, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, the Virginia Tech shooter, all on mind-altering prescription anti-depressants, as was the Northern Illinois University shooter; as have been a long list of shooters who have killed a multitude of others before killing themselves or surrendering as authorities converged.

How many of these shootings have to happen before the people rise up and demand accountability for young people being put on these mind-altering drugs? How many more people have to die before we finally say “enough is enough”?