i’m not one to really do the whole rant thing. i’m usually good for a one liner, but i’m going to indulge myself. from the point of view of one afflicted with a mental illness, i hold as my opinion that it’s far less intrepid to blame a relatively unknown and natural imbalance of chemical compounds in the brain than it is to look back at how weapons have evolved from their inception and how our lives are affected by their very existence. psychiatrists can’t even get a prescription right for sometimes months and even then it is an ongoing battle to understand how and why they just ’ aren’t doing what they’re supposed to.’ psychiatry is an experimental science. it helps a vast amount of people, but also hurts a vast amount of people. drugs used to curb maniacal thoughts often make them exponentially more intense and transform a perhaps manic, perhaps angry, perhaps screaming – but otherwise peaceful – human being into something else entirely. and have you ever listened to the side effects of anti-depressants? one is always depression and suicidal thoughts and, in fact, those words are usually – if not always – followed by a statement that the drug may worsen these symptoms. and they often do. the best case scenario sought through psychiatric medication in my experience seems to be to get you to feel nothing. and that is a goddamn disgrace to the human spirit. morgan freeman seems to think turning off the news is a good idea. well, of course it is. he says that third graders shouldn’t be interviewed on television just after a traumatic event. fuckin, duh. he wants you to give money to mental health services because you should because case workers and psychologists do amazing things for their patients and the drugs work for some people. but if for a second you are going to sit and believe that if the man who turned a firearm on a school of small children wouldn’t have been a danger to others if there was no mass media…if you think that he would have stayed a sad, lonely creature stored away in a basement…you’ve greatly misunderstood the difference between a generic description of diagnosed mental illness and what it means for a human mind to be predisposed for any kind of physical violence. i have made the point again and again that if the weapons that we have devised to operate at the push of a button or the pull of a lever didn’t exist, mass murders like these wouldn’t happen like this. they’d still happen because some people want them to happen. a man could be armed with a fork and kill a dozen people before he was stopped. but the fact of the matter is that if 8 people jump on a guy with one fork, one, maybe two people get stabbed. if 8 people rush a guy with a gun, he may have time to kill all of them. i am deeply disturbed by this country’s obsession with retaining the right to bear arms. i am deeply disturbed by anyone who is, though i suppose i respect your often valid points. on a grander scale, i am deeply disturbed that our country spends so much money on making weapons of mass destruction which kill innocent people a great deal of the time. i am also deeply disturbed by the fact that our way of existence is so proliferated with the nonsense and disgrace we toss at each other in the great war of “now’s not the time for that conversation.” i would, should, and can only hope that it is always time for any conversation. and never the time for violence. let’s please remember the names of the victims. sure. that’s a nice sentiment. but it helps nothing, solves nothing, and prevents nothing. i am for the abolition of guns worldwide, but i’m not a child so i know that won’t happen. it won’t happen because animal aggression is a part of our very dna and the gun, the missile, the drone, the tank, etc. are fantastically representative of our seeming desire to mutilate the opposition . but if, for example, you’re one who buys a gun to go into your backyard to shoot at a target or into a hill, i want you to take a moment and think about why you need to feel that kind of power. hit a punching bag, it’s good for you. and if you want to go hunting, be a man and learn to use a bow and arrow. it’s so much more badass anyway……i do pray for the families of the victims of this and every catastrophe. but i am forever annoyed and saddened that anyone honestly thinks mental illness breeds violence. i say, a great deal of violence is caused by subjectively insane, but objectively mentally healthy individuals. we should arm ourselves with profanity. for sticks and stones may break your bones, but words could fucking kill you. and at least you can fire back.

http://psychrights.org/research/Digest/Pending/mythandreality.pdf