Virginia Tech Massacre - Legal & Logical Construct

April 23, 2007

Sharing a private discussion for your enlightenment .... Please forward to

any interested parties

Comments by an Attorney and Lecturer in Law & Ethics

(Further comments by this attorney will be preceded by his initials, “BT”)

I do not want to sound like an apologist for the second amendment gun lobby

but I am going to use their words.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people!

The school shooters were not motivated by the ease by which guns are

available in the US. They were not influenced by Glock and and

Wesson, Kalashnikov and Browning.

Does anyone seriously believe that the homicidal nihilistic thoughts of

, Dylan Klebold and Cho Seung-Hui's arose out of a passion for

shooting. The thoughts eating away at these seriously disturbed individuals

have their origins in much deeper corners of the human psyche and it is no

where near as unusual as our media might wish us to think.

The formula is well known, the path well trodden. Seriously disturbed young

man (it nearly always is a young man) gets treated for mental disorder

(treatment usually extend no further than an Rx for drugs) The

disinhibitory effect of these drugs plus easily available firearms and the

absence of any real care and support is the formula for disaster.

There are many bitter and twisted individuals in our societies who fantasize

about shooting up the school or workplace. Daydreaming about killing those

who we perceive have crossed us is not rare, it is common. What stops the

vast majority from carrying this fantasy out? Well most get over it, the

vast majority of others are stopped by their inhibitions, either fear of

consequences or a deep understanding of right and wrong. The few that for

whatever reason don't, get sent for 'mental health intervention', or

drugging as it is more accurately known. The drugs we use are known to

suppress inhibitions which is why suicidal ideation becomes suicidal act.

Guns do not cause suicides they facilitate them.

I repeat I do not want to sound like Charlton Heston here but the media is

harping on endlessly about why a mentally disturbed individual can so easily

buy a firearm in the US. The question that should be being asked is why a

disturbed individual with nihilistic and homicidal thoughts can be given a

drug that will strip away the last safeguard that stops him from acting out

his twisted fantasies.

===============================\\

Comments by an Ethical Psychiatrist:

(Further comments by this attorney will be preceded by her initials, “GJ”)

Agree.

I believe that the public would have no problem seeing a connection between

cocaine, crystal meth, or PCP and a shooting spree ---------

But, substitute " prescription drug " for illicit substance, and the entire

discussion shifts.

We need a thoughtful debate / discussion of many intriguing questions ----

such as:

How much frontal lobe function must be diminished before a person loses

" voluntary " control over his or her limbic system?

At what point does a prescription chemical induce dissociative phenomena

which impair the capacity for integrative functioning, self-awareness, and

moral agency ?

At what point do medical and mental health professionals themselves become

responsible for these events, as the prescribers of the " gasoline " which

pours fuel on extant fires?

For what's worth:

I do not believe there is a medication anywhere on the planet which delivers

precise " cognitions " or " wrong thoughts " . in that sense, I do not believe

that the drugs can be said to " cause " homicidal killing sprees.

Rather, I believe the drugs alter the capacity of far too many individuals

to execute control over their impulses; to contemplate

the consequences of actions (chosen or omitted); and to perceive

correctly the events or stimuli which originate from within or beyond the

Self ......................

[i.e., do we really know enough about the frequency with which neuroactive

drugs induce or exacerbate derealization, depersonalization, and

dissociative amnesia,etc]

===============================\\

Comment by an Insider - Privileged to the Above Referenced Discussion:

(Further comments by enlightened citizen/activist will be preceded by his

initials, “VB”)

Wow. you (two) have really put this all into perspective.

I've been cautious as to what goes out on this. I'm still in shock. We

haven't even buried the victims, yet everyone including the save-the-whales

folks are in on the action. All we are getting from the media is hysteria,

speculation, and pundits. And . . . we are getting this stuff by the ton.

Plus . . . . we get a deluge of self-serving butt-covering from the widely

quoted principals in law enforcement, the school administration, even a

creative writing instructor. A lot of " coulda, woulda, shoulda " . And

everyone an " expert " .

Surely everyone is entitled to their 15 minutes of fame. But . . .

ENOUGH, ALREADY!

I have been hoping, I guess against hope, to hear some intelligent comment.

You two have sorted out this mess in a few well written paragraphs.

Well done.

===============================\\

Comment by Another Insider - Privileged to this Discussion:

(Further comments from a paralegal/activist will be preceded by her

initials, “CDC”)

- responding to “BT”, “GJ” & “VB”

Thank you for your thoughtful input on this matter. VB, I agree with your

assessment. However, I wish to make one additional note.

GJ - you state that you-

" .... believe the drugs alter the capacity of far too many individuals to

execute control over their impulses; to contemplate the consequences of

actions (chosen or omitted); and to perceive correctly the events or stimuli

which originate from within or beyond the Self ..... "

What you believe has been evidenced in what we - the world - have witnessed

time and time again. (far too many individuals who are unable to execute

control over their impulses; far too many individuals who are unable to

contemplate the consequences of their actions - or if they do, don't care;

far too many individuals who are unable to perceive the events or the

stimuli which originate from within themselves or beyond themselves.

And yet you conclude

" .... I do not believe that the drugs can be said to " cause " homicidal

killing sprees... "

Is this not a matter of semantics?

Yes, I know you are a scientist. Your follow up questions are what every

ethical concerned scientist should be asking. BUT ..... we need to be

asking the " BUT FOR " question. But for the drugs, would the individual

have been able to exercise control over their impulses? But for the drugs,

would the individual's capacity to contemplate the consequences of their

actions have been impaired? But for the drugs, would the individual have

responded differently to the events and stimuli that were occuring?

In law, you try to isolate the causative factor(s). If you can answer the

question, but for the

drug(s) the individual would not have responded in that manner, then you

have established " cause " .

Certainly, " but for the guns " , many lives MAY have been spared... (what of

bombs?)

The real question on everyone's mind, NRA activists and the gun control

lobby alike, millions of everyday, ordinary people the world over - is WHAT

causes someone to become a cold blooded murderer.... I think your " belief "

statement answers that question.

===============================\\

More from our Ethical and Concerned Psychiatrist, “GJ”:

-Responding to “CDC”

Good points................

" but for.. " .....

I think we cannot ever answer whether or not a person Would " go off " without

the drugs.

But we can reasonably conclude that whatever else was going on, the drugs

certainly DID NOT HELP.

I had an argument with a guy the other day who said that we cannot conclude

that the drugs were not helping Cho, as without them, he may have killed

even MORE people!!!!

My point is different perhaps than yours, Breggin, Et al.........

I do not believe that we can say drugs give people the THOUGHTS for

homicide …

So far, there has never been created a pill that delivers specific BELIEFS

or cognitions, but I think there is clear evidence in this, as in many other

cases, that the PILLS which were given or COERCED did NOT accomplish the

INTENDED purpose.

Why must we allow these drugs on the market at all ????????

In how many patients must they fail with lethal consequences before we act

rationally by removing the pills ??

Serzone killed fewer than 50 people in Canada by liver failure (I am

estimating -- it may have been something like 30), before Canada pulled it

off the market

Why is our country so corrupt ?

===============================\\

More by Our Enlightened Citizen/Activist, “VB”:

-Responding to all involved in discussion

Here are my views on this. Nature, culture, religion, parenting, and social

conditioning gives us all a basket of things that provide most of us with a

set of innate rules that protect us against doing bad things.

This is the essence of " humanness " . Ability to love and to be loved is an

example,

but the list is endless.

An unstated objective of psychiatric drugs is to destroy these built-in

protections (actually to dehumanize) as a way of producing a compliant,

easily " managed " apathetic, lethargic, asexual, minimally functional

non-person with minimal reasoning power.

In the process, many of these innate functions are lost. In some extreme

cases,

“everything that makes a person a human being” . . . . . is gone.

===============================\\

Further Discussion from our Attorney Friend who Teaches Law & Ethics, “BT”:

-Responding to “CDC” – and for the enlightenment of all….

I do not think that the school shootings can be said to have been caused by

SSRI’s. That is too simplistic a position and one that can easily be argued

down. The issue is this and quite obviously this. In the last twenty years

there have been 19 school and workplace shootings where the shooter was

medicated. The relationship between these drugs and spontaneous violence

has also over that twenty-year period become established and it is possible

that the mechanism for this phenomenon has itself been identified.

The drugs are thought, even by their manufacturers to cause a disinhibiting

effect in the first few weeks of them being prescribed. It is a soundly

logical proposition that this disinibition is the trigger for the suicides

and homicides that have been associated with the prescription of SSRI’s

If that is true then to use the word “cause” is misleading. It can at best

be called one of the causes and we know all too well that our detractors

will always point to what they call the “underlying psychiatric condition”.

All of the shooters were seriously disturbed and that state of mind is a

fundamental “cause” of their actions. What we need to demonstrate is the

accumulative effect of the social conditions, the mental state of the

individual and the effect of the disinhibiting drugs.

If we talk about this in a scientific arena we must demonstrate the

scientific evidence in each case that the SSRI triggered the explosion of

violence and “caused” the killing spree. This requires a series of

scientific/clinical experiments that would be almost impossible to

construct. We therefore should keep away from spurious “scientific”

declarations of cause or we run the risk of hypocrisy, after all we always

castigate the enemy for basing clinical interventions on belief systems

rather than real evidence.

There is a field in which we can use the word cause more comfortably and

that is the legal evidence arena. There is now sound legal evidence that

the drugs contribute, to the outbursts of hatred and violence or in some

cases unbearable despair and fear. This leads us to the legal concept of

Sine Qua Non.

In the law this concept is well established, it is the “but for test” but

for the use of the SSRI this event would not have happened. This position

allows us to take account of the other indisputable “causes” of the mass

shooting phenomena and still blame the SSRI. The scenario is simple:

X is a shy and withdrawn individual who resents his treatment at work, he

has been belittled by his boss and patronized and sometimes ridiculed by his

colleagues. He takes to drinking during which his resentment is amplified

and he fantasizes about revenge. Over a period of weeks he is frequently

off sick and because of his behavior he gets into trouble and is fired. He

decides to see a psychiatrist who true to form gives him an SSRI and simply

leaves him to it. The resentment had never left him. He blames the

employer and his workmates for the drinking and for what he perceives as

years of mistreatment followed by the final insult of dismissal from his

job. X owns two handguns he bought for his own self-protection. Three days

into taking the SSRI he finally snaps, drives down to his old workplace and

kills seven people before shooting himself in a final act of nihilistic

violence.

This pattern has been seen repeatedly. There is an underlying mental

health/social problem. There is the trip to the shrink resulting in the

almost inevitable quick fix “solution” of an Rx for drugs, there is the lack

of supervision and aftercare. What is more important is that the quick fix

approach is the reason that the danger is not observed. There is no attempt

to get to the bottom of the problem; there is no understanding that this

kind of disturbed individual is the last person who should be taking a

disinhibiting drug.

What is the cause here? Is it the inadequate personality of the individual,

is it the drinking, is it the possession of the guns, is it the negligence

of our psychiatric system which is now almost entirely in the sway of big

pharma or is it the drug itself.

It is of course all of them. It is a complex amalgam of societal and mental

health issues.

The issue here is not which of these elements caused the killing or even

whether all of them did it is Sine Qua Non. Lets apply it to each different

issue.

(a) The inadequate personality. This pejorative term is always applied

to the shooters in one form or another. They are always portrayed as

weirdoes, outcasts or disturbed individuals. It is disingenuous to say that

such a personality is the cause of the killings spree. You might just as

well blame the victims for persecuting them in the first place.

( The drinking. This is a socially acceptable form of escape from the

pressures of life but it is one that is dangerous. Intoxication by alcohol

can cause people to do things that they would not do when sober. That is

because alcohol is a disinhibiting drug. It strips away the social

conditioning that helps us behave in society. There is no recorded case of

anyone however gunning down his or her school friends or workmates after a

heavy drinking session. The alcohol has physically detriment effect too

that probably prevent this.

Americans to bear arms (albeit that right was granted over two hundred years

ago when there may have been some justification for it) It is roughly

estimated that there is nearly one gun for every citizen in the US with some

people keeping whole arsenals. The gun lobby are fond of stating that “guns

do not kill people, people kill people” However anyone may rail against the

keeping of firearms and the gun lobby there is some truth in this. If it

was the possession of the guns that caused the school shootings there would

be one every half hour. It may be physically impossible to murder 32 people

without a gun but a kitchen carving knife will be effective to some degree

in the absence of one.

(d) The negligent biopsychiatry industry. This is getting closer. The

practice of psychiatry has degenerated from the caring art of the physician

to a simple drug-peddling scheme. The diagnosis and treatment of mental

illness is now entirely and inextricably linked to the Rx pad. The DSM and

ICD are even removing listings where no drug is available to “treat” the

ever-growing psychopharma gravy train.

(e) The prescribing of a potent disinhibitory substance to a person on the

edge of sanity and failing to properly monitor them under the closest

supervision is an act of the grossest medical negligence. The courts have

been willing to accept on a good number of occasions now that the SSRI was

the final straw. The drug may not have caused the event but because of its

improper and reckless use it did facilitate it. The grossly negligent

practice of prescribing this drug along with criminal willful blindness of

the drug manufacturer is the “but for” - the Sine Qua Non

But for the lying about the efficacy of these drugs doctors would not so

glibly hand them out to individuals where their mental disturbance obviously

needs more close scrutiny

But for the lying about the side effects these drugs would never have been

prescribed on the colossal scale they now are.

But for the criminal willful blindness of the drug manufacturers doctors

would have been told that patients on these drugs need supervising

But for the negligent prescription of this dangerous medication the mass

shootings and the thousands of preventable suicides would never have

happened.

There needs to be a research program initiated at the highest level in all

of the countries where these drugs are used. This phenomenon needs to be

examined to the tiniest detail or there will be one of these events every

year. In the UK it is much more difficult to get hold of firearms. Since

the worst school shooting in the UK where 15 five year olds and their

teacher were mown down they have been banned. We are however kidding

ourselves if we think that the difficulty of buying a gun will stop this

from happening in the UK. It almost certainly will, and it will be no

consolation that the killer did not have a license for the weapon.

===============================\\

Further Comments from our Paralegal/Activist , “CDC”:

-Responding to Attorney, “BT”

YES !!!! Perfect logical construct !!!

And, what is this? I spent a year completely immersed in attempting to

understand and apply principles of the US legal system with the help of

trained professionals, and here - you have provided me with a more thorough

understanding on this concept than I ever learned in school.

Thank you!!!

Now, I will circulate this to attorneys and all others who want to help, but

have struggled on how to apply this principle to the specific facts at hand

…

You are brilliant !

===============================\\

Comments from a respected Doctor of Neurology:

(Further comments by this physician will be preceded by his initials,

“FAB”).

-This respondent inserts his thoughts/comments within the text of what has

heretofore already been offered up for discussion by the Attorney, “BT”.

To avoid confusion, each paragraph will be preceded by the initials of the

individual who originally penned the thoughts

FAB: Thanks for this bigger picture. This is " chemical imbalance " mental

health coming home to roost. Most importantly, parents, families,

teachers--society at large, having come to believe in chemical

balancers-pills for chemical imbalances--human distress, no longer believe

in their own common sense or instincts as they defer and are lied to,

coerced, and made to defer to these experts--the chemical imbalance

explanation of all human distress and dysfunction.

[see other comments within]

BT: I do not think that the school shootings can be said to have been

caused by SSRI’s. That is too simplistic a position and one that can easily

be argued down. The issue is this and quite obviously this. In the last

twenty years there have been 19 school and workplace shootings where the

shooter was medicated. The relationship between these drugs and spontaneous

violence has also over that twenty-year period become established and it is

possible that the mechanism for this phenomenon has itself been identified.

BT: The drugs are thought, even by their manufacturers to cause a

disinhibiting effect in the first few weeks of them being prescribed. It is

a soundly logical proposition that this disinibition is the trigger for the

suicides and homicides that have been associated with the prescription of

SSRI’s

BT: If that is true then to use the word “cause” is misleading. It can at

best be called one of the causes and we know all too well that our

detractors will always point to what they call the “underlying psychiatric

condition”

FAB: [ Bear in mind the patient/person is normal save for environmental

influences, i.e., there is no psychiatric

condition/disorder/disease/chemical imbalance. His brain is an undamaged

organ of adaptation and learning until the drug/chemical balancer is

initiated. All psychiatric drugs damage but do so in somewhat different

ways. I think they do disinhibit generally, unmasking our animal/limbic

self. All drugs can cause psychotic behavior, more or less conspicuous,

more or less rapidly, and all can alter the perception of all that is

sensed. ]

BT: All of the shooters were seriously disturbed and that state of mind is

a fundamental “cause” of their actions. What we need to demonstrate is the

accumulative effect of the social conditions, the mental state of the

individual and the effect of the disinhibiting drugs

FAB: [accumulative, over time]

BT: If we talk about this in a scientific arena we must demonstrate the

scientific evidence in each case that the SSRI triggered the explosion of

violence and “caused” the killing spree. This requires a series of

scientific/clinical experiments that would be almost impossible to

construct. We therefore should keep away from spurious “scientific”

declarations of cause or we run the risk of hypocrisy, after all we always

castigate the enemy for basing clinical interventions on belief systems

rather than real evidence.

BT: There is a field in which we can use the word cause more comfortably

and that is the legal evidence arena. There is now sound legal evidence

that the drugs contribute, to the outbursts of hatred and violence or in

some cases unbearable despair and fear. This leads us to the legal concept

of Sine Qua Non.

BT: In the law this concept is well established, it is the “but for test”-

but for the use of the SSRI this event would not have happened. This

position allows us to take account of the other indisputable “causes” of the

mass shooting phenomena and still blame the SSRI. The scenario is simple

BT: X is a shy and withdrawn individual who resents his treatment at work,

he has been belittled by his boss and patronized and sometimes ridiculed by

his colleagues. He takes to drinking

FAB: [a drug, disinhibiting ]

BT: …during which his resentment is amplified and he fantasizes about

revenge. Over a period of weeks he is frequently off sick and because of

his behavior he gets into trouble and is fired. He decides to see a

psychiatrist who true to form gives him an SSRI and simply leaves him to it.

The resentment had never left him. He blames the employer and his

workmates for the drinking and for what he perceives as years of

mistreatment followed by the final insult of dismissal from his job. X owns

two handguns he bought for his own self-protection. Three days into taking

the SSRI he finally snaps, drives down to his old workplace and kills seven

people before shooting himself in a final act of nihilistic violence.

BT: This pattern has been seen repeatedly. There is an underlying mental

health/social problem. There is the trip to the shrink resulting in the

almost inevitable quick fix “solution” of an Rx for drugs, there is the lack

of supervision and aftercare. What is more important is that the quick fix

approach is the reason that the danger is not observed. There is no attempt

to get to the bottom of the problem; there is no understanding that this

kind of disturbed individual is the last person who should be taking a

disinhibiting drug.

BT: What is the cause here? Is it the inadequate personality of the

individual; is it the drinking; is it the possession of the guns; is it the

negligence of our psychiatric system which is now almost entirely in the

sway of big pharma; or is it the drug itself ?

BT: It is of course all of them. It is a complex amalgam of societal and

mental health issues.

BT: The issue here is not which of these elements caused the killing or

even whether all of them did it is Sine Qua Non. Lets apply it to each

different issue.

BT: (a) The inadequate personality. This pejorative term is always

applied to the shooters in one form or another. They are always portrayed

as weirdoes, outcasts or disturbed individuals. It is disingenuous to say

that such a personality is the cause of the killings spree. You might just

as well blame the victims for persecuting them in the first place.

BT: ( The drinking. This is a socially acceptable form of escape from

the pressures of life but it is one that is dangerous. Intoxication by

alcohol can cause people to do things that they would not do when sober.

That is because alcohol is a disinhibiting drug. It strips away the social

conditioning that helps us behave in society. There is no recorded case of

anyone however gunning down his or her school friends or workmates after a

heavy drinking session. The alcohol has physically detriment effect too

that probably prevent this.

BT: © The possession of firearms. The US Constitution grants rights

to Americans to bear arms (albeit that right was granted over two hundred

years ago when there may have been some justification for it) It is roughly

estimated that there is nearly one gun for every citizen in the US with some

people keeping whole arsenals. The gun lobby are fond of stating that “guns

do not kill people, people kill people”. However anyone may rail against

the keeping of firearms and the gun lobby there is some truth in this. If

it was the possession of the guns that caused the school shootings there

would be one every half hour. It may be physically impossible to murder 32

people without a gun but a kitchen carving knife will be effective to some

degree in the absence of one.

BT: (d) The negligent biopsychiatry industry. This is getting closer.

The practice of psychiatry has degenerated from the caring art of the

physician to a simple drug-peddling scheme

FAB: [ pure, one dimensional drugging with nothing that can be called

multi-modal is the fact of the matter ]

BT: The diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is now entirely and

inextricably linked to the Rx pad. The DSM and ICD are even removing

listings where no drug is available to “treat” the ever-growing psychopharma

gravy train.

BT: (e) The prescribing of a potent disinhibitory substance to a person

on the edge of sanity and failing to properly monitor them under the closest

supervision is an act of the grossest medical negligence. The courts have

been willing to accept on a good number of occasions now that the SSRI was

the final straw. The drug may not have caused the event but because of its

improper and reckless use it did facilitate it. The grossly negligent

practice of prescribing this drug along with criminal willful blindness of

the drug manufacturer is the “but for” the Sine Qua Non

BT: But for the lying about the efficacy of these drugs, doctors would not

so glibly hand them out to individuals where their mental disturbance

obviously needs more close scrutiny

FAB: [ In the US a vast oversupply has been created by the leadership of

medical academia with big pharma having a telling voice in bringing about

this oversupply so not just psychiatrist but all physicians will have to

take to excessive dx and rx to continue to live in style to which them have

become accustomed. Thus we have gone from 145 physicians/ 100,000

population to 300/100,000 from 1965 to the present; nor does the public

realize this has happened to them. This is why not just psychiatrists - but

all physicians have found the chemical imbalance model so to their financial

advantage and liking. We here have gone from being a profession to be a

for-profit enterprise. ]

BT: But for the lying about the side effects these drugs would never have

been prescribed on the colossal scale they now are.

BT: But for the criminal willful blindness of the drug manufacturers

doctors would have been told that patients on these drugs need supervising

BT: But for the negligent prescription of this dangerous medication the

mass shootings and the thousands of preventable suicides would never have

happened.

BT: There needs to be a research program initiated at the highest level in

all of the countries where these drugs are used. This phenomenon needs to

be examined to the tiniest detail or there will be one of these events every

year. In the UK it is much more difficult to get hold of firearms.

FAB: [ Absolute madness here in the US given over to profit and money

totally, up to and including Congress and the Whitehouse ]

BT: Since the worst school shooting in the UK where 15 five year olds and

their teacher were mown down they have been banned. We are however kidding

ourselves if we think that the difficulty of buying a gun will stop this

from happening in the UK. It almost certainly will and it will be no

consolation that the killer did not have a license for the weapon.

April 23, 2007