General Chat (Non-Music-Related)

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/15/80-perce ... ourge.html


I don't normally trust anything from the G.E. media but in the case of drug abuse, I'll assume the liberal media is an expert & experienced consultant.

Folks, we've been feeding our children psychotropic drugs for about 25 years now. Fully one-third of America is on some kind of opioid, and as someone who has been addicted to prescription drugs at different times in my life, I can testify that it absolutely did affect my rational thinking process.

The drug epidemic is way out of hand in America. Not only the underground black market, but the over-the-counter legal prescription market is perhaps a more serious problem.

Until we look at this problem vis-a-vis the new spate of random gun violence we're seeing in the last decade, then we are living a sham.

Taking away the rights of responsible citizens in the name of "security" is a bald-faced lie that politicians would use to distract us from the real issue of failed liberal policies causing the divisions in America.

Arm yourselves with the truth and you won't need bullets.




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Interesting article, and here's another.

Nearly all mass shootings in the US have two things in common. All or nearly all took place in gun free zones, and I stumbled into this article a while back, nearly all the shooters also took mood altering drugs at the time of or shortly before their actions.

http://www.naturalnews.com/050149_mass_ ... drugs.html

Those who think attempts at gun control or more restrictive legislation will help are simply wrong. While firearm sales have risen greatly in the past 20 years, overall crime rates and especially firearm related crime has decreased. It's ironic also that during the administration of Obama we've seen more mass shootings by far than during any administration in recent history, and gun sales spike after every one of them.

http://truthstreammedia.com/2015/12/02/ ... -combined/

I don't think there is any one cause, such as the drugs these guys were taking, it's bigger than that. These drugs were in use before the great increase during Obama's term. There is a great sense of frustration in this country, and anger with government in general. Politicians get elected then forget about the people who elected them, opting instead to listen to corporate lobbyists and special interest groups. Taxes and government regulations are killing businesses, government is seen as incompetent and ineffective, various levels of civil and racial unrest are growing daily, terrorist threats from overseas are growing, salaries are down while prices have doubled under Obama, education has gone downhill, unemployment is out of control, 45 million people live below poverty level, 50 million on food stamps, 93 million out of the workforce entirely, and I'm probably forgetting a few things.

In some cases, I think someone just suddenly snaps, in others it's probably a long term frustration and a feeling of inability to control one's own destiny. I don't see how kids getting out of high school these days can see much of a future. Virtually everything is going downhill fast, jobs are disappearing, more businesses failed this year than startups, corporations leaving the country, political parties that once tried to work together are at each others' throats, Christianity under attack, the possibility of WWIII starting getting greater by the day...

All this put together and more leads to a sense of helplessness and frustration never seen in our lifetimes. Add to that a drug that has a side effect of violent or irrational behavior, and a gun free zone nearby...sound like trouble?

And don't even think about telling me well guns kill people. Nope, people kill people, always have, always will. A thousand years ago they used swords, spears, rocks and clubs...a gun is just a more efficient tool and lets you do it at a greater distance than two feet. A person still has to pick the thing up and pull the trigger, just like a rock.

What Billy is pointing out is NOT a joke. BUMP!

The article Ted linked said 80% of employers have (at last one, assumed) employee who is addicted/abusing prescription drugs. There's nothing in the article about 'feeding our children psychotropic drugs' or any link to violence.

Billy's links - just look at those 'legitimate' websites ...

And don't even think about telling me well guns kill people. Nope, people kill people, always have, always will. A thousand years ago they used swords, spears, rocks and clubs...a gun is just a more efficient tool and lets you do it at a greater distance than two feet. A person still has to pick the thing up and pull the trigger, just like a rock.

that's got to be the dumbest argument ever, but that doesn't stop people from trotting it out ad nauseum.

yeah, people are always gonna find ways to kill one another....

so following that logic, we might as well let everyone have an Abrams tank, flamethrowers, rocket launchers, a few hundred lbs of C4, and a locker full of grenades. why not.....w/o them someone is still gonna find a way to kill w a spear, rock, or club!

someone pls check and tell me how many mass murders were committed w a spear, rock, or club in our lifetime.

so, is there anyone here who'd rather face down someone w an automatic weapon over someone w a rock?

me, i'm going to take MY chances w the guy w the rock every time.

And what do you do about the thug who pays no attention to the laws and gets a gun through the black market? Which they already do on a regular basis. That's why gun control laws don't work. CRIMINALS...that word criminal means they already have no respect for the laws, you think they care about another year tacked on to their sentence for an illegal weapon if they are already looking at 15 for armed robbery?

I expected the ridicule, it's standard procedure. IF you don't like the idea someone else puts out there, try to ridicule or shame him till he shuts up. I see it every time I look at the comments sections of news articles. Standard procedure. You see websites that give you the facts, those facts don't fit your narrative so you accuse me of cherry picking websites slanted toward my point of view. Nope, I just look for the facts. I don't really care if it's a liberal or conservative site, if it has the actual facts, that's what I want. Trouble is I rarely find reliable facts on liberal sites.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand, we're not dealing with a gun problem we're dealing with a human nature problem. You don't even have to look very close at history to see it. People have been killing each other for thousands of years before guns existed, and you seem to think eliminating guns will eliminate murder. It won't happen. Criminals already get guns on the black market, that's a fact. they already don't care about laws, that's why they are called criminals, so you can throw gun laws at them all day and it will make no difference whatsoever. What I said is true. People will use whatever weapon is available. Always have, always will. If you think gun laws will make you safer, you're very wrong. Guns will never be eliminated, whether you like it or not. If you make it impossible for the law abiding people to defend themselves by making guns illegal, criminals will still have them and will then have exactly what they want. Defenseless victims.

Why do you think most mass shootings have been in gun free zones? Defenseless victims. the guy who walked into a theater in Lake Charles drove right by a theater without a gun free zone sing to go shoot people in another one further away, WITH a gun free zone sign. Ditto for the kid who shot 9 people in a church in South Carolina. He was going to do it at a college a few miles up the road. They had security. So he found a gun free zone.

Same for Ft Hood. I didn't know it then, but military bases do not allow our soldiers, who are trained in the safe operation of firearms, to carry them on military bases. Idiotic, but true, so the guy was able to kill something like 30 people before the MP's could get there. Gun free zone. Open invitation to walk in and shoot 'em up. Military recruiting station in Tennessee, same thing, gun free zone. Schools, same thing, gun free zones. Ever see one of these crazies walk into a police station or gun show? Nope. Too many people can and will shoot back.

I read an article years ago, an investigative reported interviewed inmates in a prison who had been convicted of burglary and armed robbery. when asked what was the one thing they feared most, the most common answer was the sound of a shell being shifted into a pump shotgun. When asked if they were to plan a burglary in a place like New York where guns are almost impossible to get or Houston where anyone without a record can buy them, they all chose New York.

There's one reason for that. Criminals want exactly what gun control gives them. Defenseless victims. Criminals are cowards. They don't want to get shot. So they avoid people they even think might be able to protect their property. Same for mass killings, they want locations nobody will shoot back. even those who plan to kill themselves too, want to take as many with them as they can, they don't want the 2nd guy they see to pull out a gun and shoot back.

What happens if you take away guns? Someone in Japan a few months ago stabbed over 15 people. Even with access to guns ISIS members and followers are using knives too.

It's not a gun problem, it's a human nature problem. You can't legislate that away. People will kill other people, I don't care if rocks are the only thing left to do it with, take away rocks and they will use their bare hands. And that is not uncommon right now, even though guns, knives and other weapons are available. People still get strangled every year.

The point I'm trying to make is that the recent phenomenon of mass shootings is different than mass murderers of the past. While there have always been a few crazies that will go off for emotional or mental reasons, we're seeing a noticeable uptick in America of kids who just do insane things for insane reasons, if they have a reason at all. And instead of looking at ALL possible reasons for this, politicians make sure this issue is politicized to an agenda that helps them raise campaign cash.

It is impossible for a gun to kill someone without a human attached to it, yet a human can kill without using a gun. Why can't the common sense that God gives a horsefly prevail?

Drugs have been implicated in most (if not all) of these recent cases, but as a society, we're don't seem to be willing to look at that possibility. Is it because so many of us are addicted to opioids and other drugs too? Big pharma began pushing mind-altering drugs out for any excuse whatsoever in the mid 90s and it's just coincidence that a decade later we're seeing previously sane people everywhere lose their minds and do insane stuff?

Blaming this new phenomenon on an inanimate piece of iron will only guarantee that we never find the real problem, nor a workable solution.

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The point I'm trying to make is that the recent phenomenon of mass shootings is different than mass murderers of the past. While there have always been a few crazies that will go off for emotional or mental reasons, we're seeing a noticeable uptick in America of kids who just do insane things for insane reasons, if they have a reason at all. And instead of looking at ALL possible reasons for this, politicians make sure this issue is politicized to an agenda that helps them raise campaign cash.

It is impossible for a gun to kill someone without a human attached to it, yet a human can kill without using a gun. Why can't the common sense that God gives a horsefly prevail?

Drugs have been implicated in most (if not all) of these recent cases, but as a society, we're don't seem to be willing to look at that possibility. Is it because so many of us are addicted to opioids and other drugs too? Big pharma began pushing mind-altering drugs out for any excuse whatsoever in the mid 90s and it's just coincidence that a decade later we're seeing previously sane people everywhere lose their minds and do insane stuff?

Blaming this new phenomenon on an inanimate piece of iron will only guarantee that we never find the real problem, nor a workable solution.

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This is a new tack from the pro-gun crowd - blaming big pharma for the mass killings ....

This is a new tack from the pro-gun crowd - blaming big pharma for the mass killings ..

Nope it's the truth. Yod is correct, almost all of the recent rash of mass shootings were committed by people who were taking or had recently taken mood altering drugs like Prozec or Ritalin.

He is also correct that these have been in use for a long time but have been pushed by pharmaceutical companies, for profits, int he past 20 years or so. Very similar to the way they push drugs that supposedly reduce cholesterol, which is an outright scam, but they don't advertise Prozac on TV.

If you've ever known anyone who was taking those types of drugs, you'll be well aware that they start acting very strange sometimes. I've seen it plenty times. Some illegal drugs are similar, meth in particular. People strung out on meth can act just plain bizarre. People taking some of the mood altering drugs can behave just as weird, and they are known to cause violent behavior.

Add to that the general sense of uncertainty in the US in general, the sense of helplessness and a very uncertain future, and you have the makings of a problem. it's not just big pharma. These same drugs were already in use 30 years ago and mass shootings were very uncommon. The recent increase is not explained by just the fact that almost all of them were taking this type of drugs. If that were the sole cause, we would not have seen the alarming increase in mass shootings in the past few years. If access to guns was the cause, same thing, it doesn't explain the recent increase in frequency of this type of shooting. In all other areas, crime has decreased overall in the past 20 years, while firearm ownership has increased greatly. So if this type of shooting was related to gun ownership or access, it seems that mass shootings would increase along with crime, or decrease along with crime rates overall. This is not the case.

So something else is happening that is not related to either guns or use of these drugs. This can be seen in places like Chicago. While overall crime rates have declined, Chicago has seen more gang related shootings in the a=past couple of years than ever, over 300 this year, I think 350. The murder rate in Baltimore is increasing drastically as well, and both are places that have some of the most strict gun laws in the country. Somewhere near 300 this year I think, that may be wrong. In Houston for 2013, it's lower, 214 in a city with much more lax gun laws. According to what liberals are saying, Houston should be murder central. These numbers have gone down in both places since 2003. Same as most of the country, even though gun ownership has gone up, at last in places where it's not almost impossible to get one.

Houston - http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Houston-Texas.html

Chicago - http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Ch ... inois.html

As I said, it's not the gun that is the problem, it's the misfiring cylinders in the heads of the people that pick up those guns. I pointed out other factors in my previous post, I don't think it's drug or guns alone that are the problem.

For the record, I'm not saying that drugs are "the" reason, but it's definitely a contributing factor when ALL of the mass shooters are on psycotropic drugs, yet I hear no politicians talking about it. I have heard some mention mental illness, but (most of) these people weren't mentally ill, apart from being on these drugs.



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For the record, I'm not saying that drugs are "the" reason, but it's definitely a contributing factor

I didn't mean to imply that you were, sorry if I wasn't concise enough. I agree with your evaluation, these drugs are a contributing factor, I'm pretty sure mental instability is too in at least some cases. That should be implied if they are taking that type of drugs. But those are not the only contributing factors.

I'm usually way too busy to read a book, and that's why the book "Margins" interested me. I highly recommend it for every person here.

It's by Dr Richard Swenson, who takes a look at how and why progress didn't deliver on it's promise to give us all more time for relaxing and enjoying life. Quite the opposite has happened actually. Instead of taking leisure with the "extra" time we gain from technology, we tend to use that for producing more and more in a never-ending spiral that sucks every ounce of purpose right out of us.

example: We all drive cars that will do much better than the speed limit. Yet we wouldn't drive 120 mph unless its a life-or-death emergency. We have enough margin in the ability of the car to make up for lost time if we're running late, but the point of the book is that if we showed up early we wouldn't be stressed when we arrive. Stress is the opposite of margin.

America today is the most productive nation in the world, but that progress has taken a toll in our relationships to each other and even to ourselves. People are on edge and ready for war because they are so angry and have absolutely no margin for making a change.

This kind of pressure causes people to snap.

Many of us feel that America's once great melting-pot society is quickly slipping away into a homogenized mix of divided groups. I believe that individual rights were what set us apart from the tyrannical dictators of the rest of the world, and that margin given to individuals has almost disappeared. I hate that my kids will never know the same opportunity I had for being an individual as we move deeper into socialism.

The therapy industry keeps growing and it's estimated that between 20 - 25% of Americans have some kind of mental health issue now. I "think" I'm ok, but there are times when I get very depressed and it affects how I respond to others in a negative way. If I don't consciously recognize that I'm in a funk, it will only get worse.

Everyone who has not allowed for margin in their life (emotional, physical, financial, time, etc) will suffer the stress of modern times. If you add psychotropic drugs and the availability of a weapon it becomes a dangerous cocktail.

All that to say that "margin" (or lack thereof) is exactly what's wrong in America, and indeed the world today. For your own sanity, you might want to find this book and put it next to the toilet (where you have a natural margin for reading time).



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Yod we lost it a long time ago with LBJs GREAT SOCIETY. All the tremendous things you have accomplished were SQUASHED ages ago. You could have been bigger than the BEATLES...

Guns are only owned for TWO reasons. One is to start wars, and second to PROTECT against people that want to start wars.
The question becomes... WHY DOES SOMEONE WANT TO MAKE CERTAIN WE NEVER HAVE THE MEANS TO FIGHT BACK?

Just a side note... We should be grateful to GREAT AMERICANS like RGMIX.

All that to say that "margin" (or lack thereof) is exactly what's wrong in America, and indeed the world today. For your own sanity, you might want to find this book and put it next to the toilet (where you have a natural margin for reading time).



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F.U.C.K You!

hahhahaha.....you need margin more than most!


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