Posted on 11/09/2018 4:52:13 AM PST by 11th_VA
Authorities have identified a Facebook post believed to have been made by the shooter around the time of the attack, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the ongoing investigation.
In it, the writer says: “I hope people call me insane… (laughing emojis).. wouldn’t that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah.. I’m insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is ‘hopes and prayers’.. or ‘keep you in my thoughts’… every time… and wonder why these keep happening…”
When CNN read the post to a friend of Long’s, who did not want to be publicly identified, the friend said, “That does not sound like Ian to me at all. I don’t know what was going through his head when he wrote this. It must have been terrible.”
Of interest
Any leftist will blame it on out of state, since gun laws are less stringent in other states, they will then argue that gun control will work if a Supreme Court ruling or federal law applies equal gun restriction laws to all 50 states.
All the services are having to work harder to weed out the flakey recruits these days. This is because the pentagon currently estimates that 75% of Americans in the appropriate age group are ineligible to join any branch of the military because of obesity, drug use, failure to graduate from high school, criminal records, and mental or physical problems. Even with the amount of baby aching and attention seeking behaviors found in young people today, mental and emotional problems are still generally the easiest issue for applicants to conceal during the recruitment process.
There is a shrinking number of eligible people so you end up with a rising proportion of recruits suffering the hardest to detect problem. And largely because of their gung-ho reputation, the marines seem to attract the largest percentage of recruits with preexisting mental and emotional issues.
Some of them are weeded out during boot camp and beyond, but most of us understand that because of political correctness the training is not allowed to be quite what it once was. In the post Vietnam era I knew quite a few people who were dumped by the Marines for being crazy. But these days not so many and I suspect it is largely because instead of dumping people they make a greater effort to rehabilitate the mentally ill with counseling and “treatment”.
So I expect that we have not seen the last of this type of situation involving young military veterans. More restrictive gun control policies will have zero effect on preventing future incidents.
Really, I assume you can cite that rather extreme statement?
The veteran’s of our nations military and naval forces are a rather small minority overall. Just because many veterans have the skills, they don’t have the motivation to murder. Of course, there are exceptions.
That's exactly what my liberal friends on Facebook always say.
I know hundreds of combat vets who served in multiple tours in combat units. Most have thriving, vibrabt lives, Some suffer from the experiences. Most of the Soldiers I volunteered with at the local Warrior Transition Unit (WTU) who claimed PTSD have no visible wounds, most were not combat troops and many were young females who just were whining (my opinion). Just as it is in society, the men and woman of valor and maturity move on and live in spite of hardship. It was tough seeing a blind double or triple amputee winning his fight while hale and whole mush headed REMFs lost theirs (sic).
Manly Warrior Combat 101 says “Kill to survive, survive to live. Live to thrive. Thrive to bless”. Seek the Face of God.
We fall done, we get up. Repeat as needed.
It was the same stats when I was a recruiter in the late 80s. I sorted through about 100 leads to get a few qualified, and then one or two enlisted. Hasn’t changed much. Most were/are morally/admin ineligible, followed by med, followed by ed.
I’m betting he purchased the weapon legally in Kalifornia,
although I’m also betting that any report of where he obtained the weapon will be suppressed by Kalifornia “law enforcement”.
Well, lets see...California...
Handgun and rifle registration-Check.
Background checks-Check.
Waiting Periods-Check.
FBI checks-check.
Only California approved hand guns allowed-Check.
Tax on ammo-Check.
Gun free zone-Check.
Ban on large magazines-Check.
No private individual sales-Check
So what new scheme and dream will they come up with next.
Anybody that see’s a shrink needs to get their head examined.
My dear FRiend, it's not the guns or cars, or religion, or video games.It's the twisted mindset grassly exacerbated by the man-made drugs supposed to be palliative for anxiety or psychosis or depression but are not. Do you have any friends or acquaintances that has become so dependent on them that they can not ever come back to normal (though they may not hve become vuolent killers)? I have, and also have checked out on all of these shootings back to the beginnings 52 years ago, when the Marine veteran Charles Whitman took over the University of Texas tower's observation deck and killed 17 people. It was just before that time that thorazine, the first drug, an antihistamine repurposed as an antipsychotic, was first publicly available for prescriptive general distribution. I believe I read that Whitaker had been treated with it.
I hope you see that the drug issue for the TO shooting ought to be taken into consideration, when psychotropics have been a factor in every other mass shooting. Every one.
The problem is not gun control. It is control and use of prescriptive drugs, ones in which big pharma recognizes and wants to dissassociate itself from, IMHO.
I have been repeating this on this site EVERY time one these shootings happen the ONE thing in common with ALL of these shooters are these drugs such as Ritalin EVERY DAMN ONE of these people AND kids have been prescribed these drugs!!!
That is NOT so. These psychoparmeceuticals such as Seroquel or Xanax or Ativan oe Wellbutrin or any of dozens of market names and functions are available to any general practitioner. What happens is that the patient reads magazine ads or TV blurbs that describe symptoms that a psychotropic drug is supposed to alleviate. Then the patient complins of these symptoms to the GP, and the GP prescribes the flavor the patient wants, and off you go. Ask my relative who has become irretrievably dependent (and irrational) on bags of them.
Its the drugs, man, and their misdiagnose and misuse of which shooting massacres are only one effect. These drugs knock down the ordinary moral inhibitions that prevent such violence in the normally socialized citizen.
I suspect death by psychoactive drugs.
?? I never took drugs other than pain/AIs and medical related stuff while on my seven total combat/haz duty tours, 1983-2007. I am a retired field grade officer, formed enlisted, never heard of anyone being given Psych type drugs to get them into battle, and anyone on such meds were never deployed. Wonder where your info comes from?
Had a few guys need a break from missions after a few bad days etc, but mostly everyone wanted to get back out and cover someone’s six. That’s what we fight for. Each other; the mission takes care of itself if we take care of each other. Men who could not continue didn’t stay in the fight, and never on drugs.
Do you have first hand experience with what you state or did you pick that up somewhere?
We occasionally had GO pills (to keep us awake and alert after 24-48 hr missions), but never mind altering garbage.
Maybe some folks afterwards are on crazy stuff, and you may have a point there, but how often do you see veterans doing such silly stuff? And, no, don’t include that Vietnam vet a month or so back in AL or MS- he was just a turd in life, and Nam likely had little to do with anything.
It is liberal thinking- the absence of a moral compass and the resultant lack of a base to act from. Liberalism ( modern format) is a mental disease. Libertarianism is a part of that, narcissistic thinking.
ROE and rational war (? where’d that idea come from?) are just part of life for pipe hitters. Warfare makes little sense and never should. Yeah, I wish everyone would wear a distinguishing uniform to ID the opponent, but alas. So we hold back until positive ID on tangos is made, then -let slip the dogs of war ( and cry Havoc!).
I’m still looking for my free lunch. That occurs when I sit down at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, till then, focus and no hocus pocus..
.
Maybe I could get a federal grant to do a formal study, but as you say yourself, “a rather small minority” which makes the percentage numbers even more surprisingly high for veterans and active duty. But I was a bit broader than that -”military connection” which boosts the numbers even higher since I did limit it to adult perps (I probably should have said “non-student perps” for greater accuracy.
You’ll probably have to look a lot harder for a long list of non-student, perps without a military connection that I would to put together a list of those with a military connection.
Manly Warrior: Do you have first hand experience with what you state or did you pick that up somewhere?
I only have first-hand acquaintance with a few that have come back and shared their experiences. I have been involved in VA Volunteer Service since 2006, but I cannot discuss any individual instance from that experience, but I do have knowledge that the VA dispenses psychoactive drugs. Several verifiable published sources indicate that somehow you must have missed seeing the escalation of drug remedies for combat stress. Here is just one of them:
"Antidepressants cause suicide and violence in soldiers" by Peter R. Breggin M.D.
Excerpts:
Here are the starting facts: Death by suicide is at record levels in the armed services. Simultaneously the use of antidepressant drugs is also at record levels, including brand names like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Lexapro.Manly Warrior: We occasionally had GO pills (to keep us awake and alert after 24-48 hr missions), but never mind altering garbage.
According to the army, in 2007 17% of combat troops in Afghanistan were taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills. Inside sources have given me an even bleaker picture: During Vietnam, a mere 1% our troops were taking prescribed psychiatric drugs. By contrast, in the past year(2008) one-third of marines in combat zones were taking psychiatric drugs.
Are the pills helping? The army confirms that since 2002 the number of suicide attempts has increased six-fold. And more than 128 soldiers killed themselves last year.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Conclusion? Antidepressants are a hoax–in this case, a hoax that is killing members of our armed services.
With billions of dollars at stake, the drug companies also do everything they can to downplay the risks of their products. Thus the pharmaceutical industry failed to find any evidence that antidepressants cause suicidality until the FDA forced them to re-evaluate their old data. The result? Now the FDA requires a black box warning that antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal behavior in children, youth and young adults. Limiting the risk to that age group is of course nonsense; these drugs cause suicidality in all ages.
In addition to suicide, the drugs cause a spectrum of adverse effects that are especially hazardous to soldiers who need the ability to control their emotions, especially their frustration and anger. Many of the most common antidepressant side effects involve over-stimulation. The FDA requires drug companies to list the following negative effects in their descriptions of their antidepressant medications: “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity…and mania.” We are giving our troops drugs that provide a prescription for uncontrolled, disinhibited violence, including agitation, irritability, impulsivity, hostility, and aggressiveness.
Is that so? Then it was probably quite unusual. Contradicting this statement is the specific legitimately sourced article regarding military use, which is as follows:
ARMY WARNS DOCTORS AGAINST USING CERTAIN DRUGS IN PTSD TREATMENT by Bob Brewin, April 25, 2012
Excerpt:
An April 10 policy memo that the Army Medical Command released regarding the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD said a class of drugs known as benzodiazepines, which include Xanax and Valium, could intensify rather than reduce combat stress symptoms and lead to addiction.What do you have outside of your anecdotal testimony that counters these broadly applicable published analyses?
The memo, signed by Herbert Coley, civilian chief of staff of the Army Medical Command, also cautioned service clinicians against prescribing second-generation antipsychotic drugs, such as Seroquel and Risperidone, to combat PTSD. The drugs originally were developed to treat severe mental conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The memo questioned the efficacy of this drug class in PTSD treatment and cautioned against their use due to potential long-term health effects, which include heart disorders, muscle spasms and weight gain.
Throughout more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military services have relied heavily on prescription drugs to help troops deal with their mental health problems during and after deployment. In a June 2010 report, the Defense Department's Pharmacoeconomic Center said 213,972, or 20 percent of the 1.1 million active-duty troops surveyed, were taking some form of psychotropic drug -- antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedative hypnotics or other controlled substances.
The Army, in a July 2010 report on suicide prevention, said one-third of all active-duty military suicides involved prescription drugs.
Mental health experts say the military's prescription drug problem is exacerbated by a U.S. Central Command policy that dates to October 2001 and provides deploying troops with up to a 180-day supply of prescription drugs under its Central Nervous System formulary.
That formulary includes Xanax, Valium and three other benzodiazepines to treat anxiety: Ativan, Klonopin and Restoril.
The Army's new PTSD policy makes it clear that the risk of treating combat stress with benzodiazepines outweighs the rewards: "Benzodiazepine use should be considered relatively contraindicated in combat veterans with PTSD because of the high co-morbidity of combat-related PTSD with alcohol misuse and substance use disorders (up to 50 percent co-morbidity) and potential problems with tolerance and dependence."
After becoming dependent on these drugs, soldiers face enormous problems when they try to discontinue their use, the report said. "Once initiated in combat veterans, benzodiazepines can be very difficult, if not impossible to discontinue, due to significant withdrawal symptoms compounded by underlying PTSD symptoms," the document said.
The Army policy memo highlighting problems with benzodiazepines for PTSD treatment dovetails with a study published in the April issue of Current Psychiatry Online by Jolene Bostwick, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.
Bostwick wrote "benzodiazepine administration fails to prevent PTSD and may increase its incidence." She added, "use of benzodiazepines for PTSD is associated with withdrawal symptoms, more severe symptoms after discontinuation and possible disinhibition, and may interfere with patients' efforts to integrate trauma experiences."
Army clinicians who prescribe Risperidone, Seroquel and other second-generation antipsychotic drugs "must clearly document their rationale concluding that the potential benefits outweigh the known risks and that informed consent has been conducted," the policy memo said.
Seroquel has been implicated in the deaths of combat veterans and the Veterans Affairs Department reported in August 2011 that Risperidone was no more effective in PTSD treatment than a placebo. VA spent $717 million on the drug over the past decade. The military has spent $74 million over the past 10 years on Risperidone, a spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency said.
An Army doctor who declined to be identified told Nextgov "these long-overdue policy changes are welcome, but they will further shift the mental health care of soldiers to an already overstressed VA and will result in the separation of many mentally stressed volunteers, who just months earlier had been counseled to steel themselves for a career of perpetual deployment and had been willing to sacrifice the best years of their lives to do so."
This long-serving Army clinician said, "the nation needs to take a long, hard look at what delayed the institution of these policies, and why the priorities of our Army medical leaders have too often favored the manpower needs of the Army rather than the mental health of its soldiers."
Dr. Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist who resigned her commission in 2002 "because I did not want to be a pill pusher" said the new Army policy shows "they are finally admitting to some problems associated with at least one class of psychiatric medication." But, Jackson said, the Army policy does not address problems with other classes of prescription drugs, including antidepressants and selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac, in the treatment of PTSD. Clinical studies, Jackson said, have shown these drugs to be no better than placebos -- but far more dangerous in the treatment of PTSD.
The Army also has ignored the role antipsychotic drugs play in the "sudden deaths" of troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injury due to undiagnosed endocrine abnormalities Jackson said.
The use of antipsychotic drugs to treat troops with TBI can cause changes in growth and thyroid hormones, which can in turn trigger a variety of cardiac-related events that could result in sudden deaths, Jackson said.
Though the Army has adopted a new policy on the use of benzodiazepines, Jackson said the Defense Department overall is still wedded to a policy of using drugs to treat metal problems even when scientific evidence "demonstrates poor risk-benefit ratios."
The Army policy memo encouraged clinicians to look beyond drugs to treat PTSD and suggested a range of alternative therapies, including yoga, biofeedback, acupuncture and massage.
I'll be interested to hear whether these reports are true or lies. What I have heard is that anti-anxiety benzodiazepines (Xanax, Librioum, Valium, Ativan) were dispensed to allay pre-combat fears of a firefight. Surely you must have heard of such use of them?
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