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Australian Gun Law Update Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the now available data from Down Under. It has now been one year (12 months) since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now available: Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent; Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent); In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent as compared with the last one year period when private ownership of a firearm was legal. (NB: the law-abiding citizens did turn in their personal firearms, the criminal element did not and thus criminals in Australia still possess their guns.) While data for the 25 years preceding the confiscation of privately owned guns showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months as criminals now are assured their victims will be unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly, while the resident is at home. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in 'successfully ridding Australian society of guns.' This story of well intentioned government intervention in the rights of lawful individuals to own and possess firearms won't be seen in the mainstream US media or on the American evening news. Senator Obama who advocates a similar confiscation in the US will not be reporting any of this to you. But, the Australian experience speaks for itself. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens. Americans may want to take note before it's too late! FORWARD TO EVERYONE ON YOUR EMAIL LIST. DON'T BE A MEMBER OF THE SILENT MAJORITY. BE A PARTICIPANT IN THE VOCAL MINORITY WHO DOESN'T WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN AUSTRALIA HAPPEN IN THE U.S. !
Gun Control in Butte, Montana They are already talking about gun control in United States of American even before the inauguration. Gun control is favored by Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Reed. A little Gun History Lesson In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million 'educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up an d exterminated. Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more Than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still pos-sess their guns! It will never happen here? I bet the Aussies said that too! While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the ELDERLY. Aust ralian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns. The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it. You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note my fellow Americans, before it's too late! The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind him of this history lesson. With Guns...........We Are 'Citizens'. Without Them........We Are 'Subjects'. During W.W.II the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED! Note: Admiral Yamamoto who crafted the attack on Pearl Harbor had attended Harvard U 1919-1921 & was Naval Attaché to the U. S. 1925-28. Most of our Navy was destroyed at Pearl Harbor & our Army had been deprived of funding & was ill prepared to defend the country. It was reported that when asked why Japan did not follow up the Pearl Harbor attack with an invasion of the U. S. Mainland, his reply was that he had lived in the U. S. & knew that almost all households had guns. If you value your freedom, Please spread this anti-gun control message to all your friends! Violent Shooters Often Have History with Psychiatric Drugs America seems shocked that, yet again, a young male would pick up an assault rifle and murder his fellow citizens, then take his own life. This is what happened last night in Omaha, Nebraska, where the 19-year-old Hawkins killed himself and eight other people with an assault rifle. Those lacking keen observation skills are quick to blame guns for this tragedy, but others who are familiar with the history of such violent acts by young males instantly recognize a more sinister connection: A history of treatment with psychiatric drugs for depression and ADHD. It all started in Columbine, Colorado, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold massacred their way into the history books on April 20, 1999 by killing 12 and wounding 23 people. The mainstream media virtually glorified the event, yet utterly failed to report the connection between violence in young men and treatment with psychiatric drugs. (Both Harris and Klebold were taking antidepressant drugs.) It's a little known fact that antidepressant drugs have never been tested on children nor approved by the FDA for use on children. It is well established in the scientific literature, however, that such drugs cause young men to think violent thoughts and commit violent acts. This is precisely why the U.K. has outright banned the prescribing of such drugs to children. Yet here in the United States -- the capitol of gun violence by kids on depression drugs -- the FDA and drug companies pretend that mind-altering drugs have no link whatsoever to behavior. Enormous evidence linking mind-altering drugs with violent acts In 2006, we reported the results of a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry showing that teens taking antidepressant drugs are more likely to commit suicide (and to be "successful" at completing the act). See http://www.newstarget.com/020643.html On September 11, 2006, I reported on the link between antidepressant drugs and violent behavior yet again. (See http://www.newstarget.com/020394.html ) In that article, I explained, "If you're going to alter the brain chemistry of these children, you had better be prepared for the results. The result we're seeing now is mass killings. Elsewhere around the world, where children aren't doped up on all these drugs, we don't see this kind of behavior. This is what happens when you change children's brain chemistry; you get these results..." The very next day, we published a report about the anti-depressant drug Paxil doubling the risk of violent behavior. (See http://www.newstarget.com/020406.html ) In that article, I stated, "This finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always conducted by children who are taking antidepressants. We also know that SSRIs cause children to disconnect from reality. When you combine that with a propensity for violence, you create a dangerous recipe for school shootings and other adolescent violence. In April of this year, I also reported on the link between antidepressant drugs and the Virginia Tech shooting. See http://www.newstarget.com/021798.html What I said in that article has urgent application right now, following the Omaha shooting: A study published in the Public Library of Science Medicine (an open source medical journal) explored these same links in detail. (See Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law, by David Healy, Andrew Herxheimer, David B. Menkes) The authors note that "Some regulators, such as the Canadian regulators, have also referred to risks of treatment-induced activation leading to both self-harm and harm to others" and the "United States labels for all antidepressants as of August 2004 note that 'anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric'". In other words, the link between antidepressants and violence has been known for years by the very people manufacturing, marketing or prescribing the drugs. As the author of the study mentioned above concluded, "The new issues highlighted by these cases need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are widely used." That was last year, well before this latest shooting. The warning signs were there, and they've been visible for a long time. Medical authorities can hardly say they are "shocked" by this violent behavior. After all, the same pattern of violence among antidepressant takers has been observed, documented and published in numerous previous cases. Not surprised at what happened in Omaha And what is the standard American psychiatric "treatment" for these conditions? Mind-altering drugs, of course. ADHD, for example, is treated with a drug that used to be an illegal street drug called "speed." It's an amphetamine, and recent research published in the August, 2007 issue of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reveals that Ritalin and other ADHD drugs actually stunt the growth of children, causing their brains and bodies to be physically altered. (See http://www.newstarget.com/021944.html ) Depression, of course, is treated with SSRI drugs, none of which have ever been safety approved by the FDA for use on children or teens. In other words, the use of these drugs on teenagers is a grand, mind-altering medical experiment, and what we just witnessed in Omaha is one result of that experiment. There will be more. I hate to be accurate about this grisly prediction, because I grieve for the families of those lost to pharmaceutically-induced violence, but the truth is that until we stop drugging our children with psychotropic drugs, the shootings are not going to stop. Big Pharma is to blame for this one, not the manufacturer of the gun. That gun has a trigger, you see, and the trigger was pulled by a finger. The finger was connected via a series of nerves to a brain, and that brain was altered by psychotropic drugs. The brain wasn't functioning like a normal, healthy, well-nourished brain; it was functioning like a zoned out "zombie" brain permanently distorted by psychiatric drugs. Sending a teenager out into the public doped up on mind-altering drugs that we KNOW are linked to violence -- and jacked up on junk foods (he worked at McDonald's) -- is a certain recipe for disaster. Big Pharma executives, drug reps and the irresponsible psychiatrists who dish these pills out to teenagers might as well have just walked right into the mall and set off a bomb themselves. These are the people ultimately responsible for the tragedy in Omaha. Hawkins may have pulled the trigger, but modern psychiatry drugged him with violence-inducing chemicals. The fact that such drugs promote violence isn't even disputed. It's printed right on the warning labels of those drugs! And as sad as this tragedy is for all those affected by this medication-induced violence, the truly sad part is that America still hasn't learned this lesson. If you drug the children with chemicals that cause violence, you're going to see more shootings. It's as simple as that. And if you take away the guns, you'll see bombs, knives or machetes used in these attacks. When disturbed young boys are doped up on psychotropic drugs that promote violence -- and they're drugged by the hundreds of thousands -- it's like playing a national game of Russian roulette (with apologies to Russia). Sooner or later, another kid whose mind has been altered by Ritalin, Prozac or some other drug is going to walk into yet another school or mall and start killing people. This kind of behavior is a direct product of chemical-based psychiatric "treatment." The criminals running modern psychiatry The psychiatric industry, though, thinks that yet MORE children need "treatment" with drugs for ADHD and depression. In fact, an industry press release recently claimed that only one-third of those children "suffering" from ADHD are receiving appropriate "treatment" for the condition. Of course, those are just code words for "drugging the children with high-profit pharmaceuticals." When the psychiatric authorities say "treatment," what they mean is "more drugging." Want to learn the horrifying, yet true, history of modern psychiatry? Check out www.CCHR.org - the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights. They have a documentary so downright shocking that I couldn't even finish watching the whole thing. It's called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death. Also be sure to check out the shocking book by Kelly Patricia O'Meara called Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Kill. This book explains exactly why kids like Robert Hawkins who have been treated with psychiatric drugs end up shooting innocents. What could have healed Robert Hawkins and saved lives Robert Hawkins could have been a healthy, stable and normal kid with the help of some real food, real nutrition and real love from a supporting family. Instead, he lived on junk food, worked at McDonald's and took medication pills as directed by his psychiatric doctor. The results speak for themselves: This recipe of processed food and mind-altering drugs created a monster, and yesterday in Omaha, that monster exploded in a rage of violence. If we don't learn from all this and stop drugging our nation's children, then those innocents in Omaha will have died in vain. And I ask the question: How many more innocent Americans must pay the price for medication-induced violence? Ask yourself one question: Why does the FDA continue to allow these dangerous drugs to be prescribed to children and teens when 1) They have never been tested on children or teens, and 2) Other countries have already banned the prescribing of these drugs to children and teens? Story Notes: The Associated Press originally reported Hawkins' age as 20 years old, but corrected it to 19 years old following a correction by local police. Hawkins was not reported to have been taking medications at the precise time of the shooting, but his caretaker, Debora Maruca-Kovac, said that "he had been treated in the past for depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder." We do not know exactly which drugs Hawkins had been treated with in the past, and we hope the names of those drugs will surface in future reports on this tragedy. NewsTarget deeply regrets the loss of life witnessed in this event, and we commit to doing our part to end these medication-induced crimes that continue to be perpetrated by Big Pharma and modern psychiatry. You have permission to forward or reprint this article, with appropriate credit and a link back to this URL: http://www.newstarget.com/022330.html Please protect our children from Big Pharma! - Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Consumer health advocate Editor, http://www.newstarget.com/ Not yet a subscriber? Sign up at: http://www.NewsTarget.com/ReaderRegistration.html --- Prescription drugs are connected to school shootings and other violence, yet more drugs are touted as the solution The United States is gaining a reputation around the world for raising children who go on school shooting rampages. Earlier this year, we had another one with 16-year-old Jeff Weiss, who went into his school on an Indian reservation and blew away 10 friends. And guess what? He was taking the antidepressant Prozac. Once again we see the link between antidepressants and violent behavior. I was raising the alarm about this in 1999 following the Columbine schools shootings. At that time we knew that those students were on antidepressant drugs, but the rest of the world didn't take any notice of it. The rest of the world said, "These drugs are completely safe. They keep these kids happy and in a normal state so they don't feel depressed." What they actually do, though, is detach these kids from reality to the point they can go on shooting rampages and not even have a clue that they're affecting the lives of real people. It basically transforms the world into a video game that these kids play out. It makes it very easy for them to cross that threshold and begin to display violent behavior. We've seen this in the studies and finally, after years and years of pounding this issue, some of it has started to come out in the popular press. We're seeing a lot of warnings now about antidepressant drugs and their ability to cause violent behavior. We're seeing some of these drugs pulled off the market. And slowly we're beginning to see the general public recognizing the link between antidepressant drugs in our youth and violent behavior, including school shootings. Back in 1999, they blamed guns. So if the students had picked up knives and stabbed people to death, it would have been a knife problem? Give me a break; it's not a knife problem, or a gun problem… it's a medication problem. These schools are supposed to be drug-free zones, and yet half the kids are doped up on antidepressants and Ritalin. How is that drug-free? If you're going to alter the brain chemistry of these children, you had better be prepared for the results. The result we're seeing now is mass killings. Elsewhere around the world, where children aren't doped up on all these drugs, we don't see this kind of behavior. This is what happens when you change children's brain chemistry; you get these results. Now, you can talk about other factors that may be involved. We can talk about violent video games, for example, and how some of these first-person shooter games are potentially training simulators for violent and aggressive behavior. However, I think you can only push that argument so far. If a child can distinguish between a video game and reality, then he's not going to be running around shooting people in the real world just because he played a video game. That doesn't mean these video games are healthy. I would certainly prefer that children played something a little less violent, but I don't think you can blame the video games for this behavior. You've got to go to the brain chemistry. It's when you alter the brain chemistry that bad things start to happen. Boosting brain health with nutrition As much as 80 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD can be completely free of the "disease" in a matter of weeks just by taking certain metabolic disrupters out of their diet -- most notably, refined sugars and refined grains, such as white flour and artificial food colors. Imagine how healthy children's nervous systems could be if we fed them good nutrition. What if they had some supergreens or just some basic vitamins, minerals and whole food concentrates? What could we do for the health of their brains? They would have stable moods, they would have non-aggressive behavior, and they would be more creative and more willing to learn. We could raise a whole generation of healthy, intelligent children if we started with nutrition, because the brain and nervous system are physical organs. People forget that. The brain is a physical organ, and just like any physical organ in your body, if you don't give it the right nutrients, then it won't function properly. Trying to raise a normal child without nutrition is akin to running a car without oil The colors of foods are actually potent phytochemicals, and these colors have highly protective effects on the nervous system. They also boost immune system function in the body and can help reduce arthritis and inflammation. They have a lot of beneficial effects in the body, yet children today are growing up on mostly processed foods and junk foods. You probably remember what you ate as a teenager. It's an atrocious diet. I know mine was a terrible diet. I can't believe I made it to the age of 25 based on what I was eating then. But some kids aren't making it, and they're not making it because they lack the basic nutrition they need to have healthy functioning nervous systems. So what does this organized medicine and psychiatry do to combat this problem? It doses teenagers up on prescription drugs as if drugs are the answer to every problem. Then they have another answer when these kids go out and shoot each other. The answer, then, is prison time. "We'll lock these kids away because they're dangerous to society." Instead of spending a few dollars on nutrition to raise a healthy, balanced human being with a functioning nervous system, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, over the life of this person to keep them incarcerated. We build more prisons. We put them on more drugs, and we do nothing to create a productive member of society. It only takes a few dollars worth of nutrition each month to support a healthy child. Of course, there's more to it than just nutrition; there are things like good parenting, a great living environment, a challenging learning environment and so on. But in terms of the nutritional aspect, it only takes a few dollars. Nutrition doesn't have to be expensive. Investing in the health of our children is a bargain The don't need to be punished as mush as they simply need to be nourished. I know this stands at odds with the current "incarcerate everybody" mentality that dominates the culture here in the United States, the land of prisons -- but it's the truth. Why are we the country with the greatest prison population in the world? It might be the same reason we are the nation with the worst health problems in the world. They are connected, you know. People who are unhealthy are unhappy, moody and can display aggressive, violent behavior. Change their diets and you can turn many criminals into normal people. Not all of them, of course, but a large number. Modern society is addicted to drugs At that time, society will have moved way beyond chemical-based medicine. We will be focused on disease prevention, and we'll have electro-medicine. We'll be using non-local medicine, for example, to help people stay healthy. We'll have outstanding nutrition available at a very reasonable cost in formats people can enjoy taking. Someday, nutrition will be recognized as the number one way to prevent disease and keep people healthy. Belief in chemicals as a cure-all is just one more sign that we are living in the dark ages of medicine "Does your head hurt? You need a chemical. Blood pressure too high? We have a chemical for that, too. Do you feel nervous speaking in front of groups? We have a chemical for that one. Having trouble with your relationships? Chemical. Got a little bit of joint pain? Yup, there's a chemical for that." Then they'll tell you, just in case, "We have chemicals for stuff that you haven't even experienced yet. We have chemicals that you can take to make sure that you never have pain or heart disease. You should take all these chemicals right now, just in case, and keep taking them for as long as you live." How's that for a con? The con of pharmaceutical-based medicine is the biggest con ever perpetrated on the American people. That con has effects in our schools, and unfortunately, some of those side effects are fatal. The silent holocaust of pharmaceutical deaths Ten children die in this school shooting, and it gets a lot of attention. Why? It's violent; people pay attention to violence. Meanwhile, we have 100,000 Americans (and that's a conservative number) dying every year just from prescription drugs side effects, and it gets no attention. Why? It's not violent. These 100,000 people die separately, and they die quietly. They die in homes or in hospitals. There's no fiery crash, there's no late-night footage for the news, there's no big explosion and there's nothing to report to the tabloid papers. It's just 100,000 people dying silently. Also, more than 16,500 deaths a year are caused by over-the-counter pain medications. Non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) kill more than 16,500 people a year by gastrointestinal bleeding. Then the COX-2 inhibitors, which were supposed to be safer than the NSAIDs, came along, and according to studies by chief drug researcher Dr. David Graham at the FDA, they've caused more than 144,000 heart attacks, more than 40 percent of which have been fatal. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about drugs killing more Americans than the entire Vietnam War. We're talking about it happening every year -- twice a year, in fact. You want to talk about a war; this is war on the people, and it's being waged by the pharmaceutical industry. They're willing to trade your life for their profits, in my view. They can get away with it because, again, there's no big event. People are dying separately and quietly, and many of the people who are dying were in their old age anyway, right? They figure no one will blame the drug. We have a disturbingly drug-addicted society here, folks. We've got to get back to health and basic nutrition by raising children with healthy, functioning nervous systems. If we don't do that, no amount of chemistry is going to save us. In fact, these chemicals are already responsible for untold pain, suffering and death in our society. The solution is not more chemicals. The solution is to change the paradigm and get back to nutrition, healthy foods and disease prevention while getting the poisonous ingredients out of our food supply. If we don't do that, we're going to continue to be a society of violent criminals and degenerates -- a society of people who don't have good cognitive function and who are chemically dependant on a system of medicine that is actually killing them at a rate that makes the Vietnam War look like a Boy Scout skirmish in the woods. That's the truth about modern medicine today. It's a crime against our own children, and if we are to have any real hope of surviving as a nation for another generation, this practice must be stopped. --- Antidepressant Paxil found to double the risk of violent behavior New British research has found that users of GlaxoSmithKline's antidepressant drug Paxil were twice as likely to experience violent behavior compared to patients taking placebo. Paxil is in a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitirs -- or SSRIs -- that recently came under fire from doctors who claimed it increased the risk of suicide in teenage users. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded in 2004 that SSRIs caused teen and adult users to run higher risks of suicide, and ordered its strongest "black box" warning label on several SSRI drugs. Researchers David Healthy, David Menkes and Andrew Herxheimer concluded in the online journal Public Library of Science-Medicine that although the risk of violence in Paxil takers was rare, it was a risk worthy of further study. "The new issues highlighted by these cases [of violence] need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are used," they wrote. "This finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always conducted by children who are taking antidepressants," explained Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and critic of the overmedication of children. "We also know that SSRIs cause children to disconnect from reality. When you combine that with a propensity for violence, you create a dangerous recipe for school shootings and other adolescent violence," he said. Children and teens taking antidepressants might be more likely to attempt, complete suicide (http://www.newstarget.com/z020643.html) Antidepressant medications may be associated with suicide attempts and death in severely depressed children and adolescents but not in adults, according to an article in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues analyzed the medical records of 5,469 Medicaid patients who were hospitalized for depression at least once in 1999 or 2000. The researchers first selected all cases of completed suicides (eight children and adolescents and 86 adults) and suicide attempts (263 children and adolescents, 521 adults). They then matched each case with one to five controls based on demographic information, period following hospital discharge, presence or absence of a suicide attempt prior to hospital admission, state of residence, other medication use and presence or absence of a substance abuse disorder. Severely depressed children and adolescents ages 6 to 18 years were 1.5 times as likely to attempt suicide and also significantly more likely to complete suicide if they were treated with an antidepressant medication than if they were not treated with an antidepressant. More specifically, children and adolescents who died from suicide (eight cases) were more likely to have been treated with an SSRI antidepressant than their matched controls (39 controls, 37.5 percent vs. 7.7 percent). Among adults age 19 to 64 years, however, treatment with antidepressants was not associated with either suicide attempts or suicide deaths. The link between completed suicides and antidepressants in young patients was based on only eight cases, and it is possible that the sickest children were more likely to be treated with such medications, skewing the results, the authors write. "With these caveats in mind, the present findings are consistent with the recommendations for careful clinical monitoring during the treatment of depressed children and adolescents with antidepressant medications," they conclude. "In practice, physicians face the difficult challenge of balancing safety concerns against evidence that depression is a key risk factor for adult and adolescent suicide and that antidepressant agents are effective for adult and adolescent depression." (Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:865-872. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.) Contact: Craig LeMoult 212-305-0820 JAMA and Archives Journals --- Are antidepressant drugs an accomplice in the Virginia Tech shootings? The Chicago Tribune reports that Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 fellow students in a shooting rampage, was taking antidepressant drugs. This is not the first time a school shooting rampage has been linked to antidepressants. The infamous Colombine High shootings took place almost exactly eight years ago, and the shooters in that rampage were also -- you guessed it -- taking antidepressant drugs. What is it about antidepressant drugs that provokes young men to pick up pistols, rifles and shotguns, then violently assault their classmates? Clearly, there's something wrong with the mind of anyone who engages in such violent acts. Could the drugs be "imbalancing" their minds, priming them for violence? The answer is a very sobering, "Yes, they could be." As we reported in a previous NewsTarget article on Paxil: Researchers from Cardiff University in Britain and the Cochrane Centre examined data on Paxil -- or its generic form, paroxetine -- from GlaxoSmithKline, legal cases and emails from nearly 1,400 patients who responded to a British TV program on antidepressants. The researchers found that 60 out of 9,219 people taking Paxil -- 0.65 percent -- experienced a "hostility event," compared to 20 out of 6,455 patients taking placebo, or 0.31 percent. In that same article, published in September, 2006, I stated, "This finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always conducted by children who are taking antidepressants. We also know that SSRIs cause children to disconnect from reality. When you combine that with a propensity for violence, you create a dangerous recipe for school shootings and other adolescent violence." Sadly, that explanation rings true once again with the Virginia Tech shooting. Wherever we see school violence, antidepressant drugs seem to found at the scene of the crime. The correlation is not coincidence. There is a causal link between the two. The links between antidepressants and violence are well documented The authors note that "Some regulators, such as the Canadian regulators, have also referred to risks of treatment-induced activation leading to both self-harm and harm to others" and the "United States labels for all antidepressants as of August 2004 note that 'anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric'". In other words, the link between antidepressants and violence has been known for years by the very people manufacturing, marketing or prescribing the drugs. As the author of the study mentioned above concluded, "The new issues highlighted by these cases need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are widely used." That was last year, well before this latest shooting. The warning signs were there, and they've been visible for a long time. Medical authorities can hardly say they are "shocked" by this violent behavior. After all, the same pattern of violence among antidepressant takers has been observed, documented and published in numerous previous cases. How to stop the violence Giving young men antidepressant drugs is, in my opinion, just like building silent timebombs and waiting around for one to suddenly go off. Chemically assaulting these young, troubled brains with powerful drugs -- while denying them real mental health solutions based on nutrition -- is the bread and butter of modern psychiatry, an industry that in my opinion has sold its soul to drug companies and now serves primarily as a glorified system of legalized drug dealers that preys upon children and teenagers. That doesn't mean the doctor or psychiatrist who prescribed the antidepressants is directly responsible for the violence committed by Cho Seung Hui, but they may have very well played a key role in destabilizing the mind of a young man who was on the verge of insanity. You don't give another shot of whisky to a drunk driver, and you shouldn't prescribe antidepressants to troubled young men. How many more Americans will be killed by pharmaceuticals? Don't you find it curious that when 100,000+ Americans are killed in their homes and beds each year, dying from heart attacks and strokes caused by pharmaceuticals, there's virtually no news coverage, but when mind-altering drugs cause a student to pick up guns and blow away 32 classmates, it's suddenly front-page news everywhere? The reason is because there's violence involved, and violence gets ratings for news organizations. Another interesting point in all this is that a Korean diplomat contacted the Bush Administration to offer his condolences. Does this seem a bit strange to anyone else? The student was an American citizen, and he had lived in America for many years. In fact, he got put on antidepressant drugs in America, following the same fraudulent system of medicine that is uniquely American in the degree of harm it causes people. If anybody should be picking up the phone and apologizing, it's the U.S. diplomats who should be apologizing to the world for exporting death, disease and western medicine. Drug companies should be apologizing to the families of those who died, as well as to the family of the shooter. And the doctor or psychiatrist who prescribed these drugs to Cho Seung should be apologizing to everybody. Where is the apology from the drug companies who manufacture these chemicals that kill? The question I'm asking is: Who's really at fault here? Sure, it's primarily the person who pulled the trigger. But it's also the companies and FDA regulators who allowed dangerous, violence-inducing chemicals to be prescribed to the person who pulled the trigger. "Chemically-induced violence," I call it. And antidepressant drugs make it so much easier for the shooter because they make people feel dissociated from reality. One of the Colombine shooters said it was all, "like a video game." Or, as described in shocking detail in the PLoS Medicine study mentioned above, a 12 year old boy was being drugged with antidepressants when the following took place. As reported: The independent forensic report on the case notes CP as saying that that night: "something told me to shoot them". He had initially reported this to be hallucinations and then said he thought it was his own thoughts. When asked to specifically describe what the experience was like, he said it was "like echoes in my head saying 'kill, kill', like someone shouting in a cave". According to the forensic report, "He reported this began happening after he went to bed…He reported he had never considered harming his grandparents before and this was unlike anything he had previously experienced. He reported that the voices were coming from inside his head and they bothered him so much that he got up. He reported that the voices continued until he killed his grandparents. He reported that he couldn't control himself and reported the echoes stopped after he shot his grandparents. He set fire to the house but could not explain these actions saying the thoughts just popped up". He then took a vehicle and began driving but reported that he had no idea where he was going and that it all felt like a dream. He recalled asking the police about his grandparents after he was picked up because he was not sure if it had really happened or not. My heart goes out to those who died... ALL of them The shootings will not stop until the pills are banned. You can bank on it. The next attempted shooting is likely only days or weeks away. If we want to end this violence, we must end the chemical warfare being waged against the minds of our young men and children by the drug companies. Study summary: Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioural effects of antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence. Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links between these drugs and violent behaviours. The legal cases outlined returned a variety of verdicts that may in part have stemmed from different judicial processes. Many jurisdictions appear not to have considered the possibility that a prescription drug may induce violence. The association of antidepressant treatment with aggression and violence reported here calls for more clinical trial and epidemiological data to be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse outcomes of treatment. Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs, and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable data. The problem is international and calls for an international response. --- CAUSE AND EFFECT - THE VIRGINIA TECH TRAGEDY In 1996, Barry Loukaitis walked into Frontier Junior High in Moses Lake, Washington, armed with a .30-.30 rifle and handguns stolen from his grandfathers’ home; he killed a teacher and two students, wounding a third. Loukaitis is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Media immediately targeted his embattled family. The parents were getting a divorce; there were allegations of domestic violence. A copy of the book The Rage by Steven King under a pseudo name was found by Loukaitis’ bed when police searched the home. This was the first instance in which mainstream media took notice of the rising incidence of violence on school campuses. This was not, however, the first incident. Since 1991, the incidence of violence on school campuses had been on the increase nationwide. On April 16, 2007, Cho Seung Hui, a senior at Virginia Tech, embarked on the worst massacre to occur on an American campus to date, killing over 30 people (the count seems to vary depending on the source), injuring many, then killing himself. The public was exposed to endless re-runs of the bizarre scene. It was rather amazing, considering the obvious zeal to sensationalize, that footage of the body of the gunman didn’t join the looping litany of re-runs. As a substitute they aired materials sent by Cho to NBC before his shooting rampage and ultimate suicide. Enter the talking heads: why did Cho do this? what was the impetus? what was the cause? what was going on in his mind? The questions and talking heads have been endless. NBC’s 60 Minutes ran a segment on Sunday, April 22, 2007, in which it was divulged that the Secret Service has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Education in an attempt to “profile” potential shooters. The product of the team effort, in the form of a DVD, is now being dispensed to schools and universities across the United States. But in all these so-called “experts” talk about, there are a couple of things they do not talk about, and what they aren’t talking about and why they aren’t talking about it should grab the attention of the public en masse. What these so-called “experts” aren’t talking about is the fact that one whole generation of children have now been exposed, through their entire educational experience, to transformational systems education, intended not to educate them for intelligence but rather to inculcate them with the wanted attitudes, values and beliefs. When transformational systems education first surfaced, the populace was told that this system of education represented a paradigm shift. Paradigm is defined as world view, how one perceives the world and the purpose of it; in other words, one’s religion or religious beliefs. Since this was a paradigm shift, a shift in religious world view, we needed to ask what world view were we shifting from and to. A study of history and our founding documents shows our nation was founded on the Christian world view. This was the world view from which our society was being shifted. To what world view were we then to be shifted? It soon became apparent that the world view to which we were being shifted was humanism/New Age. The religion of humanism is man-made and man-centered, stating emphatically that “no deity will save us, we must save ourselves” (Humanist Manifesto I, 1933). It is the epitome of the mantra of the paradigm shift: “Creating the Future” — a term heard over and over again in the realm of the transformational process. Unfortunately, if we each create our own futures according to our own passions, opinions and prejudices, civil turmoil will soon ensue. Therefore, we must subjugate individual rights to that of the collective of society. Enter total quality management (TQM) in business; the church growth movement (CGM) in churches; performance based budgeting (PBB) in government, and transformational systems education (aka, OBE, PBE and the plethora of other pseudonyms) in the schools. Transformational systems education is intended, specifically, to inculcate in children the wanted transformational Marxist attitudes, values, and beliefs. Transformational systems education, what is happening inside every government school in the United States under the infamous Goals 2000, is not a natural process. It is the outreach of humanist psychologists and psychiatrists, men like, B.F. Skinner—how to train a dog to slobber in five lessons or less; operant conditioning for children; Abraham Maslow—father of the human potential movement and Third Force Psychology, adding the existentialist (New Age) spiritual dimension; Carl Rogers—father of the self-actualization methodology; Sidney Simon—the values clarification methodology of how to change a child’s belief system; being some, but not all, of the more prominent of the group. Before this generation of humanist psychologists and psychiatrists seeking to understand that which will never be understood by mortal man — how the human mind really works — there were such degenerates as Sigmund Freud who was more than a little bit off upstairs. But his work, his writings, became the background for much that followed. During World War II, many transformational Marxists crossed the Atlantic from Germany, finding refuge in America; men like Kurt Lewin. In the foreword to the book The Change Agents Guide, Second Edition (Havelock, Ronald G; Educational Technology Publications; 1995), Matthew B. Miles wrote, “The truth is that not until the late 1940’s, when American behavioral scientists began exploring and developing the ideas of the émigré psychologist Kurt Lewin, did we really have anything like a systematic science and practical craft of planned change in the kinds of social systems that matter most—families, small groups, organizations, communities.” (page vii) And, of course, as so many have written about before, the “science” of planned change in attitudes, values and beliefs is centered around the Hegelian Dialectic; Hegel being a mentor of the communist, Karl Marx. Antithetical to the Christian belief that man has a sin nature, therefore the need for a Higher Authority—the Creator—God who created man and gave His only begotten Son that man might be saved from his sin nature, humanism believes that man evolved (from what has never been stated) and is essentially good. Before he died, Abraham Maslow stated that his work was based on the false premise that man is essentially good; before he died, Carl Rogers denounced his work as a failure. That, however, did not dissuade those, realizing the potential man-centered religion had for achieving power and position over others, from abandoning their evil pursuit of the same. And what better way to do that than to produce generation after generation of un-educated, dumbed-down children? When Barry Loukaitis walked into Frontier Junior High in 1996, few knew that the Moses Lake School District, situated in central Washington, had been immersed since the early 90’s in transformational systems education via the Schools for the 21st Century Pilot Program for Goals 2000, implemented in Washington State in 1989. Other states also participated in this pilot program. Is it a coincidence that school violence coalesced the implementation of this program? At the time, I told my Washington Legislators that due to the fact that transformation systems education was not normal, was not conducive to producing a healthy mind, that Moses Lake was just the start of what was to come IF they did nothing to reverse the damage already done. However, the legislature, not only in Washington State, but legislatures nation-wide, bought into Goals 2000, transformational systems education, and the incidence of school shootings has been on the rise ever since, even since Columbine when it was decided that the mainstream media would no give such attention to school shootings. Now an entire generation of children have been subjected to transformational systems education, have graduated secondary and entered higher education. It is not coincidence that the trend in violence, associated with the unnatural bending of young minds, would follow. With the school shooting in Springfield, Oregon, in May 1998, a short year before the April 20, 1999, Columbine Massacre, another aspect of the school shooters became so apparent that it could not be ignored by anyone who truly cared: the fact that an increasing number of shooters had been on or were currently on prescription anti-depressants. It was not long before it was reported that Cho Seung Hui, the shooter at Virginia Tech, was also rumored to have been on a prescription anti-depressants. But nothing, absolutely nothing has been or is being said about this increasing and obvious factor. Why? Enter The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health established by the executive order of President George W Bush in 2002, from which emanated, in 2004, a proposal for the comprehensive mental health screening of every man, woman and child in this country. Since the publishing of the report of the New Freedom Commission, we have seen newscast after newscast, program after program, advocate for the mental health screening of the American populace; some even advocating the screening of children under two. The same report of The President’s New Freedom Commission cites Columbia Universities TeenScreen® computer questionnaire as a “valid and reliable instrument” in identifying suicidal tendencies and mental health issues in teens. According to TeenScreen® literature, those deemed to have suicidal tendencies or mental defects are referred to mental health professionals—psychologists and psychiatrists. Research, not by the government, but by American citizens, produced a study published in 2004 by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in which it is stated 84 of every 100 children screened by TeenScreen® are falsely identified as having suicidal tendencies or other mental problems. These children are then referred to professional clinicians where anti-depressants are prescribed, more times than not; the same anti-depressants that carry a FDA black-box warning that they can cause suicide ideation and violent tendencies! First these children are subjected to a system of education which is unnatural and intended to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs; then they are subjected to a bogus mental health evaluation with an 84% chance of a false positive, referred to clinicians were they are, more times than not, put on anti-depressants that can cause suicide ideation and violent tendencies. And we wonder why these kids are killing themselves and others? Why is this not being talked about? Because the whole of it, the education system and the push to put people on anti-depressants, is coming right out of the United States government, socialist/communist Democrat and fascist Republican alike. The pharmaceutical lobby on Capitol Hill is one of the most lucrative sources of campaign funds for politicians; and it is the pharmaceutical companies who are reaping the profits of the growing number of young people put on prescription anti-depressants. And face it, the more people killed by school shooters, the more ammunition the government has to repeal the Second Amendment! If they can get our guns away from us, then they can number us all like the Nazi’s did and we can all work in exchange for enough food to keep us productive! Useless eaters—the old and the infirm—will be exterminated! Does the government—state or federal—really care if this system is creating killers who prey on others? Only to the extent that the gun doesn’t get pointed at them. To that end, they live behind barricades, that they might be protected from the “unwashed masses” who might intend them harm. The sooner the American people come to the realization that the out-of-control rogue United States Government cares not one whit for the health, well-being or general welfare of the average American, the more apt we are to save our nation. --- Do "Gun-Free" Zones Encourage School Shootings? This time, Cleveland: a 14-year-old suspended high school student entered Cleveland's Success Tech Academy, a gun in each hand, and opened fire, wounding four. Later, we learn that the shooter's past included violent confrontations, mental problems and at least one previous suspension. A month earlier he told a friend that he intended to shoot up the school. But no one, apparently, took his behavior seriously enough to notify authorities. Meanwhile, a high school teacher in Oregon, with a permit to carry a concealed weapon plus training, sought permission to carry her firearm to school. In fear of her ex-husband, against whom she filed and received two restraining orders, she wanted the ability to protect herself in the event he showed up. Furthermore, she argued that even without the fear of her ex-husband, the Second Amendment and Oregon state law allow her to carry her firearm to work. Her school district, however, prevents her from carrying a firearm to school. This raises a question. Do shooters consider schools "gun-free zones"? Do they consider it unlikely that any authority figure -- whether teachers or, in some cases, security guards -- poses an armed threat? But in some school shooting cases, guns helped to end shooting sprees and minimize loss of life and injury. Edinboro, Pennsylvania. A 14-year-old middle school student opened fire at a school graduation dance, being held at a local restaurant. The shooter killed one teacher and wounded two students and another teacher. The armed teenager was apprehended by the restaurant owner, who grabbed his own shotgun from his office and went after the shooter. Staring into the owner's shotgun, the teen dropped his gun and surrendered. Pearl, Mississippi. A 16-year-old sophomore entered Pearl High with a hunting rifle under his overcoat. He opened fire, killing two students and wounding seven. The assistant principal, Joel Myrick, ran to his truck and retrieved the .45 automatic he kept there. Running back, he spotted the shooter in the parking lot. Ordering the teen to stop, the vice principal put his gun to the shooter's neck and held him until police arrived. Grundy, Virginia: at Appalachian Law School, a disgruntled student on the verge of his second suspension entered a school building and shot and killed the dean and a professor. He then shot four students, killing one. Hearing the shots fired, two students, Michael Gross and Tracy Bridges, ran to their cars to retrieve their guns. With guns aimed at the shooter, Bridges ordered him to drop his weapon. When the shooter turned and saw Bridges' gun, he laid down his weapon and put his hands in the air. (My pro-Second Amendment documentary, "Michael and Me," goes into detail about this incident, as well as others.) Professor and economist John Lott checked 280 separate news stories in the week after the Appalachian Law School shooting, and only found four that mentioned the students who stopped the shooter had guns. The Washington Post, for example, said the students "helped subdue" the killer. Newsday wrote the shooter was "restrained by students." The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, however, wrote that the shooter "was wrestled to the ground by fellow students, one of whom aimed his own revolver at [the killer]." Four months later, the Times-Dispatch detailed the students' actions, including the second student's use of a gun. What do felons think about an armed citizenry? A survey of convicted felons by the National Institute of Justice found 74 percent of the felons agreed that, "One reason burglars avoid houses when people are home is that they fear being shot during the crime." The survey also asked these felons whether they had abandoned at least one crime because they feared the intended victim might be armed. Thirty-nine percent said they abandoned at least one crime; 8 percent had abandoned such a crime "many" times; 34 percent admitted being "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; and nearly 70 percent knew a "colleague" who had abandoned a crime, been scared off, been shot at, wounded or captured by a victim packing heat. A survey of 23,113 police chiefs and sheriffs across the country found that 62 percent of these top cops agreed that "a national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime." About 80 percent of rank-and-file police officers, according to polls, support the right of trained citizens to carry concealed weapons. Israel gets it. Since the 1970s, on school campuses in Israel, policy requires teachers and parent aides to arm themselves with semi-automatic weapons. The result? School shootings have plummeted to zero. As for Cleveland, would allowing authority figures to arm themselves have resulted in reduced casualties, or perhaps even deterred the shooter in the first place? No one can say for sure. But no doubt at least some Cleveland parents now believe the benefits of armed campus adults outweigh the costs. --- AT THE ROOT OF EDUCATION REFORM In 1997, Craig Roberts wrote, in his book, The Medusa File, page 90: "… certain segments of the population must be programmed to be robotic drones, incapable or unwilling to think on their own. In this scenario, the “individual” is the enemy of the state. Individual thinking and choice are not conducive to “peace and progress” and not permitted. Only by being part of “The Team,” can the individual (follower) accomplish objectives or “outcomes.” Of course, these “objectives and outcomes” are directed by the bureaucracy. This phase of population training is currently being accomplished by the public school system with such programs as “outcomes based education,” and the introduction of New Ageism into the classroom. One has to remember that Adolf Hitler pioneered a similar tactic with his Hilterjugend and state-sponsored school system. To quote the Fuhrer, “When an opponent declares: ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say ‘your child belongs to me already. Who are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.’” How could we possibly think that the system of education, implemented in the United States under Goals 2000, is the same system of education that produced the mentality that became Germany under Hitler? To understand fully, we must go back in time to Plato, and follow his philosophy as it transpired through his disciples: Kant, Hegel, and Marx, to the philosophy and mindset of the men who influenced the social scientists of pre-Hitler and Hitler Germany. This is covered, in great detail in Leonard Peikoff’s book, Ominous Parallels. Also covered, in great detail, is the fact that the United States, as established, was established on the philosophy and teachings of Aristotle — the antidote of Plato. What most American people do not know is that following World War II, many of the Nazis social scientists who served under Hitler were brought to the United States by the CIA via Operation Paperclip. The fact that they were Nazis, had served under Hitler, had participated in war crimes (some of the most heinous nature), were avowed Nazis, was expunged by the CIA (while high-level government officials looked the other way) from their files to get them into this country. Once in the United States, the knowledge and ideas of these social scientists was put to work, only this time in the United States; these men became professors in universities, worked in behavioral science laboratories, and became practitioners in the social science field (psychology, psychiatry). Their writings and theories influenced the direction of social science in the United States, social science being the backbone of education in the government schools and what teachers are taught in colleges and universities today. At this point it would be ludicrous to claim that these men were wholly responsible for the direction social science has taken in the United States. The philosophy of Plato and Kant, those who built upon their critique of reason, has been influencing social science in the United States for as far back as Wundt and the Leipzig connection of the 1870’s. What is important is that this same philosophy set the stage for Hitler; it also set the stage for bringing these men to the United States from Nazi Germany. The result has been the transformation of America via the Hegelian Dialectic; Hegel also being a disciple of Plato and Kant, their subjectivism and relativism. In his book, Ominous Parallels, Leonard Peikoff, protégé of Ayn Rand, spoke of the education system of Germany during Hitler’s rise to power and how that system produced violent children; how that system produced the men who went on to become Hitler’s feared Gestapo and SS, men capable of inflicting grossly inhumane and violent behavior on others. The men who produced that system of education then came to the United States under Operation Paperclip, bringing their philosophy, teachings, and ideas with them to influence what would be implemented here. And we wonder why we have violent children without a conscience, who take guns to school and kill other children and teachers, who join gangs, who can kill without remorse? And we wonder why, with the implementation of education reform in the schools of the United States since the early 1990’s, we have seen a spike in juvenile violence? Some of the Nazi’s who came to this country, under Operation Paperclip, went to work for the CIA in the field of mind control, involved in such as Operation Artichoke, Operation MK/SEARCH, Operation MK/ULTRA, Operation Monarch, and Operation Bluebird — all CIA mind control programs experimenting, among other atrocities, with the use of drugs in the re-programming of the human mind. One CIA scientist, Dr Frank Olsen, after being given LSD without his knowledge, died after falling from a hotel window. Whether he committed suicide or was murdered, his family was kept in the dark, under the cloak of “national security,” for years about what really happened to him. Coupled with what children are being taught in the government schools (in the name of producing a child capable of demonstrating mastery of government ordained, behaviorally-oriented, exit outcomes, just as one would train an animal), many of the children who have turned into killers have been found to be have taken in the past, or were currently taking, anti-depressant drugs with mind-altering capabilities. The incidence of anti-depressants being prescribed for children is rampant; the same being augmented by programs like TeenScreen set up to screen children for mental disorders (as established by the American Psychiatric Association) such as suicide, social phobia and shyness with referrals to mental health professionals where anti-depressants are too often prescribed without justification. In the Operation MK/SEARCH program, children were re-programmed to lie, steal, spy, sabotage, kill and even commit suicide. (Roberts; page 86) Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine High School) and Cho Seung-Hui (Virginia Tech) all committed suicide. Likewise, all had been on or were currently on anti-depressant drugs at the time they went on a shooting rampage. Many of the school shooters have been found to have been on prescription anti-depressants drugs, past or present, including Kip Kinkle who killed his parents before continuing his shooting rampage at school. Yet as America follows the path of Hitler and Nazi Germany, the American people continue to believe the spike in violence among today’s youth is not coming right out of government schools; has nothing to do with prescription anti-depressants. But then most American’s also have no knowledge of Operation Paperclip or the mind control programs of the CIA that have root in the mind control programs of Nazi Germany. But the American leaders would never do something like this to the American people. They wouldn’t? One only need to consider that the Franklin cover-up — involving child pedophilia, prostitution and pornography — led to people in the highest levels of government with connections to law enforcement, the FBI and the CIA, to realize that “yes, they would.” The philosophy that can justify this kind of behavior is the same philosophy invading our schools in the name of education reform. God bless America? What do you suppose God sees when he looks down on this land of people who willfully look the other way while the most innocent, the weakest, the most defenseless among us — the children — are treated in this manner? What do you suppose God thinks when he sees Christians sending their children to the government schools to be subjected to this barbarism? What do you suppose God thinks when he sees teachers in the government schools who claim to be Christians? The Bible, in at least three chapters, speaks to the fate of those who harm His children: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6, KJV) “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” (Mark 9:42, KJV) “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” (Luke 17:2, KJV) God speaks not idly. The American people would do well to seriously reconsider their support of this “new” system of education that has roots is something so demonic, so evil. --- http://www.newswithviews.com/HNB/Hot_New_Books25.htm In "Public Schools, Public Menace," you will discover: How public schools can waste 12 years of your child’s life. The good news is that your children can now get a quality education and success in school by homeschooling them, or by carefully selecting a low-cost private school. You now have real school choice. Your children don’t have to suffer through 12 years of a mind-numbing, third-rate public-school education. (Note: just because a private school is "Christian" or mentions another religion doesn't mean that they don't get substantial funding from -- and therefore are controlled by -- the state. Please see www.learn-usa.com and consider homeschooling.) You can give your kids a quality education right now with low-cost, K-12th grade Internet private schools, and many other education options. Our book, "Public Schools, Public Menace" shows you how. 22 ways that busy, working parents can homeschool their kids. Public Schools, Public Menace: By Joel Turtel. Softcover. 375 pgs. $17.95 plus $6.00 for S/H. For each additional book add $1.50 for S/H. To Order, Call: 541-955-0117 0r, toll-Free US 800-955-0116, We Accept: Visa, M/C, AM/EX. http://www.newswithviews.com/Blumenfeld/SamuelA.htm http://www.learn-usa.com/ The links below take the reader through but some of the material on the "early childhood brain development/early childhood learning" war being waged on the American family. In reading the material posted here, please remember the following quotes: We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of Communist children's nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists. — Congress of Communist Party educators, 1918 Give me the children, I will give you a nation. — Hitler, 1939 When an opponent declares 'I will not come over to your side', I calmly say 'Your child belongs to us already. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.' — Hitler, 1939 A Recipe For Violence It COULD happen anywhere! Youthful violence, that is. In reaction to the recent shooting spree in Littleton, CO, this is a warning from an engineer-turned-educator that such an incident could happen anywhere in the U.S., not because of the availability of guns but rather because of psychologically perverse public school policies and practices, emanating from the U.S. Department of Education or its various "laboratories," promulgated in varying degrees nationwide. Examining them in combination, you will see that they comprise a "RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE!" The problem is NOT GUNS, but deteriorating youth behaviors. Trends of increased violence at younger ages are being deceptively touted as an excuse for "gun-grabbing" legislation; but the violence is surfacing in other ways. And kids have always had access to guns, especially in the South and West. I, and all my friends, carried pocket knives (no restrictions on blade size), and played games with them in the schoolyard. With all the spats and squabbles, using one of those knives as a weapon was never an option. In the next generation also, my son carried a pocket knife and recalls being beaten up by a bully in elementary school, and says today that it was not that using his knife defensively was consciously rejected, the THOUGHT NEVER EVEN OCCURRED! The truth is that kids have changed — and a lot of it is ATTRIBUTABLE TO SCHOOL CURRICULUM! In educators' frequent hand-wringing over rising violence, they like to blame all such on TV, society, etc., but avoid facing evidence that defective reading, language, and vocabulary programs have depressed communication skills thereby sabotaging skills needed to resolve conflicts. If people who confront/conflict can't communicate, their interaction is more likely to turn physical. Worse yet, studies at the U.S. Department of Justice in the 1980's by Michael Brunner, on educational factors affecting incarcerated juveniles, found direct linkages between illiteracy and violent behavior. Sociological studies of background factors of violent felons showed the strongest statistical link to be FAILURE TO LEARN TO READ — stronger than poverty, drugs, broken homes, etc! Said statistical link, in the light of Pavlov's experiments on animals and humans under sustained frustration, Brunner believes to be causal. Brunner's work resulted in a book, Retarding America - The Imprisonment of Potential (Halcyon House, 1993). In Suffolk County (NY), we have a "ticking time-bomb" example of the "recipe:" Suffolk has: the highest incarceration rate in NY state of 16 -20-year olds; Other ingredients of the "recipe" are psychologically tainted curriculum "strands," each of which gives children a nudge toward violent or irresponsible behaviors. "Attitudes and Feelings" Focus vs Brain Development Aside from moral and cultural questions of what attitudes should be taught, curriculum practices emphasizing feelings instead of logical thinking train the brain inappropriately: Neurobiologist Dr. David Goodman states (Learning From Lobotomy, HUMAN BEHAVIOR, January, 1978) that rather than studying the brain in terms of left and right hemispheres, it is more enlightening to analyze it as being divided crosswise into fore- and aft-brain functional regions. The aft-brain includes the regions of senses and feelings, whereas the fore-brain frontal lobes provide control functions: long-term planning, logical reasoning, inhibiting of impulses, self-control, tolerance for delayed gratification, etc., the functions we associate with maturation. So, as brain areas develop in rough proportion to their usage, students taught to pay more attention to their feelings than to rational thinking and self-control will have under-developed frontal lobes, making impulsive and violent behaviors more likely. Values Clarification, Decision-Making, & "Critical" Thinking The majority of these kinds of activity are based on the "non-directive" therapies of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, who admitted to problems with their use on children. Children are encouraged to adopt "values" for themselves — even if different from those of their parents — and to try making their own decisions on matters of life and death — that there are no "right" or "wrong" decisions, just "different" ones — with inadequate knowledge of consequences. Studies have shown that children undergoing the above types of courses under the rubric of drug- or sex-education tended to be MORE experimental than students who received no training at all. Dr. William Coulson, a colleague of Maslow & Rogers, has been criss-crossing the nation apologizing to the American people for that period of psychological work, and explaining why it is harmful to children: "Decision-Making": Some of the procedures lead children to believe they can use a 5-step "decision-making" process to make their own decisions on matters of life and death, e.g., whether or not to "experiment." (Or maybe whether or not to shoot at schoolmates, or abandon an unwanted fetus.) Step 1 is, "State the problem." Step two is, Examine the alternatives." "For the child who has been taught abstention," Dr. Coulson says, "the word 'alternatives' leaps off the page like a flaming sword! What's the alternative to abstention?" The Magic Circle: When the chairs are placed in a circle and the teacher steps outside, students are encouraged to exchange innermost thoughts about sex, drugs, lying, cheating, masturbation, etc. In such situations the extremes of peer personalities begin to interact: At one end of the scale is the naive, dutiful, obedient child; at the other, the aggressive, assertive, experimental child. Coulson rhetorically asks, "In such settings, which child is the more likely to influence the other? The system is psychologically designed to bring down the dutiful, obedient child." The Cheapening of Human Life In the midst of exhortations to save whales, seals, snail-darters, etc. are death and suicide education (kids visit cemeteries, write their own epitaphs, discuss suicide), lifeboat problems (Who would you throw out?), environmental studies which paint humans as "the problem," books such as The Giver (about one who executes unwanted babies), and the euphemization of abortion as "choice" (Does the fetus have a choice?). All of these cheapen the sanctity of human life. Is it any wonder that teen-agers can shoot at other persons, or abandon a new-born and return to the prom, and later admit only that "Mistakes were made?" The Self-Esteem Scam Though we are told that raising kids' self-esteem enhances learning, experiments to prove it have been UNsuccessful. In my own experience, I saw many improved behaviors and attitudes and self-confidence as a RESULT of successes in learning. The psychotherapeutic value of a successful learning experience is grossly under-estimated by educators who should know better. They have the cart before the horse. Artificially inflating an non-achieving kid's ego, without giving him an inner means to nourish it, is more likely to produce arrogance and complacency than studiousness. A little humility helps. Cooperative or Group Learning Aside from the fact that any teacher worth his/her salt can teach new concepts better and quicker than kids can teach each other, consider the effect on respect for teachers vs catering to peer pressure. Remember the teachers YOU respected the most were the ones who TAUGHT you something. Now replace that by kids getting 10 years of group learning by high school, and the respect has diverted away from teachers and toward the peer-group. Could these spawn gangs? Do teachers complain, "I don't get no respect?" Re-examine group learning. Social Promotions Deceive When reading programs started to go non-phonetic (circa 70 years ago!) the increase in failures posed a problem. The system "solved" the problem by promoting children who cannot read, touting the theory that "holding them back would damage their psyches!" By graduating kids who can't read their diplomas, we condition them that performance does not matter. By "protecting" them from failure, we have guaranteed it. When the workplace rejects them, rosy illusions become anger and alienation. A RECIPE for VIOLENCE Combine a tad of TV titillation, plus defective communication skills, plus overstimulated feeling centers and under-developed regulatory lobes, plus ignorance, plus arrogance — the illusion of power to choose one's own values, un-fettered by worries of bad or wrong decisions — plus the perception that human life is expendable: mix them all together with the frustration of drowning in a sea of print while unable to read it, and you have A RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE! Revisiting the reading problem, high-tech companies complain of difficulty in finding technically-qualified employees. That is consistent with the findings of the American Institute of Physics in their 1989 report, Who Takes Science? which showed clearly that the students who enroll in physics and chemistry are the good READERS! The public probably believes that if children spent more time in school they would have less inclination to be violent. But, in a 1980 PARADE article (copy available), a Florida sheriff blames the schools for most of the violence, and a Department of Justice official notes that incidents of violence go DOWN in the summer — and back up in September! Also consider that all the shooting sprees have been in schools. If kids just wanted to kill, they could go to a shopping center or a church! To round out the perspective, consider also the Department of Justice data showing our prison population is at an all-time high of about 1.7 million inmates — MOSTLY ILLITERATE — and growing slightly faster than 7 percent per year. At that rate, it will double about every ten years! In 1995, it was 1 million; so by 2005 we'll have two million, by 2015 four million, etc. Can we afford to build prisons fast enough to keep up? Should we? Is this any way to run a country? Is this "a kinder, gentler, (smarter?) nation?" Can we get some caring citizens interested in REAL violence prevention? --- Twelve Rules for Raising Delinquent Children The following has been attributed to the Houston Police Department, who supposedly put out a pamphlet with the above title, and listing the following rules of raising a delinquent child. The rules were then picked up and published in the local Chamber of Commerce publication called Business: 1. Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living. 2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him. This will make him think he's cute. It will also encourage him to pick up "cuter phrases" that will blow off the top of your head later. 3. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he is 21, and then let him "decide for himself." 4. Avoid the use of the word "wrong." It may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him and he is being persecuted. 5. Pick up everything he leaves lying around—books, shoes, clothes. Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others. 6. Let him read any printed matter he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but don't worry about his mind feasting on garbage. 7. Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children. In this way they will not be too shocked when the home is broken up later. 8. Give the child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his. Why should he have things as tough as you did? 9. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort. See that every sensual desire is gratified. Denial may lead to harmful frustration. 10. Take his part against neighbors, teachers, policemen. They are all prejudiced against your child. 11. When he gets into real trouble, apologize to yourself by saying, "I never could do anything with him!" 12. Prepare yourself for a life of grief. You'll surely have it. --- Second Amendment To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. — Richard Henry Lee, member of Continental Congress, initiator of Declaration of Independence, and Senator when Bill of Rights passed. The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun. — Patrick Henry, Virginia Convention on ratification of the Constitution The advantage of being armed . . . the Americans possess over the people of all other nations . . . Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. — James Madison; Federalist Paper No. 26 . . . Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. — Samuel Adams James Madison Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation ... — 1788 The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant—they have been cheated; asleep—they have been surprised; divided—the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ... the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government, they should watch over it ... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free. The advantage of being armed . . . the Americans possess over the people of all other nations . . . Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. — Federalist Paper No. 26 George Washington It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. — Farewell Address; 1796 Gun Refresher Course A. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a victim. B. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone. C. Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface. D. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control. E. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords? F. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words. G. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms. H. If you don't know your rights you don't have any. I. Those who trade liberty for security have neither. J. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved. K. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand? L. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others. M. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday. N. Guns only have two enemies: Rust and Politicians. O. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety. P. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive. Q. 911 – government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer. R. Assault is a behavior, not a device. S. Criminals love gun control – it makes their occupation safer. T. If Guns cause Crime, then Matches cause Arson. U. A government that's afraid of its citizens, tries to control them. V. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for. W. Enforce the "gun control laws" in place, don't make more. X. If you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves. Y. The American Revolution wouldn't have happened with Gun Control. Z. "...a government of the people, by the people, for the people..." Please pass this on to other free citizens before we lose any more freedoms. Guns and Gun Control Laws When I turned 18 years old, I was living in Brooklyn, NY. First thing I did was go out and get my license to own rifles/shotguns. Second thing I did was run out and buy a nice new AK. (This was about 1985). Each gun I bought was registered with the NYC Firearms Control Section (think about those three words for a minute). Over the next year, I also acquired a Mini-14, HK 93 and AR-15 … all duly registered. Flash forward a couple years … I've gone to college and am living in the great state of Montana. My brother, still living in NYC, forwards me some mail from the NYPD. It says 'our records show you own these assault weapons … turn them in or get them out of the city. Send us proof you no longer have them'. I, being freshly filled with Montana-ness and not in the mood for any bureaucratic gestapo mandates, write them back a letter saying, "You want 'em? Come and get 'em." A few months go by… My brother calls and says, "Hey, remember the guy we sold the house to? Half a dozen cops showed up on the porch the other day looking for your guns." Moral of the story: Next time someone says, "registration does not lead to confiscation", you give 'em my email address and tell them to write me. Jon Facts on Gun Confiscation In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated. China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million 'educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control — 56 million. The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, ask them "Who do YOU want to round up and exterminate?" With guns, we are citizens. Without them, we are subjects. New School Prayer Now I sit me down in school The KISS Principle According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would make up their faces in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips against the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day, the girls would do it again. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls into the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in one of the toilet bowls, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror. There are teachers, and then there are educators... Now, had this been a public school, with the public coffers at their disposal, they would have called in a consultant ... maybe even a facilitator ... maybe even an analyst ... who would have charged them big bucks to tell them that the girls doing this needed counseling, paid for, of course, by the taxpayers; said counseling to focus on making the girls feel good about themselves ... after all, it must be a self-esteem problem. The moral of the story ... sometimes the solution is simple, it's only experts who make it complicated. Lynn M Stuter (www.learn-usa.com) Yesterday..... According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's or even the early 80's, probably shouldn't have survived. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.) As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable! We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, videotape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected, no one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them. Congratulations! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good. Guns, the devil and God "Why don't you pick up that gun and blow your brains out?" "You could kill a whole lot of people with that gun." "Why not shoot her right now? That would shut her up!" These are the sorts of vile mental suggestions many people experience from within their own minds when they see a gun. That's right. Dark thoughts and impulses, too horrible to dwell upon or even acknowledge, occur to many of us at the mere sight of a firearm or a naked blade. When we see the firearm, we sense the presence of evil – so naturally we assume the gun is its source, when actually the gun's close proximity caused our own buried, angry, violent tendencies to surface for a moment. Thus, many people who "dislike" or "are afraid of" guns are actually afraid of what they might do if they had a loaded firearm in their hand. And I'm not talking about criminal types here. I'm talking about "nice" people – nice on the outside, and lots of buried and perhaps unrecognized rage inside. Again, the presence of the gun simply causes his or her own dark, angry propensities to "stir a little" deep down inside. But the reality of all this is too heavy and "negative" for many of us to face, so we instantly and unconsciously project our own buried violence onto the gun – as though an inanimate hunk of metal could somehow be evil. Obviously, a loaded handgun has great potential for destruction and havoc. At the mere squeeze of a trigger there can be murder, suicide, terrorism. Even without pulling the trigger, the gun represents the magic ticket to armed robbery, forcible rape and every other form of coercion. For a person with lots of anger, albeit buried, a gun represents the shortest distance between two points – between the suppressed violent nature within him or her and the maximum expression of that nature. Therefore, the mere sight of a gun excites that dark part of us, causing it to beckon wordlessly, "Use me!" Let's examine this admittedly scary subject a little more closely. Have you ever stood close to the edge of a cliff, or out on a balcony of a high building? Did you notice that some "force" almost seemed to want to pull you over the edge? Most of us have experienced something like this phenomenon – a momentary loss of balance, an unexplainable fear, some mysterious pull toward the edge. We have a moment of disorientation and fear, then we pull back to safety. I've experienced it. Last year after driving five hours to Portland, Ore., to be a guest on Fox News I checked into my hotel room, unpacked, checked over the room, then stepped out onto the balcony. As I approached the railing and looked out at the cityscape and then gazed down several stories to the ground, I noticed a distinct pull, along with a slight disorientation, as though I was losing my balance. I recovered right away and realized I was so tired and frazzled from a long day that my mind was vulnerable to the "pull" of dark forces. So I took the hint and rested a bit, until I had recovered my strength and mental focus. In this life, the malevolent intelligence we call "evil" is constantly scanning each of us for opportunities to tempt or even destroy us. As the Good Book puts it, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8 KJV). In critical moments of the sort I'm describing, evil seizes the opportunity to give us a mental "shove." Unfortunately, for some people that "shove" is strong enough – especially after a lifetime of giving in to anger, judgment and despair – to pull them over the edge. We'll never know how many "suicides," in which people fell off a cliff or a balcony, occurred this way – not because of a premeditated suicide plan, but because they were vulnerable to the opportunistic impulse of evil. Similarly, how many head-on auto accidents occur every year because someone inexplicably crosses the center line to crash at high speed into another car, having succumbed to a wordless, instantaneous mental suggestion from hell? All in a timeless fraction of a second the message impresses itself on your mind: "Crash your car into that one coming your way. Life sucks. Go out with a major bang! Everyone will be shocked! You have the power! Just do it! Do it now!" Does this scare you? If so – if this description resonates with you even a little bit – it's only because you have the same problem to some degree. Don't fret. We're all in the same boat. We're all subject to the "dark side" of the force. It's called being "born in sin." But some of us honestly face it, and quietly call out to God for help, and His help comes. Others live in denial – until tragedy and death end it all. (This is the central theme of "Spiderman 3," by the way.) In any event, this same phenomenon is at work with firearms, because of the potential guns provide for immediate and ultimate destruction. Guns literally bring to the surface of the mind the suppressed potential for violence that exists inside every angry person. Again, there is more than one way this discomfort around guns can be experienced. A sincere person who is uncomfortable around guns will probably be able to deduce that the problem is within him and not with the inanimate firearm. He's already on the path to getting better. Unfortunately, many people who hate/fear guns never allow themselves to come face-to-face with the real problem – themselves. No sooner does their own suppressed anger react to the sight or even the thought of a gun, than they turn that angry emotional response into something more "acceptable" – like fear. After all, on the "niceness" scale, fear is a lot nicer than hatred. The problem is, after our buried anger is effortlessly transformed into "fear of guns," that fear easily turns into false righteousness: "I don't like guns and have no need for them. I'm a peaceful, non-violent person and wouldn't ever shoot anyone for any reason." Some take this "righteousness" even further: "God protects me; I don't need guns. I have faith he'll never put me in a position where I need to shoot someone." Good thing none of the Bible's Old Testament heroes like David or Joshua thought like that. They were required by God to kill many people. Who can say what will be required of us in this journey called life – whether or not we may be called on to defend ourselves or our families from a dangerous enemy? Of course, there are many angry people who love guns. The world seems to be full of pumped-up jihadists who crave weapons, the bigger and more lethal the better; drug lords who use guns to murder judges and mayors and anyone else who gets in their way; gangbangers who pack heat so they can kill members of rival gangs; and every variety of criminal who, of course, take pains to procure the tools of their illegal trade – guns. Unlike those who hate/fear guns as a result of unconsciously projecting their own inner violence onto them, angry people who love guns are in love with their own hatred, which they see as righteousness! The Islamic jihadist thinks he's serving Allah by murdering innocents. And predators and psychopaths of every sort love their guns because that's where they get the means to overcome their intended victims. The God side of guns Obviously, guns allow evil to be expressed in a multitude of ways, just as any weapon does. Everybody understands this, so there's no need to say much more about it – except that these people need to be stopped. But what does need to be said, and shouted from the rooftops, is that in the right hands firearms also enable real goodness and virtue to be manifested – right here, right now – by opposing evil and protecting the innocent. I'm talking now about what I'll call true Americans – not those who criminally prey on others, but also not those whose cowardice or shallowness causes them to appease bullies and to blame inanimate objects for the evil in the world and within themselves. Whether individually or in a war, the moral imperative to defend ourselves and others is the same. And just as we all share this fundamental and undeniable right to self-defense, it follows that we also share the right to the means of self-defense, or else that supposed right is just a bad joke. Fortunately for us, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written and adopted by strong, right-thinking people. And the Second Amendment spells out for all to see the right of Americans to "keep and bear arms," a fundamental right that "shall not be infringed." Today, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there are well over 200 million privately owned firearms in the U.S, including more than 65-70 million handguns. Approximately 45 percent of American households have firearms. That means we have 65-80 million American gun-owners, including 30-35 million owners of handguns. This is a very, very good thing – we don't even realize how good it is. For just as it was true in our founders' day, it's true today that Americans need guns. If you don't believe me, just consider the Virginia Tech disaster. Imagine Cho Seung-Hui walking into a classroom, threatening people with his guns, making them line up, preparing to shoot them. Now freeze-frame that scene and think for a moment: There isn't anyone or anything in this world that could have stopped Cho in his tracks at that point and averted the hellish slaughter that followed – except a single student or professor with a firearm, and trained to use it. At the time of this nation's birth, people understood the importance of the armed citizen. James Madison, who wrote the Second Amendment, said Americans had "the advantage of being armed," whereas in other nations "the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." Thomas Jefferson said, “No free man shall be debarred the use of arms.” Patrick Henry said the "great object is that every man be armed. … Everyone who is able may have a gun." And Thomas Paine said, "Arms … discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property." But today, many people would like to get rid of the Second Amendment – either by excising it from the Bill of Rights or, more likely, by judicially redefining its meaning as they have with the First Amendment (with the invention of the mythological "separation of church and state"). You see, in today's America the self-reliant, responsible, independent-minded man or woman who carries a gun – the kind of person who is aware, thinks for himself, is skeptical of government, the press and all of society's "experts" – the person not content to be a victim, but willing to take charge of a situation, "get involved," even fight back and stand up for what is right – in other words, a true American – is threatening to society's elitists, experts and politicians who are addicted to power. As a general rule, it is liberals who tend to oppose private citizens carrying guns around with them. As I said, this is mostly because they're full of suppressed anger and therefore project their own – and others' – evil onto inanimate objects so as to maintain the denial in which they live. After all, you can't possibly believe the illogical and immoral things liberals and leftists espouse unless you're full of trauma and repressed hatred. It takes lots of inner rage to distort reality sufficiently to believe it's OK to kill beautiful little babies in their mothers' wombs or to believe a malevolent chameleon like Hillary Clinton should be elected president of the United States and commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in world history. This same emotional confusion leads liberals to think guns are the problem, rather than being – in the right hands – the protection from tyranny and predation they truly are. Do you know what happens when good people carry lethal weapons? Their mentality changes from passive to active, vulnerable to protective, powerless to empowered, dependent to independent. Very simply, they become more responsible – and more capable of doing good. In fact, they make up the very fabric of a free America. This is the whole concept of the unregulated militia. When neighbor stands with neighbor There have always been two parts to the "militia" mentioned in the Second Amendment – the regulated and the unregulated (or the organized and the unorganized) militia. Various laws throughout U.S. history have defined the organized or regulated militia, for instance the Militia Act of 1792, which specified that males 18 through 44 years of age "shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia …" However, much more important was the founders' and framers' concept of the unorganized or unregulated militia, which they regarded as the ultimate defense of the new nation. This larger and more organic militia consisted of all able-bodied citizens. As Richard Henry Lee, a key founder during the Revolutionary period, explained in 1788: "A militia when properly formed [is] in fact the people themselves ... and include[s] all men capable of bearing arms. ... To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms." Or as George Mason famously and cryptically put it: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." Although the practice of arming oneself is very wholesome – for responsible, mature people, that is – there is one nightmare scenario we need to guard against, because history shows it leads inexorably to tyranny. That scenario would be for angry, "right-wing, fundamentalist Christians" (more accurately, pseudo-Christian hate groups) to commit acts of terrorism or murder – like the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City – in the name of freedom. That is exactly what today's would-be totalitarians would secretly relish most, as it would justify their crackdown on "Christian" and "patriot" groups and gun rights across the board. Timothy McVeigh, who thought he was advancing a patriotic rebellion against oppressive government, achieved precisely the opposite: He discredited everything he thought he was fighting for and caused many people to regard "right-wing patriots" and "militia types" as domestic terrorists. In fact, the biggest reason President Bill Clinton was asleep at the switch with regard to Islamic terrorism, allowing Osama bin Laden to slip through his fingers even when the terror kingpin was offered on a silver platter, is because it served Clinton's leftist agenda to obsess over "right-wing" extremist organizations rather than the threat of radical Islam. Thus, Clinton disastrously focused the FBI predominantly on "right-wing hate groups" rather than task it with chasing down the many credible leads we had on al-Qaida terror plots against the United States. If angry, would-be "patriots" engage in violence against the U.S. government as occurred in Oklahoma City, this nation could quickly move toward the suppression of gun rights and much more, all in the guise of protecting the public safety. It's a very real temptation. Think of it: As government corruption becomes more and more brazen, as judges outlaw the Ten Commandments, as "hate crimes" laws effectively criminalize the Bible, as kindergartners are brainwashed with radical "gay rights" propaganda and so on, pretty soon some group decides it can't take it any more. Its members become so enraged, they conclude it's time to start the next armed revolution. Seeing their nation being raped and envisioning no solution other than violence, they convince themselves they're the modern counterparts of America's revolutionary founders. Training with firearms and explosives and conspiring in secret – all the while quoting Jefferson to each other about "watering the tree of liberty" from time to time with "the blood of patriots and tyrants" – they murder some federal judges or blow up a government office building in an attempt to fight back. But all they succeed in doing is murdering and maiming a bunch of their fellow Americans (or, as McVeigh did in Oklahoma City, massacring a room full of toddlers in daycare – which he later coldly termed "collateral damage"). What would follow would be a massive official crackdown on "domestic terrorists" and a severe assault on freedom in America – not to mention a major distraction from the real war against Islamic jihad. Amazing what hatred can accomplish, isn't it? Exactly the opposite of what you intended. The dark side of the force is very clever. As the blood-drenched, hate-based French Revolution proved, when "revolutionaries" are full of hate, they're no better than the hateful, corrupt government they try to replace – and maybe worse – ushering in their own "reign of terror." This is why true, mature Americans – the kind that must be armed – must also be self-controlled, even-tempered, virtuous and noble, not motivated by hatred and revenge. They must also stand together. In reality, the responsible armed citizen is the strength of America. But there will always be a tension between him and his government – especially today, when the armed citizen is the antithesis of everything our culture, experts, politicians and other "leaders" teach us. In their minds, we're supposed to be helpless victims or incompetent, irresponsible, out-of-control children. We're supposed to need them to provide for us and protect us. If they could have their way, nobody would have guns except the police. But then, that's what's known as a "police state." What we need is a rebirth of the true American spirit. We need people to take up arms in the spirit of responsibly protecting their family and other innocents, just like in the old days when everyone carried a sword. Every man had to be willing to put his life on the line to protect his loved ones. But you can't do that without your sword – which in today's world is a firearm. One quote from Jesus we almost never hear cited these days is what He said shortly before being taken into captivity by Roman soldiers to be crucified. It was a dangerous time, and as He spoke to His disciples, He told them to arm themselves. And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, – Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough. (Luke 22:35-38 KJV) The police cannot protect you. Very simply, they're never there when the crime against you and your loved ones is being committed. Do you want God to protect you? Of course. Then don't tempt Him by saying, "The Lord will protect me, I don't need a gun." That's like the man who says, "A storm is coming, but I don't need an umbrella; God will protect me," all the while ignoring the real protection God has provided for him – the common sense to get an umbrella or come in out of the rain. In dangerous times such as those in which we live today, God clearly speaks to us – both in Scripture and through good old fashioned common sense – about being prepared to protect and defend ourselves, our families and our neighbors. As Jesus Himself said: "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." Why so many Americans today are 'mentally ill' "When I was lying in my bed that night, I couldn’t sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind telling me to kill them." You're reading the words of 12-year-old Christopher Pittman, struggling to explain why he murdered his grandparents, who had provided the only love and stability in his turbulent life. He was angry with his grandfather, who had disciplined him earlier that day for hurting another student during a fight on the school bus. So later that night, he shot both of his grandparents in the head with a .410 shotgun as they slept and then burned down their South Carolina home, where he had lived with them. "I got up, got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger," he recalled. "Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can’t do anything to stop it." His lawyers would later argue the boy had been a victim of "involuntary intoxication," since Pittman's doctors had him taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft just prior to the murders. Paxil's known "adverse drug reactions" – according to the drug's 2001 FDA-approved label – include "mania," "insomnia," "anxiety," "agitation," "confusion," "amnesia," "depression," "paranoid reaction," "psychosis," "hostility," "delirium," "hallucinations," "abnormal thinking," "depersonalization" and "lack of emotion," among others. Andrea Yates, in one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children – aged 7 years down to 6 months – in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her kids, she had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years. At her 2006 murder re-trial, Yates' longtime friend Debbie Holmes testified: "She asked me if I thought Satan could read her mind and if I believed in demon possession." And Dr. George Ringholz, after evaluating Yates for two days, recounted an experience she had after the birth of her first child: "What she described was feeling a presence ... Satan ... telling her to take a knife and stab her son Noah," Ringholz said, adding that Yates' delusion at the time of the bathtub murders was not only that she had to kill her children to save them, but that Satan had entered her and that she had to be executed in order to kill Satan. Yates had been taking the antidepressant Effexor. In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added "homicidal ideation" to the drug's list of "rare adverse events." The Medical Accountability Network, a private nonprofit focused on medical ethics issues, publicly criticized Wyeth, saying Effexor's "homicidal ideation" risk wasn't well-publicized and that Wyeth failed to send letters to doctors or issue warning labels announcing the change. And what exactly does "rare" mean in the phrase "rare adverse events"? The FDA defines it as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. But since, according to an Associated Press report, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S. alone in 2005, statistically that means thousands of Americans could experience "homicidal ideation" – murderous thoughts – as a result of taking just this one brand of antidepressant drug. Effexor is Wyeth's best-selling drug, by the way, bringing in $3.46 billion – with a "b" – in sales worldwide in 2005, almost one-fifth of the company's total revenues. Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox – like Paxil and Zoloft (and trendsetter Prozac), a modern and widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs. Harris and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999 during which they killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves. Luvox manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals concedes that during short-term controlled clinical trials 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox – that's 1 in 25 – developed mania, a dangerous and violence-prone mental derangement characterized by extreme excitement and delusion. The inescapable truth is, perpetrators of many of the nation's most horrendous murder rampages in recent years were taking, or just coming off of, prescribed psychiatric drugs. Most recently, authorities investigating Cho Seung-Hui, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in April, reportedly found "prescription drugs" for the treatment of psychological problems among his possessions. While the coroner reported no drugs were found in Cho's bloodstream on the day of the crime, April 16, the killer's roommate Joseph Aust told the Richmond Times-Dispatch Cho's routine each morning had included taking prescription drugs. So what kind of meds might Cho have been taking? Strangely, his medical records have yet to be released to the public – authorities claiming it's because an investigation is still ongoing, although critics suggest the purpose may be to protect the drug companies from liability claims. Indeed, pharmaceutical manufacturers are nervous about lawsuits over the "rare adverse effects" of their mood-altering medications. To avoid costly settlements and public relations catastrophes – such as when GlaxoSmithKline was ordered to pay $6.4 million to the family of 60-year-old Donald Schnell who murdered his wife, daughter and granddaughter in a fit of rage shortly after starting on Paxil – drug companies' legal teams have quietly and skillfully settled hundreds of cases out-of-court, shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to plaintiffs. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly fought scores of legal claims against Prozac in this way, settling for cash before the complaint could go to court while stipulating that the settlement remain secret – and then claiming it had never lost a Prozac lawsuit. Meanwhile, the list of killers who happened to be taking psychiatric medications is long and chilling. Remember these headline names? Patrick Purdy's 1989 schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, Calif., was the catalyst for the legislative frenzy to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons" in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine. Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin. In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the antidepressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania. In Paducah, Ky., in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school's lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin. In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac. In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Prozac-maker Eli Lilly later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors. Kurt Danysh, 18, shot his own father to death in 1996, a little more than two weeks after starting on Prozac. Danysh's description of own his mental-emotional state at the time of the murder sounded strikingly similar to that of 12-year-old Christopher Pittman, who had shot his grandparents while on psychiatric meds. "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done," Danysh said. "This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun." Substituting pills for couches When the subject of violent crimes and linkage to psychiatric drugs comes up, two distinct views emerge. The mental-health establishment's view is that these drugs have no "proven" role in enabling such horrific deeds, or at least that their benefits far outweigh whatever negative reactions may rarely occur. According to this view, of the millions of people taking these medications the vast majority are helped and the few who end up committing violent acts probably would have snapped anyway – with or without the drugs. The other, contrarian view is that the drugs are dangerous and harmful, turning previously nonviolent people into homicidal maniacs. At a very minimum, critics contend, the meds push some individuals, already living on the edge of sanity, over the edge into violence. In addition to a growing corps of health professionals and a sizeable pile of peer-reviewed studies corroborating this view, the drug companies themselves – compelled by FDA labeling requirements – bolster it with their "black box" label warnings of increased "suicidal ideation" risk and other negative effects. But let's pause, putting aside for a moment the dogma of all the "experts," and consider carefully and deeply what we're really looking at. We are talking about human beings who have somehow developed a secret inner life dominated by exceedingly dark thoughts and compulsions. Wild mood swings. Horrible, consuming resentment teetering on the edge of violent frenzy. Paranoid delusions fueled by intense emotion. Satanic visitations and inner voices that torment people mercilessly, sometimes for years, commanding them to commit murder or suicide – or both. Does this really sound to you like a physiological problem in need of drugs? Sound like a disease? A biochemical imbalance in the brain? Neurotransmitter activity that's too sluggish? Or does it possibly sound like something much more mental-emotional, even spiritual, in origin? The truth is, if we think we can solve problems like these with pills, we might be just as delusional as the people we're trying to help. Before we go on, let's state the obvious: There are genuine, organic brain diseases that may benefit from drug therapy – but these are relatively rare. And there are also instances where an individual is so psychotic as to pose a direct danger to him/herself and others, where sedation might be appropriate. But what I'm writing about here is the overwhelming majority of cases where psychiatric drugs are unwisely relied on to fix Americans' mental-emotional-spiritual problems. In search of a quick, painless fix for the problems we develop when we fail to deal with the stresses of life properly, we've become a nation of drug-takers. Millions of us "medicate" the pain of life away by taking illegal drugs. And millions more take prescription drugs to accomplish much the same thing. As Fortune magazine reported in November 2005: Nearly 150 million U.S. prescriptions were dispensed in 2004 for SSRIs and similar antidepressants called SNRIs, according to IMS Health, a Fairfield, Conn., drug data and consulting company – more than for any other drug except codeine. Perhaps one out of 20 adult Americans are on them now, making brands like Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, Forest Laboratories' Celexa, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals' Luvox household names. Though they don't work for everybody – many people have gone off the medicines because of side effects such as dampening of sexual response – they've done more than any other class of drugs to spur psychiatry's substitution of pills for couches. When we've gotten to the point of poisoning fish, you know we're talking about a lot of drugs. And that's counting only antidepressants. What about all the other types of psychiatric meds we consume, including the tens of millions of prescriptions for Ritalin and other controversial stimulants taken by children and adults diagnosed with ADD (or ADHD) – a condition that didn't even exist until the 1980s? Not too long ago, the counseling arts recognized that people suffering from mental-emotional, developmental problems needed self-understanding first and foremost. This was a noble and vital goal. But today, as Fortune points out, psychiatry has substituted "pills for couches." Like mad scientists, our "experts" fool around with the intricacies of people's brains, monkeying with the levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine to artificially "elevate mood." Thus we have the spectacle of troubled people coming to mental-health experts with serious personal problems – emotional conflicts, fears, obsessions, compulsions and perhaps delusions rooted in early trauma, or in seriously flawed family relationships, or in buried resentments toward cruelty and injustice that were never resolved but just festered and grew. Yet, instead of being helped to understand where they've gone wrong, or where their negative programming, unhealthy relationships and destructive attitudes came from so they can correct them and find genuine healing, they're given clever drugs designed to chemically trick the body and mind into "feeling better." And then, when they discontinue taking the drugs, they risk serious deterioration of their condition. But isn't that exactly what happens when we just mask symptoms and ignore root causes? Moreover, why do even the smartest and most educated of our experts today tend reflexively to ignore root causes? Because root causes have to do with God and our relationship, or lack thereof, with Him. I guarantee that many people who read that last sentence either glazed over it or were somehow put off by it. I'll say it again using different words: We need to wake up to the spiritual dimension of life or we will never be able to understand what goes wrong with us, or to genuinely resolve our problems. Unfortunately, right now many of us are in love with the idea that there is no God. Books currently riding high atop national best-seller lists include "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris – all of them unapologetically rabid atheist manifestos. For an atheist, the problem here is that although you can still be a good engineer or a skillful surgeon, if you're trying to help people who are full of rage and conflict and plagued by dark thoughts and malevolent inner voices urging them to kill people, you're worse than clueless. Worse because your lethal combination of prideful arrogance and utter lack of comprehension of what you're actually dealing with will inevitably lead you to "fix" such problems in ways that not only don't help people, but vastly multiply their woes – and those of their victims. Don't worry, it's not your fault Until the last 50 years or so, Western man believed the Creator put us here on this magnificent globe we call earth, and that we, alone among all creatures, were given the ability – and destiny – to choose between good and evil. Today's cultural elite, including those in the healing arts, basically don't recognize the existence of God, morality, good and evil, righteousness and sin. In other words, they don't understand what life is all about – that each and every one of us on this earth is appealed to, from just beyond the visible world, by a dimension of good and a dimension of evil, which we call Heaven and Hell. And that by heeding the wrong impulses we get into serious trouble. Instead, they look at man and see a soulless human animal whose behavior problems are mostly genetic or organic in origin and, in any event, manageable with drugs. The truth is, most mental-health pill-dispensing practitioners don't really understand why people become "clinically depressed" or why some women experience "postpartum depression" and the like. Go search WebMD and five or 10 other websites on postpartum depression (or most any other psychiatric condition for that matter). You'll be stunned at the lack of real substance and insight with regard to what causes it. Instead, you'll read something like, "The causes haven't been pinpointed yet," along with reams of authoritative-sounding data on symptoms and predisposing factors and what drugs to take and how valuable it is to have a support group and what vitamins help in recovery and so on. But no one will tell you what on earth would make a woman want to kill herself after she gives birth to her child. They don't know. Yet, can there be any doubt that somewhere there are real, understandable reasons for this and other syndromes – reasons a normal person with common sense could comprehend and act upon, and find real healing, if only the "expert" counseling them knew what they were talking about? While understanding is in short supply today, the mental-health establishment is great at naming syndromes and conditions – probably to give the rest of us the impression they know more than they really do. Are you a normal boy who doesn't really like shutting up and sitting at a desk for six hours a day listening to some boring teacher? You may have "attention deficit disorder." Are you an angry volcano inside? Then you suffer from "intermittent explosive disorder." Do you get drunk to deal with your problems? That used to be considered a moral failing, a character weakness, a failure to face your problems with courage and honesty. Now, of course, it's a disease called "alcoholism." Today, everything is physiological and genetic and treated with drugs. Nothing is your fault. You're an innocent victim. Furthermore, many of us like it that way. We like the idea that whatever is wrong with us is an organic disorder, that there's no sin, no weakness, no deficit of character on our part. Our egos love that, it comforts us. In July 2005, actress Brooke Shields told the New York Times about her postpartum depression: "In a strange way, it was comforting to me when my obstetrician told me that my feelings of extreme despair and my suicidal thoughts were directly tied to a biochemical shift in my body. Once we admit that postpartum is a serious medical condition, then the treatment becomes more available and socially acceptable. With a doctor's care, I have since tapered off the medication, but without it, I wouldn't have become the loving parent I am today." Brooke Shields is a lovely and principled lady, but I assure you that God did not design us to be depressed and suicidal after childbirth. We would do better to stop blaming all our psychological-spiritual problems on chemical imbalances. Drugging our conscience I began to suspect psychiatric meds were problematic three decades ago after a conversation with a friend who, to relieve her anxiety, had been taking the sedative Valium – then the nation's top-selling pharmaceutical. A spiritually perceptive lady, she summarized her experience this way: "David, do you know what the Valium did for me? It deactivated my conscience." And just recently, another Christian lady anonymously wrote a highly thought-provoking essay – primarily for the benefit of other female members in her church – on the effect antidepressants had on her. Stressed-out and depressed, she had sought her pastor's spiritual counsel – and he told her to go on antidepressants. "Not a word was said about my sinful attitudes regarding my responsibilities, and there were no offers of practical help," she wrote. "Just go to the doctor. He proceeded to tell me about many other women in our church who had taken his advice and were doing great. In retrospect, this makes sense – ours was a 'happy church.' No one seemed to struggle with any serious life issues. Only smiling, happy greetings and small talk. Imagine the 'Stepford Wives' at church and you’ll get the picture." Within weeks, she wrote, she was feeling better. "By two months into treatment I was doing swimmingly, smiling and small-talking with the best of them. … I was handling the stress better and sleeping well. Most of my physical complaints were gone, and I felt very capable. Life went on." Five years later, unhappy with their "happy" church, she and her husband sought out and joined a more traditional and biblical church "where sin is called sin, and people are held accountable." At the new church, she said, "I met people who grieve over their sin. … This was foreign to me. I have never cried over my sin. I have felt bad for my sin, but I have never truly grieved over it. … I began to think that perhaps that little pill that was meant to 'take the edge off' was preventing me from grieving over sin. One thing I had noticed since being on it was that I could not cry. Nothing could bring me to tears, and I mean nothing. I didn’t even cry when my dad died, not even as I watched him take his last breath, uncertain where he would spend eternity. No tears. … " After much thought and prayer, she finally decided to get off her medication. As a result, she wrote: Last week, after I sinned in anger at my son, I was grieved! I had asked for forgiveness from him and from the Lord, but I could not deny a deep sense of grief in my soul as I realized this had been a pattern of sinful anger for years. I had committed this same sin many times before, but felt justified, either by stressful circumstances in my life or by my son’s bad behavior. I had never before felt such grief over my own sin, and I knew I could not indulge one more outburst like this. She added: "In the beginning, the drug was good, because it enabled me to think rationally and come out of my basement. If I had used that rational thinking to get a grip on the sin that was pulling me down into depression, I could have dealt with it biblically, and been off the drug in short order. But I did not. I became dependent on those pills and was gradually numbed to the seriousness of my sin. By God’s grace, I came to the recognition that this drug could be stunting my spiritual growth, and that turned out to be exactly the case." The possibility that psychiatric drugs could impair our conscience should not come as a shock. We know people do bad things under the influence of alcohol, crack and meth that they wouldn't do otherwise. Is it so hard, then, to comprehend that some legal drugs can also obscure or eliminate our awareness of conscience? After all, what does "feeling better" often involve but the elimination of conflict? And what is conflict but the evidence inside us that we've done something wrong – something contrary to our conscience? Getting rid of conflict, then, often involves blotting out our conscience! But the problem with that is, conscience is literally the presence of God in us, the friction between the way we are and the way He wants us to be. We experience this correcting and illuminating presence – which is actually our greatest friend (like Jiminy Cricket in Disney's "Pinocchio") – as a psychic pain when we deviate from its urgings. Thus, many of us foolishly come to regard conscience as a problem, even an enemy. Healing through forgiveness God is not far away or elusive, He's ever-present. But we block His help and His life in us when we escape from our conscience in various ways – especially when we lose sight of our own faults through being angry at those of others. I wonder, is it just possible that the Lord's Prayer – the blueprint Jesus Christ gave us for how to relate to God – could provide insight on how to heal what we call "mental illness"? Let's take a fresh look: After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13 KJV) Think about this for a minute. Jesus starts out by telling us to honor God and humble our will before His and seek His continued sustenance. (No problem, we think.) Later He advises us to ask God's protection as we acknowledge His supremacy in all things. (Great, makes perfect sense, we think.) But in between comes one line that delivers the essential, life-changing commandment – it's the nuclear core of His message, the fulcrum of change in our lives, the place where miraculous things happen to us – or don't, if we don't heed it: "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." This is where we live or die spiritually, it's where we find true happiness and innocence, or conflict and separation from God. In fact, immediately following the Lord's Prayer, Jesus re-emphasizes the forgiveness requirement in the starkest terms imaginable, to make sure nobody misses His most crucial point: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15) Wow. That gets my attention. Forgiveness – that is, finding the grace to give up anger and resentment at injustice – is healing. The problem is, anger and rage (unforgiveness) feed our pride, a part of our makeup that cannot live without constant meals of impatience, resentment and emotional upset. So until we're ready to let the life of pride and sin inside us wither and die, we find it pretty much impossible to truly forgive. Anger is like a drug – even worse, like a nutrient – for our wrong self. Ever wonder why we use the word "mad" to mean both angry and insane? Very simply, if someone does something wrong to you and you get angry, you've just become a little bit insane. Now multiply that single event by 1,000 or 10,000 and let the pile of angry reactions and upsets build and smolder for years, and you'll see that every conceivable manner of strange behavior, programming, compulsion and delusion can easily take root in us. Example: In the Islamic world, millions of children are nourished on hatred from the day they're born – hatred of Jews, Christians, Americans, women, pigs, you name it – and they reliably grow up into crazy, death-loving jihadists. It's like an assembly line with good quality control; you can count on the outcome. Infect them with hatred from birth, and you're guaranteed a good recruit in the Mahdi army a few years later. Do you get it? It's the hatred that allows the conditioning – the insane, ungodly, alien programming – to take hold of their minds. As a child, people bigger and meaner than you make you upset, and when you're upset you're suggestible or programmable – and that's when you pick up your conditioning. Then, no matter how crazy or illogical or self-destructive your programming, you'll defend it – because it feels like the real you. So, nourished by this nutrient-base of suppressed rage and resentment, and reinforced each passing day by new angers and irritations, we grow up tangled and conflicted. We all suffer in varying degrees from this madness – covered up, of course, by smiles and self-deception. It's why we need salvation. Who's talking in my head? Some of us, unfortunately, become so lost in our inner, angry, delusional world, so identified with the dark thoughts and impulses that occur to us, that we allow an evil entity of some sort to take up residence within us. Some years back, a 24-year-old Mexican male traumatized the small community in which I live by kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering two 11-year-old girls. (I was acquainted with one of the victim's families.) The perpetrator later confessed to authorities that he heard inner voices and gave himself over to their commands, acting out their demonic suggestions. Same with David Berkowitz, the notorious "Son of Sam" serial killer who terrorized New York City during the 1970s. Berkowitz claimed his neighbor's dog, Harvey, was possessed by an ancient demon and that it commanded Berkowitz to kill. Andrea Yates heard voices in her head for years. The examples are legion. This "voices" phenomenon is very common – drugs or no drugs – and not just among crazies and criminals. In fact, it's more common than we'd like to think. Remember all those Bible passages in which Jesus exorcises "unclean spirits" or "devils"? Let's revisit one of them: And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. (Mar 1:23-27 KJV) Although Jesus "cast out" demons left and right, today most of us scoff at the very idea. Even if we cautiously acknowledge it – it is obviously biblical, after all – we're still uncomfortable with it. For us, demonic possession conjures up images of "The Exorcist" and child-actress Linda Blair's head spinning and spewing green projectile vomit. Yet, a quarter century ago, the chief psychologist at a major California mental hospital conducted an extraordinary study of the inner voices patients heard. Wilson Van Dusen worked among the mentally ill for 17 years at the Mendocino State Hospital – originally Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane – established in 1889. In his treatise, titled "The Presence of Spirits in Madness," Van Dusen provided a window into the inner experience of his patients' "hallucinations." Note that these were not criminally insane people who had perpetrated violent acts, but rather were simply "mentally ill" individuals who had been committed to the institution. So their condition was not as serious or dangerous as that of the criminal perpetrators referenced earlier. "Out of my professional role as a clinical psychologist in a state mental hospital and my own personal interest, I set out to describe as faithfully as possible mental patients' experiences of hallucinations," he wrote: The average layman's picture of the mentally ill as raving lunatics is far from reality. Most of these people have become entangled in inner processes and simply fail to manage their lives well. Also they knew their experiences were not shared by others, and some were even concerned that their reputations would suffer if they revealed the obscene nature of their voices. It took some care to make the patients comfortable enough to reveal their experience honestly. A further complication was that the voices were sometimes frightened of me and themselves needed reassurance. I struck up a relationship with both the patient and the persons he saw and heard. I would question these other persons directly, and instructed the patient to give a word-for-word account of what the voices answered or what was seen. In this way I could hold long dialogues with a patient's hallucinations and record both my questions and their answers. One consistent finding was that patients felt they had contact with another world or order of beings. Most thought these other persons were living persons. All objected to the term hallucination. Each coined his own term such as The Other Order, the Eavesdroppers, etc. For most individuals the hallucinations came on suddenly. One woman was working in a garden when an unseen man addressed her. Another man described sudden loud noises and voices he heard while riding in a bus. Most were frightened, and adjusted with difficulty to this new experience. All patients describe voices as having the quality of a real voice, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, than normal voices. The experience they describe is quite unlike thoughts or fantasies. When things are seen they appear fully real. … Most patients soon realize that they are having experiences that others do not share, and for this reason learn to keep quiet about them. Many suffer insults, threats and attacks for years from voices with no one around them aware of it. Women have reported hearing such vile things they felt it would reflect on them should they even be mentioned. … Lower order voices are as though one is dealing with drunken bums at a bar who like to tease and torment just for the fun of it. They will suggest lewd acts and then scold the patient for considering them. They find a weak point of conscience and work on it interminably. For instance, one man heard voices teasing him for three years over a ten-cent debt he had already paid. They call the patient every conceivable name, suggest every lewd act, steal memories or ideas right out of consciousness, threaten death, and work on the patient's credibility in every way. For instance they will brag that they will produce some disaster on the morrow and then claim honor for one in the daily paper. They suggest foolish acts (such as: Raise your right hand in the air and stay that way) and tease if he does it and threaten him if he doesn't. The lower order can work for a long time to possess some part of the patient's body. Several worked on the ear and the patient seemed to grow deafer. One voice worked two years to capture a patient's eye which visibly went out of alignment. Many patients have heard loud and clear voices plotting their death for weeks on end, an apparently nerve-wracking experience. One patient saw a noose around his neck which tied to "I don't know what" while voices plotted his death by hanging. They threaten pain and can cause felt pain as a way of enforcing their power. The most devastating experience of all is to be shouted at constantly by dozens of voices. When this occurred the patient had to be sedated. All of the lower order are irreligious or anti-religious. Some actively interfered with the patients' religious practices. Most considered them to be ordinary living people, though once they appeared as conventional devils and referred to themselves as demons. In a few instances they referred to themselves as from hell. Occasionally they would speak through the patient so that the patient's voice and speech would be directly those of the voices. Sometimes they acted through the patient. In his treatise, Van Dusen revealed that he later discovered striking parallels between his own clinical observations of the "hallucinations" of "mentally ill" patients and the writings of 18th century Swedish scientist, Christian mystic and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. As Van Dusen explained it: Swedenborg describes all of life as a hierarchy of beings representing essentially different orders and yet acting in correspondence with each other. The Lord acts through celestial angels, who in turn correspond on a lower level to spiritual angels, who in turn correspond to a third lower heaven – all of which corresponds to and acts into man. On the opposite side there are three levels of hell acting out of direct contact into man. Man is the free space and meeting ground of these great hierarchies. In effect, good and its opposite evil rule through this hierarchy of beings down to man who stands in the free space between them. Out of his experiences and choices he identifies with either or both sides. Scary stuff. But the obvious question is, how do we avoid falling into this nightmarish mental world that entraps so many whom we label "mentally ill"? Advice from an angel An excellent and insightful description of this "tug of war" between Heaven and Hell for the body, mind and soul of each of us is found in the ancient Christian book "The Shepherd of Hermas." Though not part of the canon of the Holy Bible, "Hermas" was widely revered by the early Christians, praised by church leaders like Tertullian, St. Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and was frequently read publicly in early churches to edify the faithful. A passage describing a conversation between Hermas, a shepherd, and an angel who has been instructing him on how to live a life pleasing to God, is titled "That every man has two angels and of the suggestions of both." The angel says to Hermas: 7 … There are two angels with man; one of righteousness, the other of iniquity. 9 The angel of righteousness, is mild and modest, and gentle, and quiet. When, therefore, he gets into thy heart, immediately he talks with thee of righteousness, of modesty, of chastity, of bountifulness, of forgiveness, of charity, and piety. 10 When all these things come into thy heart, know then that the angel of righteousness is with thee. Wherefore hearken to this angel and to his works. 11 Learn also the works of the angel of iniquity. He is first of all bitter, and angry, and foolish; and his works are pernicious, and overthrow the servants of God. When therefore these things come into thine heart; thou shalt know by his works, that this is the angel of iniquity. 12 And I said unto him, Sir, how shall I understand these things? Hear, says he, and understand; When anger overtakes thee, or bitterness, know that he is in thee: 13 As also, when the desire of many things, and of the best meats, and of drunkenness; when the love of what belongs to others, pride, and much speaking, and ambition; and the like things, come upon thee. 14 When therefore these things arise in thine heart, know that the angel of iniquity is with thee. Seeing therefore thou knowest his works, depart from them all, and give no credit to him: because his works are evil, and become not the servants of God. 15 Here therefore thou hast the works of both these angels. Understand now and believe the angel of righteousness, because his instruction is good. 16 For let a man be never so happy; yet if the thoughts of the other angel arise in his heart, that man or woman must needs sin. 17 But let man or woman be never so wicked, if the works of the angel of righteousness come into their hearts, that man or woman must needs do some good. 18 Thou seest therefore how it is good to follow the angel of righteousness. If therefore thou shall follow him, and submit to his works, thou shalt live unto God. And as many as shall submit to his work shall live also unto God. Reading insight like this makes one wonder how many people who've been diagnosed with bipolar, depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and other serious conditions have mysteriously gotten better. Oh, we don't hear about such things in the news – but it happens. They simply get better. Somehow, privately, they discover how to listen to the right side, and to shrink from the wrong side. And they allow the light of God to come into them and shine on their conflicts and untangle their mess – mostly, I believe, by discovering forgiveness. Having truly given up their resentments and rage, no longer getting upset all the time, their "incurable" mental illnesses are healed. We need to revisit the practice of drugging troubled souls. Psychiatry has totally bought into it and will consider me a Neanderthal or worse. Too bad. Because they're taking the crown of God's creation, the human mind, and acting like Dr. Frankenstein engaged in some mad, grandiose experiment, playing God, pulling people's mood-strings chemically. There's another way. No doubt there are appropriate times and places to use these medications – rarely. But our increasing reliance on them is creating untold suffering of a kind and magnitude we can barely imagine. All because of a blindness that dominates our age – a blindness that obscures that which every child knows naturally: We are born with a good side and we have a bad side. And we need to be careful which side we listen to. If we listen to the wrong side, terrible consequences follow. Epilogue Toward the end of my son's Boy Scout troop meeting not too long ago, the scoutmaster stood up and used his customary "Scoutmaster Minute" to retell the famous story an old Cherokee chief supposedly told his grandson. The chief said: "A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible battle – between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, pride, envy, lust, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, lies and cruelty. "The other wolf stands for honesty, kindness, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, friendship, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. "This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too," he added. The grandson reflected on these words for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed." FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE
Fourth Grader Settles Gun Control Debate Despite a recent survey conducted by Dee Rowland, Chairwoman of the Gun Violence Prevention Center, I know that owning a gun is the best way to protect myself from criminal victimization. After all, Dee only surveyed one person – her nine year old grandson. I doubled her sample size by surveying two of my closest friends. A friend I will call Steve – because that’s his real name – was recently a near-victim of road rage. Someone who perceived himself to have been cut off in traffic by Steve proceeded to follow him several miles to his home and then reach for the handle of the car door to yank him out. But the assault was interrupted when the fellow looked across the seat and saw a Glock 23, chambered in .40 caliber. He shouted “oh, that f***ing figures, can’t fight without a gun” as he ran back to his car, never to be seen again. The guy went from zero to sixty in four point five seconds in a Subaru. The Guinness Book of World Records has been officially notified. A friend I will call Barry – because that’s his real name – was recently a near-victim of a crack induced mugging. He had just withdrawn a large amount of money from an ATM and hopped back into his Mazda 626. A haggard looking crack addict – Barry assumed he was a drug addict because he was humming a tune by Whitney Houston, not by Merle Haggard – came running up to the door and tried to force his way into the car. Barry responded by letting him know his money was in a fanny pack, right next to his .45 Auto. After Barry looked down to secure his weapon, he looked up and saw the man running away. The guy went 100 yards in about 8 seconds flat – give or take several seconds. The Guinness Book of World Records has been officially notified. But, unfortunately, in the wake of the recent murderous rampage at Trolley Square, the folks at Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah are embarking on an anti-gun rampage that could soon be the envy of every Muslim who likes to kill innocent people at a shopping mall. Steve Gunn, a member of the organization that relies heavily on the advice of nine-year-olds, says that whether you believe that “everyone” or “no one” should have a gun “depends on your perspective.” That’s exactly right, Steve. And since it appears that the angry Muslim’s crime spree was stopped by a man with a concealed weapons permit, it’s worth asking a couple of questions about “perspective.” What do you suppose was the perspective of the Muslim murderer who went on that shooting spree in Utah? Does he favor concealed carry permits like the one that helped someone kill him? And how about the people who died or had to rely on someone else to defend them from that gun-wielding member of the religion of peace and love, which is otherwise known as Islam? Do they favor concealed carry permits? Since many of the potential members of our survey are dead, I guess we’ll have to give extra weight to the opinions of a nine year old – one who just happens to have a grandmother chairing the board of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah. In fairness, we’ll ask him whether a ban on guns includes a ban on Steve Gunn. Since our survey will be a small one, son, please remember that a whole lot ‘depends on your perspective.’ But lest the reader believe that I disparage the opinions of every board member of the aforementioned Utah gun control organization, let me introduce a statement by Gary Sackett who says “I’m not comfortable arming our entire country for protection – that’s a paranoid notion.” I actually agree with Gary. Those in the gun control lobby who think we are trying to arm “our entire country” – including felons, illegal aliens, and mental patients – are indeed paranoid. But they always manage to win the argument as long as they are arguing against something we aren’t saying. I actually agree with “Gun-control Gary” on something else. He says that “You can’t protect against every madman with a firearm or a hand grenade.” Aside from a) admitting that he only thinks you can get “a firearm or a hand grenade” out of the hands of sane man and, b) suggesting he will try to accomplish only this goal, there is one more problem. It’s the old Utopian notion that only perfect solutions, not trade-offs, are acceptable. Imagine telling a rape victim – one who was previously denied a concealed carry permit – that she only had a twenty percent chance of stopping her attacker with a gun. Tell her you won’t settle for anything less than one hundred percent. But if you say this to five rape victims, make sure you don’t report the cumulative percentage. That might cause unnecessary emotional trauma – although I admit to being less than one hundred percent certain as of this writing. “Gun-control Gary” Sackett also teaches us that homicide and suicide rates are lower in places like Japan where they have more restrictions on handguns. But he fails to tell us that less than forty percent of crimes are reported to the police agencies that are under no obligation to report crimes to the federal government, which does not include any federal crimes in its own reports. Are we to also conclude that there is no federal crime in America? Or should we just ask Martha Stewart instead? Never mind, I think she has a nine year old grandson. Actually, we do learn something from studying our federal crime statistics; namely that they wildly underestimate the amount of crime in America. And we also learn that, despite their limitations, they are vastly superior to the statistics of virtually every other nation, including highly advanced societies like Zimbabwe and Castro Cuba. That means we can’t make cross-cultural comparisons like the gun control lobby would lead us to believe. But, fortunately, we can compare our national statistics from one year to the next since they tend to have roughly the same level of error from one year to the next. When we compare the 1950s to the early 21st Century we realize that the increase in per capita ownership of devices with transistors has been accompanied by an increase in property crime. And the correlation is probably a reflection of a causal relationship – this is because the prevalence of lighter and more portable valuables is more appealing to larcenists and burglars alike. But there’s no need to fear that a group of people in the Gun Violence Prevention Center will form a sister group called the Transistor Crime Prevention Center. They don’t know that my choice to buy an item with a transistor is driving up the crime rate. In fact, the latest statistics show that Japan has both lower crime and more transistors per capita. If anything, they may start to lobby for concealed carry transistor permits in order to bring crime back down to 1950s levels. When the public policy director for Gun Owners of Utah said that a concealed permit is something that every adult “needs to consider” he was right. We all need to consider (read: think seriously about) important issues in the 21st Century. But Dee Rowland said that the assertion that we should “consider” – or think about the issue – is “absurd” adding that even her nine year old grandson asked rhetorically “how could that help?” The next time you try to talk to a nine year old only to find he is opposed to serious thinking, just ask someone else. You could just survey a member of the gun control lobby or maybe even a Muslim in a shopping mall. Just as long as someone else is doing your thinking - especially someone with a political agenda - everything will probably work out fine. *** Ron Paul wants to abolish almost all government agencies..." Since "almost all" is a good description of the quantity of government agencies which are unconstitutional, illegitimate, and illegal, any patriotic American should be in full agreement with that desire. It was your last paragraph (that having armed passengers on aircraft), however, that changed me from a long time reader to a first time writer. I cannot stand by and allow that level of extreme ignorance to go unchallenged. I was not previously aware that Dr. Paul had made the statement regarding 9/11 and the second amendment, but I have been making similar statements ever since the attack. What is "nuts" (to put it mildly) is how uninformed and non-thinking individuals such as yourself think that you are safer in schools, hospitals, and airports, when the only people with weapons are criminals. There is just no logic to support your position. If someone is willing to commit murder (which is illegal - try to follow me here), do you really think he is going to leave his weapons home because it would be illegal to carry them? On the other hand, a teacher with a gun could have saved lives at Columbine. One armed passenger on each 9/11 flight, and the planes would have landed at their proper destinations with a few dead terrorists on each (or worst case, they would have exploded far away from the terrorist's target). It is only in the movies that planes go down from a few bullet holes. You call the police when you are attacked some day. Unless you are inside the station, and maybe even if you are, the police will be there to watch the M.E. carry away what is left of you. Their job doesn't start until after you've been injured or killed. My assailant will take two to the chest and one to the head, and that is why the second amendment is America's Original (and best) Homeland Defense. Ban the Ban? In 1976, the District of Columbia city council banned the possession of any handguns which were not already possessed and registered by residents, and the use of any gun for self-defense. That same year, the citizens of Massachusetts were asked by referendum whether to ban handguns. The left-leaning state had been the only one to vote for George McGovern in the previous presidential election. The "People vs. Handguns" campaign was "supported by most of the state's press," according to Time Magazine. But 69 percent of the state's voters rejected it. Gun prohibitionists tried again in California in 1982, proposing a "handgun freeze," allowing current owners to keep their handguns, but banning any new acquisitions. The measure was crushed by a vote of 63-37. The freeze's opponents brought so many additional voters to the polls that they even carried Republican George Deukmejian to a narrow, one-percent victory over Tom Bradley in the Governor's race. The gun prohibition movement successfully lobbied the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove to ban handguns in 1981. Chicago itself followed suit in 1983, and the suburbs of Evanston, Oak Park, and Wilmette also enacted handgun bans. The Chicagoland bans got a lot of press, and the national backlash against them was powerful. State after state passed preemption laws, forbidding localities from banning handguns. Today, an astonishing 45 states have preemption laws, including California, whose law has stopped two efforts to impose handgun prohibition in San Francisco. By the early 1990s, local handgun bans had been outlawed almost everywhere in the United States. One of the few states without a preemption law was Wisconsin, which bordered the one state where handgun bans existed. Yet even in left-leaning cities in the state, handgun prohibition was rejected: by 51 percent in Madison in 1993, then by 67 percent in Milwaukee and 73 percent in Kenosha in 1994. The Wisconsin gun ban campaigns did have important consequences. The state legislature enacted a preemption law, and in 1998, 73 percent of voters approved the addition of a right to arms clause to the state constitution. Since 1974, the leading gun ban group in the United States has been the National Council to Control Handguns, which after two name changes is now known as the Brady Campaign. One of Sarah Brady's predecessors, Nelson "Pete" Shields, explained the group's incrementalist strategy to The New Yorker in 1976: "The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition—except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal." Today, the Brady Campaign denies that it supports handgun prohibition, but the group still lobbies Congress and fights in the courts to preserve the D.C. handgun ban. That ban is aberrational not only by U.S. standards, but internationally. In Europe, almost all nations allow the possession of licensed handguns. Of the exceptions—Russia, Luxembourg, England, Scotland, and Ireland—all but Ireland have murder and violent crime rates much worse than that of their neighbors and other nearby countries which don't ban handguns. Despite hysterical fundraising campaigns by anti-gun lobbyists, a Supreme Court decision against the D.C. handgun ban would not invalidate the vast number of laws regulating but not banning these weapons in the U.S. Indeed, overturning even the Chicago bans would require a definitive future ruling on whether the Second Amendment is enforceable against state and local governments, or only against the federal government and federal enclaves such as D.C. Millions of Americans own firearms and use them responsibly, and that right is guaranteed under the Second Amendment. The D.C. handgun ban is a very rare, extreme and unconstitutional prohibition. If the Supreme Court were to affirm the lower court's decision against the handgun ban, it would end the shame of our nation's capital city depriving its citizens of a right that legislatures and courts have protected almost everywhere else in the United States. Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder And Suicide? Second Amendment Battle in DC by Ron Paul As a United States Congressman, I take my oath to uphold all of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights very seriously. Unfortunately, too many in Washington DC believe they can pick-and-choose which provisions of the constitution they can uphold. For example, many politicians, judges, and bureaucrats believe they have the power to disregard our right to own guns, even though the second amendment explicitly guarantees the people's right to "keep and bear arms." Doctors vs Gunowners Doctors Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services. Now think about this: Guns Statistics courtesy of FBI So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. Remember, 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.' Fact: Not Everyone Has A Gun, But Almost Everyone Has At Least One Doctor Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand! Out of concern for the public at large, I withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention!
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