Seeking real cause of NIU tragedy

Another school shooting and again are people asking why, and what can we do about it?

Of course, the typical knee-jerk reaction is we must ban all guns. But did Prohibition prevent people who actually wanted to drink from drinking? Have our anti-drug laws prevented anyone who really wants to use drugs from getting them?

Why then would anyone think a gun ban would somehow be more effective? They do not work.

The real problem was not that a shooter brought a gun onto the campus, but rather that he was the only one with a gun. These individuals go to these "gun free zones" because they know that no one will be shooting back.

If qualified students and teachers were allowed to carry canceled weapons maybe these shooters would think twice. If not, then when seconds count and it takes minutes for the police to arrive, perhaps one of these armed individuals would be able to take out the shooter before he is able to do excessive harm.

So if it is not the gun that is causing these people to act like this, what is it?

Well there is a common thread in all these recent shootings and that something is what typically gets glossed over if it is mentioned at all. Such as one small sentence from a long report where the chief of police indicated the shooter is believed to have "stopped" taking his medications.

Really! Now just what type of medication might these have been? Could it be the same anti-depressants that the other similar shooters have been on?

The typical response, to avoid having to talk about these side effects, is that it must be our casual acceptance of violence from TV, movies, video games, etc. that warps their mind.

So how come members of past generations haven't gone on similar killing sprees? As kids, did they not run around shooting each other while playing cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians? But then how many of them spent their youth being drugged into submission?

What logical justification can there be for the prescribing of a drug that lists suicide as a side effect to patients with known emotional problems?

Richard Gideon

Schaumburg