Kerby Anderson

After a mass shooting, one question rarely asked is whether there is any connection to psychiatric drugs. As I have explained in previous commentaries, there are many factors and explanations for young men who decide to shoot innocent citizens. There is no “one size fits all” explanation.

It’s worth a brief mention that many of these young men were on what are called SSRI drugs. That stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Correlation is not causation, but we can’t ignore that the significant increase in mass murders and suicides does correlate with the same increase in the use of these psychotropic drugs.

Just a casual search on the shooters surfaces a common pattern. So many of them were on one or more of these SSRI drugs. We have learned about the video games and movies the Columbine shooter watched but hear much less about the two drugs he was on. We have heard about the racist ideas of the young man who shot up the church in Charleston, but we have heard much less about the drug he was on.

I recently talked about the lost boys of America. We need a national conversation about why we are seeing so many mentally disturbed young men. Loneliness and isolation are an issue. Broken homes, bullying, violent video games, and several other factors contribute. But we need to add the possibility that these drugs are also a factor.

The Journal of Political Psychology put together a list of numerous mass shootings committed by young men on prescription drugs. At the least, there seems to be a correlation that is worthy of further research.

Lots of factors feed into these horrible mass shootings. Drug use by these shooters is a factor worth considering.