Dear Young Americans, Guns Aren’t Our Only Target…

11 min readApr 1, 2018

Your passion and energy is amazing, and desperately needed right now, today. The country is rallying behind you. You are inspiring those that want to be inspired as well as those that need inspiration. I want to do my part to enable your leadership for change to be even greater by helping you see things that you might not otherwise see. I want to start with a question:

Is it possible that mass shootings might be a symptom of a problem?

What we know is there have been a steady rise in both suicides and mass murders over the last few decades, and not just from guns. The acts and the means to carry them out have become the focus rather than the reasons it happened. There is a reason the mass media do not cover what will be revealed next. They can’t. There is too much money that flows into political fundraising coffers that must deliver on expectations when they get elected, therefore, what we see and hear has filters and limitations.

To understand why someone would commit something such as a mass school shooting you have to look at their environmental and familial conditions and circumstances. There are always systemic elements that led to their performing such a heinous act. We already know those that have committed such acts have watched over and over the details of predecessors. This is easy because the media feeds it to them. It helps build their fantasy, but also gives them the explicit details of how to plan something similar in their own community backyards. The media won’t stop their complicit part in this because they too are “for profit.”

The role the media plays in perpetuating the problem is as unstoppable as social media. Similarly, we should never expect true news reporting and unbiased opinions until such time they are part of a not-for-profit ownership.

This is the same reason why many large corporations no longer have the once-upon-a-time Personnel Departments or current day’s Human Relations. Rather, they have internal agencies that buffer executives from the exploitation of the gray areas of business, biases, and ethics so as to not be the next news story. Always remember this, perception is reality. Control perception, you control reality.

So, I ask you again,

is it possible that mass shootings might be a symptom of a problem?

The corporations that are responsible for mass shootings are delighted that you are building all of this amazing energy for change and directing it towards guns and gun laws and not at them.

I assume you know what industry I am referring to?

Before I go to the pharmaceutical industry, let’s briefly look at a couple of adjacent industries for which we see the same scenario of a problem that creates easily characterized symptoms for which we then chase solutions. Implementing solutions to symptoms rather than the problem itself, ultimately, results in more severe symptoms.

The Health Insurance Industry

Every American knows that the healthcare system is a mess. Unless you are, or once were in Congress, the cost to access care is unaffordable and it continues to go up each year without merit. Obama Care targeted solutions to the symptoms of the problem and not the problem itself. The problem is the insurance industry. It is FOR PROFIT. These are companies that are publicly traded and subject to the same pressures of quarterly earnings that every other company on the New York Stock Exchange are expected to deliver. It does not take long for large publicly traded companies to become bureaucratic machines who treat their customers (you) as a necessary irritant to their omnipotent construction of their escalator to financial greatness. No president can fix this problem because no president would get to become president without their financial injections.

When you let greed enter the system, it will enter it. When it is on the inside and at the helm, it will build a wall around itself (a bureaucracy) and place external forces in all of the right places to ensure that those at the helm make their big payouts to keep the company on this profitable trajectory. YOU are much further down the priority list despite being the source of their existence.

The Food Industry

Conversely, emerging brands in the food industry are showing the world a different story. Each year hundreds, if not thousands, of emerging brands are showing that passion is not about profits, but profits fuel passion in the areas of environmental and social responsibility. Note, the consumers that are choosing these brands to spend their dollars are the same ones that are building the momentum for real change. This is quite timely considering the over-arching trend of consumers using food for health because healthcare is not only unaffordable, many would agree it is a scam.

The food industry might be the only example of where chasing symptoms to the problem is actually a net benefit for humanity. That is, rather than fixing the problem in healthcare, people are taking their health into their own hands to avoid having to see a doctor or specialist. You would think that this would bring the cost of health care down right? Hmm.

The Home Insurance Industry

We might be seeing the “deregulation” in the food industry, however, in the home insurance industry we would say “not so much.” Insurance companies can impose any number of layers of red tape and complex processes to mitigate paying claims to maintain targeted profits and returns to investors. They also have the advantage of playing the hot potato responsibility game with the federal government and FEMA (just ask anyone affected by Katrina, Harvey, Irma, Maria, and the recent wildfires in California.) 2017 alone had 16 natural disasters totalling $306 billion in damage.

At the rate of natural disasters we are experiencing, it is becoming more challenging to employ tactics to screw people out of paying claims while still maintaining those quarterly earnings. These corporations will survive their own natural disaster called “declining profits” as the Federal government will certainly bail them out as a last resort. Or, they will merge with others in the same boat, pardon the pun, to form an even larger force that will bring serious anti-trust questions that will go unanswered.

This always reminds me of Mr. Huph from the Disney Pixar movie The Incredibles with the scene about “infiltrating the bureaucracy.” (this scene is worth watching to add comedic context to our daily reality.)

Gun Laws and the 2nd Amendment

Do I believe there should be better gun laws? Absolutely. The only reason anyone would need a gun is for home and personal protection or hunting to get food. For home protection and hunting, all you need is a shotgun. Especially for someone who is startled in the middle of the night by an intruder and have no honed shooting skills. Personal defense, such as an open-carry or a conceal-and-carry permit means a small handgun. NO ONE NEEDS ASSAULT RIFLES!!

The truth is, fighting gun laws will be harder than fighting the insurance industry. Why? Because one of them is Constitutional and the other is a tether hold between Wall Street and American politics. If someone so desires they can learn how to modify a gun to be more deadly or build one from basic materials. They can learn how to make explosives. They can learn how to turn a one-time mass shooting into a multi-day terror spree.

When water rushes into the boat that has a hole in it, you can only scoop water faster to keep it from sinking. At some point, you have to plug the hole that allows the water to enter.

Mass shootings are not because of guns no matter how difficult regulations become to obtain them. The problem stems from another industry that has its pinchers on the puppet’s neck of American politics — pharmaceutical companies.

The Pharmaceutical Industry

According to The Guardian, pharmaceutical companies pay more money to political campaigns than any other industry to the tune of $2.5 billion per year. They should be the highest. They have massive markets to protect that is built on bullshit and smoke screens. Since Eli Lilly launched Prozac in early 1988, we have seen this steady rise in both suicides and mass shootings. These events have only increased as more anti-psychotic drugs and stimulants have entered the market. Particularly, the ones for young children for a condition that a growing number of people are now questioning — Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity-Disorder (ADHD.)

ADHD is an easy target because there are enough children that indeed struggle to sit all day, day after day, and be lectured. Even though it is accepted as a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the exact cause is unknown while at the same time admitting that other conditions can manifest as ADHD symptoms. It is also well-documented that many children diagnosed with ADHD demonstrate good attention spans with tasks they find interesting! Many of us that had this same problem in school. The difference is we found ways to get the work done and we didn’t have a bottle of prescription pills that would ultimately increase our chances of future dependencies.

Do we really see scientific and medical diagnoses when placing children on ADHD medication?

It is known that symptoms of ADHD can be caused by other psychiatric or medical conditions, and, such cases should be first treated with behavioral therapy as a “first-line therapy.” Does that happen today? Or, are children prescribed ADHD stimulants more haphazardly? There are multiple associated disorders that could be confused with ADHD. That, is the epicenter of the problem — misdiagnosis of a poorly understood disorder that helps a few and damages many.

Giving young people medication because they show symptoms of a ADHD without proper diagnosis of familial or other environmental stressors that might explain more appropriately these symptoms leads to more, and often, worse symptoms.

For children that are otherwise emotionally and mentally healthy that struggle to pay attention, the medication does help them endure what is otherwise painful. The problem is there are more children than ever that are exhibiting signs of ADHD, but they do not have the actual condition, and they are not being treated with the first-line behavioral therapy nor assessed against the other possible causes for these signs.

We are underestimating just how many children that society has amassed just from the chronic failure of the family court systems. There is such little media coverage on the things that lead to the development of personality disorders and why, and how, we see a doubling of them with each generation. A child with a primary caregiver that has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), for example, will develop what is called narcissistic attachment without realizing it. Their adult lives will be riddled with emotional and decision-making difficulties. Does prescribing them stimulants and then anti-psychotics seem appropriate to you?

This is particularly prevalent for children (and adults) that are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) because mental health and medical professionals are not taking the time to diagnose if PTSD might be present. Instead, they prescribe the gateway drug to treat ADHD. Treating people that have PTSD with a yo-yo of ADHD medications and doses will lead to systemic emotional challenges that often leads to additional medications such as anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication.

These are the cocktails that have been behind most of the cases of mass shootings. In particular, during periods when they are going onto or off of these medications. This is happening while they are dealing with many other issues that stem from a myriad of environmental factors, as were briefly introduced above.

Following are a few questions to ask yourself in thinking about who you know that might be suffering from something that is being mistaken as ADHD.

How many of you have experienced, or know someone that has experienced, any of the following:

• Had parents that were part of a high-conflict divorce.

• Had limited or no contact with a parent or other family members.

• Was supported/reinforced to reject the affection for and from a parent or family member.

• Was prevented from seeing a parent or other family members.

• Had a parent that was emotionally abusive, perhaps showing signs of a personality disorder, such as narcissistic personality disorder (a common type of what is called cluster B personality disorders.)

• Was bullied and tormented at school, home, or on social media.

• Was emotionally affected by other social media-related causes such as Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) or not fitting in resulting in withdrawal and battles with self-esteem or extreme measures to gain adoration from others.

• Became depressed or anxious from being compared to “perfect lives” of others on social media.

• Were diagnosed with ADHD and given medication.

• ADHD medication led to changes in type and dose or led to other prescribed drugs.

• Become disengaged in sports or activities they used to enjoy.

• Started to decline in their grades.

• Started to become quiet and isolating themselves from others.

• Lacked any noticeable friendships.

• Rarely seen smiling or laughing.

These are the signs that should not be ignored and certainly not tolerated in the schools as bait for bullies to make their problems worse. These are people that need help with their problems, not given an ADHD stimulant.

At some point, these tortured souls become delusional. They might even have gone through their brain’s critical development years prioritizing the wrong circuits. What I mean is the negative impact on the most important part of brain development — empathy. Empathy is what makes us human. Without empathy, one lacks the ability to truly care or love another.

If a child grows up in a harsh and emotionally manipulative environment, the brain not only views empathy as unnecessary, it will view it is a liability or risk to survival. Showing care and empathy for others outside of the “regime” is considered weak and a violation of the pack. They simply grow up without empathy. It becomes a lot easier to fantasize about punishing those who deserve to be punished when there is no empathy or that proverbial angel on the shoulder opposite the devil on the other to help guide the decision-making process.

Narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder is what happens when the circuits for empathy atrophy. The key characteristics of narcissism are those that do not have empathy even when they appear otherwise. Narcissist have an inflated sense of self-importance, require constant admiration, are preoccupied with fantasies of power, success, or beauty, insists on having or being viewed as having the best things, takes advantage of people, and live their lives in a “you are either with me or against me” manner. Children from this environment do not need stimulants and anti-psychotics. They need counseling and coping mechanisms.

I urge you to see what is actually happening. YOU are doing something AMAZING. YOU are sparking the forces of REAL CHANGE. The direction you are targeting that amazing energy is leaving those responsible counting their money and mocking you (pharmaceutical companies.) I beg you to turn that energy to where it belongs — tearing down the walls of diseases built upon bullshit and the paid politicians who have their own complicit fingerprints from the deposits into their political fundraising bank accounts.

Signed,

a concerned parent and citizen