Bruno DiStefano, Medford Lakes

Blaming guns for mass shootings appears emotionally satisfying for some folks. Just look at the reaction that Beto O’Rourke got at the Democrat debate, for saying he would take away everyone’s guns!

But guns aren’t the real problem. You used to be able to walk into a store and buy a gun, without a background check and yet there were no mass shootings. Today with all of our enhanced common sense gun control laws and rules, we have mass shootings. Why?

Something did change, people changed or more precisely certain drugs taken by people changed, and we started getting mass shootings at schools and public places.

People used to be sent away to asylums for their protection and to protect society and that was that. That changed and people were main streamed back into society with great success, a good thing, often using new drugs.

But there is a dark side with serotonin-specific re-uptake inhibitor (SSRIs) drugs. Which came with so-called Black Box warnings, especially for “children and adolescents may increase the risk of suicidality.” While these drugs may have helped some people with depression, and still do, but there can also be dire side effects.

“...Depression in particular doesn’t lead to violence, yet since the increase in SSRI anti-depressants being widely prescribed, the rise in mass shootings has increased right along with it.”

If you look back at the various mass shootings you will often find sad cases of mental illness, with legal anti-depression SSRI prescription drugs and in some cases also mixed with illegal drugs, that cause these sick people, often children, to become mass murders.

Rather than yet another redundant or dubious gun control law, why not spend that effort on better control and monitoring of SSRI drugs and especially their impacts on children. Not just doctors prescribing pills, while drug companies cash the check and we all pray. It’s time we change.

Bruno DiStefano

Medford Lakes