By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
The memorial service for the victims will be held at the base on Wednesday. The President is to attend.
This Fort Hood shooting marks the third at a military base in six months and the second shooting at Fort Hood since Nidel Hassan in 2009.
Base security has been sharply criticized and easing restrictions on official personnel carrying weapons have been suggested in response.
Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said: “I think ideally what you’d want to have are more military police officers, but in the current budget climate, that’s not as realistic. So it seems to me a force multiplier of officers and enlisted men that we can trust, the senior leadership, to have them carry because, you know, that — it only takes a few minutes to wound and kill a large number of soldiers.”
But critics have the opposite view. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen said: “I’m not one —as someone who has been on many, many bases and posts — that would argue for arming anybody who is on base,” Admiral Mullen said. “I think that actually invites much more difficult challenges.”
Former Vice Chief of Staff for the Army, General Peter W. Chiarelli told ABC that mental health was the core issue here. Nevertheless, much avoided in the political debate is placing any blame on psychiatrists or prescription psychiatric drugs. They look to the assailants rather than the common cause of that may exist in within the mass murders; particularly the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). There are, for example: Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil.
Such pills treating for severe depression, anxiety, and other mental conditions can have severe known side-effects such as: hallucinations, thoughts of suicide, memory problems, abnormal thoughts, nervousness and confusion. These are among the most disturbing links to murder-suicides or mass shootings.
Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. states: “We now have unequivocal evidence from a wide range of side effects that Prozac-type drugs impair the normal functioning of the brain.” He blames the SSRI over-prescription on primary carry doctors who hand out some 70 percent of the prescriptions now, rather than psychiatrists who are better trained to diagnose mental disorders.
According to some like Dr. David Healy, the real commonality and culprit in most of these mass shootings is the SSRIs. He has become an anti-pharmaceuticaal activist but is one of many citing the over-prescribed drug culture of America. That number is now 20 percent or 49 million adults. Psychiatrist Dr. Healy links the SSRIs to 90 percent of school shootings by kids on drugs. This percentage has not been confirmed. There are certainly a large number of prescription killers and further study and investigation is warranted in spite of the lobbies against it.
Lieutenant General Mark A. Milley confirmed that the murder, Ivan Lopez, was on psychiatric medication.
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