Guns weren’t the only weapons involved in many of our nation’s mass shootings over the last two decades.
After the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary last December, President Obama signed 23 executive orders relating to guns and gun violence in this country. Of those 23, seven were specifically related to mental health issues. One of the orders directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to identify and research the most pressing topics related to the causes of gun violence.
The CDC asked an Institute of Medicine committee to set the agenda for this research, which was just released last week:
The committee’s proposed research agenda focuses on the characteristics of firearm violence, risk and protective factors, interventions and strategies, the impact of gun safety technology, and the influence of video games and other media.How ironic that it’s called the ‘Institute of Medicine’ and yet, the organization is going to completely ignore the obvious role that psychotropic medicines such as antidepressants have had in many of the mass shootings in this country in the last twenty years. In fact, medications are not mentioned even once in the entire four-page research agenda.
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