Really?HankB wrote: The difference is that guns have been around for centuries and school shootings seem to have started around the time shrinks started doping kids in large numbers ....
A brief bit of historical research proves this to be 100% incorrect!
Royal High School, Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland - Tuesday, September 5, 1595 - Students take over school and stage armed rebellion. They kill the magistrate who responds. Not much more info but we do know that prescribed drugs were not involved.
Consolidated School of Bath, Bath, Michigan - Wednesday, May 18, 1927
No guns involved but definitely the worst school massacre in US history and not drugs involved.
Columbia University, New York City, New York - Monday, July 14, 1952:
Whackjob used .22 cal to kill secretary at the school because he was not published. (No Drugs)
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania - Tuesday, January 11, 1955: Bob Bechtel uses .22 cal rifle to fire on classmates killing one. (no drugs)
Maryland Park Junior High School, Maryland Park, Maryland - Friday, May 4, 1956: Billy Ray Prevatte uses .22 cal rifle to kill one teacher and wound several others after being expelled from school. (Not Drugs, But I do see a pattern of .22 cal use here!!!! perhaps the caliber is the real issue that should be looked into!!!!!!)
Our Lady of the Angels (Elementary) Catholic School, Chicago, Illinois -Monday, December 1, 1958: 10-year-old arsonist sets fire to school killing 95 students and nuns and injuring 100 more. (No guns, but also no drugs!!!)
Poe Elementary School, Houston, Texas - Tuesday, September 15, 1959: Paul Harold Orgeron killed 6 and injured several others with a case filled with gelex triggered by a .32 cal pistol. (Darn so much for the .22 cal theory! But still no drugs involved.)
Dubose Intermediate School, Alice, Texas - September 1960: Katie McCoy kills boyfriend with .22 cal target pistol. (Hey there's the .22 again and no drugs maybe it is the caliber!)
A Catholic Elementary School in Cologne, Germany - Thursday, June 11, 1964: Walter Seifert used homemade flamethrower to kill 10 including himself.
University of Texas, Austin, Texas - Monday, August 1, 1966: I think you already know this one and the fact that there were no prescription drugs involved.
Grand Rapids High School, Grand Rapids, Minnesota - Wednesday, October 5, 1966: Another school killing with that pesky .22 cal. Still no drugs. Boy that .22 is sounding more and more like the cause of all these problems the more we look.
I could go on as there are plenty of school shootings that occurred prior to the "rampant" use of drugs on school aged children. Using the same poor methods as the researchers it is very easy to say that the cause of all of these shootings is the evil .22 caliber bullet because it was involved in a majority of these incidents. But that is nothing more than anecdotal evidence and has no bearing on reality.
The article in question is a joke and has no evidence more valid to prove it's thesis than what I have put forth here to prove that the .22 cal is the cause of these shootings.
The truth of the matter is that there is no single cause for the shootings except mental illness or stress induced by continued bullying. Human beings do crazy things and sometimes there is no single cause that can be determined to pull them all together. It's easy to try and place blame on one single thing, but to do so with validity requires actual use of the scientific method in order to prove your hypothesis, not simple anecdotal evidence.