there are a lot of people who are helped a lot by these medications and don't act like this.

Why don't we focus on the fucked up society that encourages violent criminal behaviour or pushes people, through years of being trodden on, to lash out violently at people who have been a part of victimizing them.

It's faster and makes more money for a doctor to ignore patients and prescribe medications, than actually listening and helping their patients.   I saw a program not that long ago with a pyschiatrist talking about this.   Ideally he would like to just talk to them but he can see more, make more money, and work less hours by operating in this fashion.  There are also other factors that encourage this situation, so thats just whats going to happen. :-/

There's probably a cerain correlation, but blaming anti-depressants is rather similar to confusing cause and effect.

It's easy to see why there is a certain correlation:
A person who does a mass shooting is automatically suicidal. They know from other mass shootings before that the shooter hardly ever survives; when you go on a killing spree, you've accepted that there's a high chance you won't be seeing tomorrow - you're probably consciously or unconsciously even seeking that fate.

So it's no wonder many of these people had been talking antidepressants. To make a mass shooting, you must be suicidal. To be suicidal, you must be depressed. And when you're depressed, there's a good chance you're taking antidepressants. Especially in the US, where antidepressants are so common. As far as I know, the US consumes half of all the world's antidepressants.

While i am not sure of the effect antidepressants would have on the issue one way or another it does not exactly make a grabbing headline like violent video games or assault rifles now does it.

The job of the news is not to inform bit to gain attention it seems like nowdays.

Australia over diagnoses everything here lol. I know 3 people in my team of 10 who are on anti depressants.

One example,
ADHD is approx 3x higher than anywhere in the world and are given pills (aka lets mellow the kids out because their parents cannot discipline their kids). I am sure there is genuine cases but why 3x the rate of other major countries?

I understand that people get frustrated by the fact that mass shootings are blamed purely on lack of gun control when the issue is clearly more complex but this is not the way to go about posing a counter argument.

All you have done is propose a different causative agent with flimsy evidence, which again belies the complexity of the issue.

If you are going to state, "it is known that....", then you have to provide reasonable evidence and neither of the above sources hold much credence whatsoever.

The fact that people involved in shootings happen to be on anti-depressants, even if this was true 100% of the time, does not not necessarily mean that the anti-depressants are the cause.  Such a strong association would absolutely warrant closer study but on the face of it such a statistic would merely prove that 100% of people involved in shootings sought medical (or allied health) assistance (or self medicated) at some point for either disturbances of mood, behavourial difficulties or overt mental illness.

Even if all drug companies are corrupt this doesn't really add much weight to this particular argument again unless we can prove their corruption has resulted in clinical trials being misappropriated or scientific evidence from relevant trials being witheld from publication.

I appreciate that you were good enough highlight a flaw in your own logic by pointing out the Australian example and yes, anti-depressants are prescribed in significant numbers here too.

I don't mean of any this to sound harsh but i think for this to be a good discussion we need to to look at the merits of the evidence on both sides and not merely try to show reasonable doubt by pointing the proverbial finger at something other than gun control.

Because of sheeple

"Why isn't there more focus on antidepressants when these mass shootings occur?" you ask?

Because millions of people take antidepressants and they don't go shoot people.

Saying they don't work for adults is wrong. Absolutely incorrect. It's not an easy task, though, as people react differently to the drugs. I took I think 2 before I found one that worked for me. It's not as simple as "have some pills, now you're all better." Proper treatment requires continued evaluation by a mental health professional. But they do work, and they help people.

Well said.

That's I think by far the main explanation rather than withdrawal symtoms, side effects or direct effects from antidepressants being the cause for violent and suicidal behaviour.