Fox & Friends blames prescription drugs, virtual reality, and the “human condition” for the Florida school shooting

Tammy Bruce: “When we talk about the firearm ... we never really then get to the real dynamic and the core issue, which is the human condition”

From the February 15 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

Video file

BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): State of Florida reeling at this hour after 17 people, yep, 17 people were killed at a high school, making one of the deadliest school shootings in recent history trailing behind Sandy Hook.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Almost immediately after lawmakers turned their focus to gun control, but our next guest warns against jumping to conclusions. 

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Why [shouldn't] we do that, Tammy Bruce?

TAMMY BRUCE: But look, clearly we all want, if we can, an immediate solution. It's obviously not going to be the fact here. And we see this. We have the conversation after so many horrible instances. But here's the fact of the matter: when we talk about the firearm, and then everybody thinks well we do this, this never ends, it's because we never really then get to the real dynamic and the core issue, which is the human condition. I love that you guys had a psychiatrist on earlier. But there's facts of the matter here on the ground. As an example, 70 percent, 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug. The most prescribed drugs, of course, are antidepressants and opioids. 

They're psychotropics. They affect the mind. We know, of course, that how adults respond to these drugs are different than how young people do. And so, we do see a change in the last decade, let's say since Columbine. And the nature also that's changed is the availability of the extraordinarily violent imagery since September 11th with what's going on, of course, and what was happening with Al Qaeda and ISIS. And this is the kind of stuff now that is available to especially young people that had never been available before. 

KILMEADE: And what about virtual reality? Those glasses that put you in a battle, put you at war? 

BRUCE: Well, but see, this is what the issue becomes is that we're not addressing how culture has changed, what's available to young people, the fact that we're using psychotropics on virtually all Americans and eventually at some point all Americans. And the discussions of firearms while, of course, it's important to many people, it's an immediate reaction for many people. It's also a political one. And that is that the goal that they have in that regard. 

EARHARDT: The psychiatrist -- during the break, we continued to ask him questions because we are fascinated by what's going on in this guy's mind? And he said, kids this day and age, they're exposed to more violence. And he said the brain normalizes it. He said, back in World War I -- was it World War I? -- he said the soldiers would learn with a target. Then in World War I, they would learn with a silhouette of a human being. And now, kids are watching these video games that are horrific. And not all kids will actually do this kind of thing

BRUCE: Sure. Right.

EARHARDT: But they've normalized it where a kid -- we saw the violence after the Super Bowl. These are fans that won and they're vandalizing Philadelphia because it's normal to do this now. 

BRUCE: Right. Well, it's not just normalized within the general framework but the unusual dynamic of what's happening with the war on terror and the imagery of that kind of real violence. It happens not even on video games. So, the point has to be that if you ban guns, we see how that doesn't work like in D.C. and Chicago. But, at the same time, then they don't want to then and they can't discuss the other issues that are underlying. We've got to get past that to the real core of the human condition. 

Previously:

After Florida school shooting, Fox analyst says AR-15s can be stopped “with a slingshot if you know how to use it”

Fox & Friends hypes flawed link between mass shootings and video games

After Las Vegas massacre, Laura Ingraham laments “secular humanism and progressivism” supplanting “virtue”

It's time to stop blaming mental health for mass shootings