Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rejecting the left’s tired gun control narrative and instead zeroing in on what he calls the real crisis behind America’s mass shootings: psychiatric medication.
Speaking Thursday in the wake of the horrific attack at Annunciation Catholic Church—carried out by a 23-year-old man who identified as transgender—RFK Jr. didn’t mince words.
“Mass shootings are a health crisis,” Kennedy said. “And for the first time, we’re launching real studies into the root causes—including the role of psychiatric drugs.”
Kennedy made it clear he’s not playing politics with tragedy.
“People have had guns in this country forever,” he noted, recalling how classmates used to bring rifles to school shooting clubs in the 1960s. “But nobody was shooting up schools. Something changed.”
? JUST IN: RFK Jr. launched a FULL INVESTIGATION into the meds the trans Minneapolis shooter was using
“There’s never been a time in America… where people walk into a crowd or a church or a movie theater or a school and just start randomly shooting.”
“SOMETHING changed, and… pic.twitter.com/GSSPMfhTpr
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 28, 2025
And that “something,” Kennedy said, is radical shifts in behavior and medication.
RFK Jr.: Something Has Gone Horribly Wrong
Kennedy laid it out plainly: the U.S. has become the most overmedicated society in human history, and many of the drugs being handed out—especially to kids and young adults—come with warnings about suicidal and homicidal thoughts.
“A lot of these psychiatric drugs have black box warnings,” he said. “We’re doing those studies now for the first time, and we will have an answer.”
Kennedy emphasized that his department isn’t just paying lip service. HHS is actively reviewing the data around SSRIs and other psychiatric prescriptions, and he promised to follow the facts—not the pharmaceutical lobby or political pressure.
“Whatever suspicions I’ve had, we’re going to test them against unbiased science,” Kennedy said earlier this year. “That’s the template.”
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. pledges “NOTHING is gonna be off limits” in chronic disease investigation
“The childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra processed foods, artificial food additives, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAs,… pic.twitter.com/kWV2LHuqTG
— Holden Culotta (@Holden_Culotta) February 18, 2025
400% Surge in Meds, But Mental Health Keeps Getting Worse
Data paints a grim picture. The use of SSRI antidepressants has skyrocketed nearly 400% since the early 1990s. By 2014, 1 in 10 American adults had a prescription—and that number has only continued to climb. From 2015 to 2021, SSRI use grew by another 35%, with millions of teenagers now on psychiatric drugs.
And yet, depression rates have never been higher. A 2023 Gallup poll found 29% of U.S. adults say they’ve been diagnosed with depression—a nearly 10-point increase since 2015.
Kennedy believes it’s time to confront the uncomfortable truth: we may be chemically engineering violence, and until that’s investigated, no amount of gun control will fix the problem.
No to Gun Control, Yes to Accountability
While the usual Democrat chorus was quick to shout for gun bans, RFK Jr. refused to join in. Instead, he demanded accountability from the medical establishment and urged a return to real mental health reform.
“There’s never been a time in history where people randomly opened fire on crowds of strangers,” Kennedy said. “It’s happening in America. It’s not happening everywhere else. We have to ask why.”
For Kennedy, the answer lies not in demonizing law-abiding gun owners, but in confronting the pharmaceutical and cultural rot fueling America’s violent outbursts.
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