EMP Attack Would Wipe Out 90% Of U.S. Population Says John McAfee, Discounting Obama Gun Control Plea While Citing Antidepressants As Possible Gun Violence Culprit

John McAfee, best known as the creator of McAfee cyber-security software and for the controversial events that surrounded him while living in South America, took on President Obama’s recent assertion that gun control is the most pressing matter facing Americans. McAfee, writing in a column for the International Business Times, stated that an EMP (eletromagnetic propulsion) attack on the U.S. should be a far bigger concern.

In the wake of last week’s tragic mass shooting in Oregon, President Obama said in his speech on October 2, “Here’s what you need to do: You have to make sure that anybody that you are voting for is on the right side of this issue.” That “issue” being gun control, the President went on to say that even if a candidate is “great on other stuff, you’ve got to vote against them,” if they’re not for gun control.

According to John McAfee, who recently announced himself a candidate in the 2016 presidential race, President Obama’s sole focus on gun control is misguided but it did raise the question for McAfee of whether or not there is any other single topic that merits such a “single issue status.”

“My first thought upon hearing Obama’s proclamation was that I was in the middle of an acid flashback and I had no benzodiazepines to mediate the trip. My second thought was: what possible single issue, in this complex society of ours, would merit a ‘single issue’ status?”

Among the many important threats facing Americans, John McAfee cites one that he believes should top the list as a primary concern of all Americans and their elected leaders, that being cyber attacks which would be kicked off by an electromagnetic EMP attack. This would leave the infrastructure of the United States crippled indefinitely, according to McAfee, and lead to the deaths of a significant portion of the U.S. population.

“Experts agree that an all out cyber attack, beginning with an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack on our electronic infrastructure, would wipe out 90% of the human population of this country within two years of the attack. That means the death of 270 million people within 24 months after the attack.”

With this sobering image of the United States and its citizenry all but destroyed by an electromagnetic (EMP) attack, John McAfee also points out that the U.S. Government isn’t ready to deal with an EMP attack.

“Our leaders are nearly all ill prepared for this near certain, not-too-distant (EMP attack) event,” writes John McAfee. “If I were forced to choose a single issue, this would obviously be the issue.”

The Daily Mail reports that John McAfee was at first baffled by President Obama’s assertion that gun control should be the top concern of all Americans, but again, it also raised new questions for McAfee.

“Frantically searching again for my benzodiazepines, and certain that rabid squirrels would imminently emerge from my wristwatch and form a tribunal accusing me of crimes against humanity, a saving thought flashed into my mind: What if the president is right? Could this simplification be the salvation of this long-suffering nation?”

Rather than gun control, the saving thought that flashed through John McAfee’s mind was a possible connection between the rise of antidepressant drug use in 1980s America and the mass shootings that have since followed, John McAfee positioned that antidepressants may be at the core of the gun control controversy and the related tragic shootings.

“In the 1980s we saw the first wide scale use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (antidepressants), such as Prozac, Paxil and others. Hundreds of studies have shown that these antidepressants have side effects that include violent thoughts. A few minutes of research will tell us that 8% of the US population is taking antidepressants, yet a known 30% of all mass murderers since 1980 were taking antidepressants, and it is highly suspected that the real number approaches 90% – a statistical anomaly of egregious proportions.”

In the end, John McAfee admits that President Obama may have discovered the “Holy Grail of politics” by telling people to vote only for those candidates that support gun control, making this single concern — among all the other dire and important matters — the one that will “direct the entire future of our society.”

If we are going to let just one issue dictate who should be elected, asks McAfee, shouldn’t it be the issue that addresses the potential deaths of most of America’s citizens? I.e EMP attacks?

“… surely weighing the possible deaths of 90% of our citizens due to cyber warfare against gun violence which causes fewer deaths per year than traffic accidents, seems that possibly our president is suffering an acid flashback rather than myself,” concludes McAfee.

But, are EMP – electromagnetic propulsion – attacks really an immediate threat that could send the U.S. and its people into a death spiral?

In their May issue, VICE interviewed a military and global intelligence expert about the dangers of EMP attacks, and while the expert agreed that EMP attacks were technically possible, they’d also be prohibitively expensive and most likely would only be an added result of nuclear strikes.

“It’s not that EMPs are not a threat,” the expert told VICE, “It’s just that—although the effect would be massive—currently they’re not really a risk apart from nuclear strikes, so highlighting them as the greatest threat there is might not be entirely realistic.”

At the same time, John McAfee is a recognized expert in several areas himself, so recognizing the dangers of an EMP attack, particularly if it would kill 90% of Americans in the two years that followed, might be a problem politicians should consider along with gun control.

[Images by Joe Raedle/Getty Images and National Archive]