I think Mr. North was speaking outside his field of expertise, and that's not advisable, but can you see what's going on with this story? We have no context for his claim, as the Associated Press doesn't link to his original and complete statement or presentation. Not that I could see, anyway. The AP is making it sound as if Oliver North came out with a press release with the distinct purpose of blaming school shootings on prescription drugs, and that may not be the case. His context may have been to examine many elements in mass shootings that have, up to this point, been largely unexplored by the public or the media. Yes, he was outside his field of expertise, and that's not good, but we all do that. That's why reporters and school officials use the term "automatic weapon" generically.
The press wants to portray him as a moron or fool, and he may be, but I'm not ready to buy into that assessment yet. Based on the lack of integrity that I've seen from the press, I'd have to be a moron or a fool to do so at this point.
For instance, one CBS news piece said the shooter in this latest shooting had a "uniform" with "Nazi regalia" on it, and didn't expand beyond that at all, even though it was plain to see that he had a communist Soviet star pin on his coat, with a hammer and sickle on it. The communist symbol wasn't mentioned at all in the piece, and the "Nazi" symbol was an Iron cross that Germany also used long before the Nazi era (not specifically Nazi.) They made no mention of the satanic symbol or the Japanese flag, either. Of course, after a day or two, we all know about the shooter's pins and the meaning he ascribed to them, but when the story first breaks, the media tries to tacitly connect the shooter to some right wing or Trump-influenced cause. That's the level of media integrity we're dealing with.