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Maybe they deserved it. Another take on the Columbine shooting.
There's been a lot of boo-hooing over the Columbine, CO shooting lately, and much of it is warranted. After all, kids died. And I don't want to downplay the severity of the tragedy. It is awful, and my heart goes out to those innocents whose lives were needlessly cut short. I certainly wouldn't want any of my loved ones to be killed by some enraged high school student. The heinous actions of the shooters obviously point an accusing finger at the lack of parental supervision these kids received (How could you not know your kids were building bombs in the garage! What did they think they were doing? Tidying up?). But many other factors played into this as well. Saying the bad parents are solely at fault is too simplistic. Even taking into account the more violent-laden society we live in doesn't fully explain the slaughter. So I'll try.
Outraged parents are looking to find a cause of this suburban anomaly. A writer at Salon Magazine astutely pointed out that if the shooting had occurred in the 'hood, it would've only been covered on page 12 in the local Denver paper because it wouldn't have surprised anyone. But since it happened in a white school, suddenly it's a morality crisis in America.
Certain overzealous types blame the carnage on video games and want to ban them because a few unstable individuals couldn't distinguish between real life and fantasy life (one of the first signs of psychosis, if I'm not mistaken).
As a former public high school student, I have another possible theory on what caused this angered outburst: Maybe, just maybe, the students that got shot—and I apologize to my parents for this unsavory choice of words—were assholes. WHAT? Am I suggesting that perhaps some of the VICTIMS of this shooting were in part responsible for, or even the cause of, their own demise? Well, like I said, maybe.
The media has depicted the victims as perfect innocents minding their own business when some evil lunatic kids opened fire on them. C'mon, I went to public school and the only kids who were that innocent rode on the short bus and wore hockey gear year 'round. If those kids had been killed, then yeah, I'd buy the blameless kids bit. But the one thing anyone who's ever been through the gauntlet of public education knows is that Darwinism—whether it's taught in the school or not—rules supreme. It's survival of the fittest at its best. The good-looking guys get the good-looking girls. The stronger kids get to extort lunch money from the weaker ones.
When I was a freshman in high school, I stood all of 5'4". And I was hardly what you'd call "stocky". I was just a skinny kid with the glasses. I was the archetypal school-bully victim (I had bullies from other schools lining up to harass me). The only thing I lacked was Einstein-like math skills. There were any number of Neanderthals at my school who, even though they didn't know what Neanderthal meant, knew they could beat me up with impunity and used that limited knowledge to make my life totally suck.
I was the butt of mean-spirited practical jokes and general, all-around juvenile torment. I was in a fight or two, but after losing them, I learned quickly that fighting back only gave them license to really vent their "I'm not a homo" self-denial frustrations—a losing proposition in my opinion. Oh, sure I could've reported their actions to my parents or the school, but then I didn't want to feel what wearing a full-body cast was like. Therefore, conflict avoidance became the way to survive between 9am and 3pm.
But, let's say these kids weren't any good at conflict avoidance. And maybe they thought taking the "Joe Weider" approach of going home, working out and coming back to kick some Bully butt wouldn't work against the entire football team. THEN what?
Well, they'd be stuck. The frustration of the situation could easily make them desperate. Combine that out-of-control feeling with a few handy firearms and pipe-bombs and you've got the makings of a small scale invasion. Sure, killing others seems extreme, but kids have been known to go as far as kill themselves to escape life's problems. Suicide has always been prevalent among troubled teens. These kids just decided to take their problems out with them.
This is not to say that I condone their actions, I don't. Only that I understand where they could have come from. When guys who have all the cards— girls, money, looks, athleticism— make life a living hell for those who don't, society can't seriously expect them to sit there and take it. This IS America, after all. Land of self-sufficient tough guys with big guns who don't get mad, they get even.
Who knows why the kids shot up the school. Did those kids deserve to die? Probably not. Would the shooters beg to differ? I think so. Something pretty bad made those kids mad enough to kill.
Still, maybe some good will come of this tragedy. Maybe the shooters will become martyrs for all the little guys who are beaten up, bullied and ostracized by the big guys. Maybe it will cause spoiled, genetically blessed pricks to think twice (okay, at all): "Hey, this guy I'm tormenting for fun might go ballistic someday and kill me if I give him one more wedgie."
That wouldn't be all bad.
I have to agree
It is inevitable that the abused bullied will eventually lash out. Our country was built on the idea that rebellion and armed resistance is the way to go, how can we be hypocritical as to condemn these kids for doing what they had to. I was damn happy when I heard those guys killed those kids. I was damn near clapping for them, for finally striking fear in the hearts of those bullies. It must have been great to see them shaking in their letter jackets. They did have it comming and no one... NO ONE.... did not deserve it because you just know the ones that stood by and watched these kids get tormented everyday were just as guilty. I hope that sort of thing happens more and more so that one day just before a bully chooses his target he has to think twice about it.
Damn right
You're damn right they deserved it. And they're burning in Hades. The shooters were devine soliders striking down the wicked. Things had better change in schools. If not, HE will send more.
As an adult it can get worse
As an adult it can get worse . The highschool jerks become bosses , I have had more jack ass , jerk , dumb and mean spirited bosses who were just that way in HS. We laugh about going postal , I cannot condone it but I sure do understand it . America Land of the free and home of the bully .
Funny little mental game.
Let's suppose you were in a concentration camp and you were beaten, whipped with belts, spat upon, punched, lodged in a locker, and threatened every day for 4 to 8 years day in and day out. Would society support the rebellion and killing of those who oppressed the weak? I argue yes. If we supported killing the Nazis and nuking the Japananese for torturing American soldiers during WWII then how is this any different. Some will say this is extreme but take away the nation state and take away the concentration camp and replace that with an American highschool and there is little difference between the two. May god bless Eric Harris and Dylan Cleabole.
Opinion
Well, I do feel that Eric and Dylan did the wrong thing, but I understand why they did it. I was bullied my whole entire school life for being overweight, and when I lost the weight I was bullied for losing it and called "too skinny". Every single day the jocks made fun of me, and when I heard about the Virginia Tech Massacre in 2007 (I was only 15 at the time) I knew it must have been something similar to the Columbine Massacre. Both the gunmen who attacked Columbine were bullied by people double their size and they wanted redemption for what they put them through. Sure, many psychiatric evaluations suggest that Eric and Dylan were both psychotic, but I do believe there was a catalyst behind the attacks.
Last year, when I was 17, I contemplated doing the same thing but decided against it because it would damage the families of the victims too much. I don't want to cause that much pain for the parents of the jocks, for all we know, they might not even know that they're bullying kids. I do feel, however, that the kids who bullied the perpetrators should be singled out and punished for their actions. How dare they attack people smaller then them, how dare they antagonize them at every given chance. It's about time they were punished (by the teachers) and taught a lesson.
Submitted by R.P. Geffert
I wish they would have taken more of them down.
The Truth
The God honest truth is, they handled the situation wrong only because they shot people who hadn't wronged them. If they had made a point of only targeting those who victimized them, I'd be all for what they did. With that said, if they did in fact kill a few of the people who tormented them, I'm happy for them.
School shootings are the end result of bullying. Noone does anything to help victims of bullying. It's allowed to go on for years. Bullying permanently scars. I know this because I was a victim myself.
People have no idea what it's like to wake up every day and face a world full of people who torment you relentlessly day in and day out. It's permanently traumatizing. It changes you and how you view the world.
Although my heart goes out to those who're caught in the crossfire of a school shooting and are truly innocent, never having victimized the shooters, I have no remorse whatsoever for the bullies. Although I've been bullied to the point of insanity, and am experiencing alot of psychological and mental illnesses from it, I consider myself very lucky for being able to keep my wits enough to avoid killing my persecutors.
With the state that my mind is in right now, I know for a fact that if I was still being bullied today, I too would orchestrate a shooting against my bullies.
School Massacres
School shootings are the result of bullying. I was a victim of bullying from 4th grade on. It's given me all sorts of psychological problems and mental illnesses. Many times I too considered showing up to school and blowing my victimizers away.
People have no idea what it's like to wake up to a world full of torment every day, having the majority of your peers victimize you for years on end. Noone helps you. Those who don't join in stand by idly and let it go on. Authority figures do nothing to intervene. It wears you down to the point you want you die. It scars you for life and changes your outlook on everything.
When everyone's against you, you can only put up with it for so long before you start contemplating how you want to get revenge. Your entire world is warped. Everyone around you becomes your enemy. Hate becomes your logic and wrath becomes your outlook.
I hate bullies so much I wish death on them. When I read about school shootings in the media, I feel remorse for the shooter for having been put through what he did. The only sad part about school shootings is the fact that not all victims were victimizers towards the shooter. If their were ever a school shooting where only the victimizers were killed, I would say justice is served.
School shootings are the
School shootings are the result of bullying. I was a victim of bullying from 4th grade on. It's given me all sorts of psychological problems and mental illnesses. Many times I too considered showing up to school and blowing my victimizers away.
People have no idea what it's like to wake up to a world full of torment every day, having the majority of your peers victimize you for years on end. Noone helps you. Those who don't join in stand by idly and let it go on. Authority figures do nothing to intervene. It wears you down to the point you want you die. It scars you for life and changes your outlook on everything.
When everyone's against you, you can only put up with it for so long before you start contemplating how you want to get revenge. Your entire world is warped. Everyone around you becomes your enemy. Hate becomes your logic and wrath becomes your outlook.
I hate bullies so much I wish death on them. When I read about school shootings in the media, I feel remorse for the shooter for having been put through what he did. The only sad part about school shootings is the fact that not all victims were victimizers towards the shooter. If their were ever a school shooting where only the victimizers were killed, I would say justice is served.
I would only agree if they were actually bullied.
After really looking into Eric Harris, one of the gunmen, it is confirmed that, in reality, he was not a victim of bullying but a perpetrator. Eric and Dylan's plan did not go as the would have liked, because their bombs did not detonate, so they improvised. They ran to the library, and decided to take over there. While it may seem that they were, in fact, targeting certain people, they weren't. And how could you say that shooting a teacher was from bullying? Many videos were found, and in them their motives were supposedly because they just wanted to make history. While being bullied is a very legitimate theory, you must take into consideration what kind of person Eric and Dylan really were. Eric was an angry, angry person. If you read his journal writings, he would talk about killing people just for the fun of it. And Dylan would lash out at the slightest things. Eric also bullied many other students. While there was one incident where Eric was pushed into a locker, that was months before the shooting and the planning had already been going on. Also, if the cause was bullying, some specific and main perpetrators had already graduated the year before. If they wanted revenge on them, why would they have cause such a massive chaos at school when those people were not even there?
I realize bullying is a huge problem, but under no circumstances do I think it is ever a reason to take anyone's life. I have been a victim of bullying, and honestly, I think everyone has. If we all chose to shoot those who did wrong to us, no one would be alive.
I feel bad for Dylan and
I feel bad for Dylan and Eric. Not because they were bullied (they weren't) but because they wanted to kill hundreds and they only killed a handful.
I'm not malicious. I don't condone murder and I don't wish death on anyone who doesn't want/deserve it. But I feel bad for them that they failed. In their last action on this world, they failed. That's sad.
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