Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were the two students responsible for the tragedy of the Columbine Massacre at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Dylan was a severely depressed and suicidal individual, while Eric was a clear-cut psychopath with a heavily narcissistic personality. Eric was the main leader between the two with his strong desire to eliminate all of humanity as he viewed everyone as inferior and less then to himself, while Dylan was a easily-mislead, but equally mentally-ill accomplice to the crime.
Dylan Klebold:
Eric Harris:
Though now it is clear to see that these mental issues were the reason for the two's heinous crimes, but before all the evidence (diaries, videos, character witnesses of the two) was collected people in the community and the world made up different myths and came up with different reasons as to why the two children would do something so shockingly horrific and awful.
A common narrative people went with was that the two were severely bullied and this was a way for them to get revenge on the people that may have bullied them. The problem with this idea was that they were not bullied, they were more likely to be the ones bullying others as they were well-liked in their group of friends and had no real issues with others. To further disprove this theory it was clear that this attack was not targeting any particular group, it was completely random and meant to kill and harm hundreds of people.
Another myth that came about around the time of the massacre was that different specific groups were being targeted. Besides the alleged bullies, those who were thought of as religious were under suspicion of being targets, but this was dispelled with the same reasoning above.
Some people even blamed the teens' taste in punk music and video games as to why they committed the violent acts. The game, Doom, that was referenced in one of teens diaries was specifically blamed for being too violent. People rationalized that because of all these negative influences it wasn't surprising such violence came out of it, but this was just another attempt at keeping a feeling of security in the community.
I think its only natural for people to want a reason behind the shooting. The people living in this middle class prominently white town didn't want to admit that two kids that grew up there would commit such a horrible crime without some type of cause.
ReplyDeleteThe Columbine Massacre was not the first school shooting, it was a shooting that did not match the community. While many were looking for a reason behind the shooting, some also felt a bit of guilt. Some people were worried with the idea that, what if they could have stopped it? Was there a way to avoid the shooting? Did anyone notice any signs that showed their plans?
ReplyDeleteAt the time, many classmates and members of the community actually knew that Eric and Dylan had plans to commit a mass, school-wide shooting based on their openness about the subject, meaning that they probably could have done something to stop the shootings themselves in theory. The fact that Eric openly owned and operated a website focused on pipe bombs and his ideas to commit drastic attacks similar to the Columbine Shooting with the authorities knowing about it just shows the true extent to which the shooters were ignored as they plotted their attacks. However, people are obviously prone to stay as bystanders or and not take such threats seriously, which allows plots such as this to come to fruition in the first place. Although local community members and police weren't necessarily completely at fault for the shootings, I do think that more could have been done by them to mitigate these threats.
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