I have a tiny bit left to finish and then I do have to read through the thing to make sure I didn’t fuck any sentences up but it’s soooo close to being done that you can expect it some time this week. =D (Oh man, with all these people screaming about it in anticipation I’m just hoping you won’t be disappointed!)
Month: March 2014
If they ever do release the basement tapes…will they be in better quality than the other videos we have atm? Also, do you know where all of the other home videos came from? Who originally posted them online?
I don’t think the basement tapes will be much better quality than the videos we already have access to. They were filmed with one of the school cameras that they also used to film videos like Radioactive Clothing with. (I believe the only video that had a different camera was Rampart Range. One of their coworkers, Angel Pytlinski, claims in her statement to police that Eric and Dylan borrowed her camera to film shooting practice, so that’d make Rampart Range the most likely candidate to be filmed with that camera.) Sorry to say that we won’t get to see the boys in HD no matter the occasion, haha. đ
The home video Morning Ride (the one with Dylan driving to school) came from Nate Dykeman for sure. I recall that he received money for the source material, as can be seen in these news articles here and here. The rest of them seem to have come from JeffCo and were pushed for release alongside the 11k-documents and other evidence. This massive timeline suggests that the other videos were released by JeffCo back in early 2004 as seen in the statement for Feb 26: “the second video tape is 94 minutes long and consists of the killers of Columbine making fictional, violent movies for their video productions class”. That possibly leaves us with the Breakfast Run and perhaps Eric In Columbine as videos we don’t have a definite source for, although it is likely to me that they were released alongside that same batch somehow.
What would Dylans perfect girl be like =) what about eric? i love to try and think about what they would like in a girl. But then I realize that what they might have liked in a girl probz isn’t what they needed heh
Hm, Iâm not sure that what they liked in a girl wasnât what they needed.
Okay, sure, Eric sometimes liked girls that make me go âreally, dude, reallyâ because you can clearly tell straight off the bat that they werenât a good fit for him. Yet, a girl like Susan DeWitt was exactly the type he needed in his life. I think Eric would like pretty girls with easy smiles (and nice legs, heh) whoâd be unprejudiced listening ears. What he needed was someone who knew how to pick their battles with him â I think that he liked his girls opinionated and smart, willing to think about the deeper âwhyâ of everything, but that he also needed to feel like âthe man in chargeâ at the same time. He needed her time and devotion to him as much as he needed her to be capable of independent thought.
Dylanâs perfect girl would be someone he could share everything with. Someone whoâd listen to his deep thoughts, offer advice, be sweet with him.. but also someone who’d have a more positive outlook on life and would’ve been able to drag his butt out of the circles his mind ran around him. I can’t see him go for a really loud and extroverted individual, as I think he may have gotten intimidated by girls like that, but I think he’d be pretty sweet on a girl who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind when the situation called for it. You know the type of girl that only says something when they’ve thought about it really carefully? I think that’s what he went for.
Hello, sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you could tell me the most reliable step by step recount of the shootings?
Hey, come by any time.. You’re never bothering me! =)
The most reliable recount of the shootings that I know of, and refer to most myself, is the one I translated from Tim KrabbĂ©’s book, which you can find over here on my blog. KrabbĂ© used the already existing timelines and the information we have from things like the 911-call as well as varying witness statements in order to piece together the movements of the boys during the shooting. I also took the time to drag up another post of mine concerning some of the other timelines. Hope this helps! đ
Sorry, not sorry
Okay hey so I know that weâre all âcolumbinersâ and shit, and I really donât want to start up a fight or anything.
But if you look past understanding them, and sympathizing and empathizing with them, has it ever occurred to you that Eric and Dylan were in fact completeâŠ
This pisses me off for reasons I donât know how to begin to explain. And yes, Iâve probably taken it personally (which I shouldnât,) considering that much of what made Eric and Dylan âcomplete assholesâ are things for which Iâve been criticized repeatedly. They were human, yes, we know, weâre well aware. Even those who seriously think of them as âgodlikeâ and âheroesâ know thisâŠand surprise of surprises, it doesnât make E+D any less âgodlike and heroicâ in their eyes. Oh, andâŠsome of those things you listed as faults. You sure those are faults at all? What I wouldnât have given to meet people for whom hatred and anger were points of prideâor who sought to achieve a superhuman stateâor hated humanity to the degree that they did (not okay? UhâŠpardon? I know youâre all about tolerance and empathy and things, and so it would be disturbing to examine, but the âhating humanityâ angle was too crucial to their philosophies to dismiss completely as ânot okayâ for them or anyone. There are many criticisms which could be made on the subject of their extreme misanthropy, but to wave such things away as all-bad, always, all the time is missing the point.)
Blah Iâve gone over this too many times need sleep need beer need Dylanthoughtz to calm the hell down
So I had an entire reply typed out to you, and then my phone did something funky and made me lose the entire thing. Consider this attempt 2 at keeping the dialogue open between us. =)
I take it that much of this comment was directed at the comment I placed underneath the original post, and I feel that I must address some of what you said in turn. I feel that many of us have things in this case that we take very personally for a number of reasons, so Iâm not surprised at the emotion rising in this discussion either. I donât want to come at the whole thing from a place of judgment, simply because itâs not something that can be judged quite so easily at all. I understand that my original reply to this was a snapshot statement of character definitions from both boys being ânot okayâ â allow me, now, to explain why this sentiment of mine took the main stage in there.
About ten years ago, these boys would have been my heroes. Eric and Dylan would have been the guys I looked up to most and wanted to be like. The material available of them, such as their journals and videos, would only have strengthened something I can now classify as âhero worshipâ. My younger self was exactly like the boys â right down to the anger, the hatred, the godlike tendencies, the vitriol, and the isolation. I wore my hatred and my anger like a second skin in those days, and isolated myself in my sorrows for a long time. So long a time that I donât recall events, peoples, etc in great detail even now that years have passed. Some traumas canât be fixed by any amount of therapy you go through. You just learn to circumvent most of them, teach yourself how to avoid the triggers, and essentially dance around them for the rest of your life down here. At least, thatâs the way I understand things to work today. Back in those days, I raised myself above the rest of humanity because that was the only way I could make it through the next second-hour-day-week-month-year. Disdain is easy, hatred is too.. you cloak yourself in it and you put the blame for your misery at the feet of everyone around you, and thatâs how things go for the longest time.
When I approach the case today, I approach it from a place of deep kinship and understanding. Eric and Dylan (particularly the latter) are mirror images of the girl I used to be. Even now, working with the research and writing pieces on them helps me sort myself out in an almost therapeutic manner â it is only through learning to understand Ericâs deep-seated rage and fear that I have finally, finally, learned to come to terms with my own. You say in your post that it would be âdisturbingâ for me to examine the âhating humanityâ-angle, and yet for years that same hatred was everything that kept me going. When I say I identify with both of them, I mean that I identify with them to the point where I was very close to doing the exact same thing they did. There is a personal connection for me in this case that I cannot, must not, ignore or brush off.
Sure, yes, over the years Iâve learned to transform the hate. Iâve learned how to work with the shadow side of myself. Iâve learned how to handle the disdain for humanity to the point where it only arises in rare circumstances. One thing I possibly didnât learn is how to get down from that damn pedestal, haha. đ But I remember all too well what it was like down in that pit where it felt like you were eating yourself alive with all of this stuff. I remember how you sustain yourself throughout the years thinking and feeling the same kind of stuff we see in their journals and in their words from elsewhere. I remember how tough a battle it is, how much of this time is essentially you waging a war on yourself and on the entire fucking world along with it, and I remember that the only thing that separates me from those boys aside from the obvious is the fact that I made a different choice in my life than they did.
So, yes, I âpreachâ tolerance and empathy nowadays. I have made a conscious decision to do so. I donât wish what I went through and what these boys went through on anyone else, and if I have the power to influence and impact others through providing the open view that comes with these type of battle scars.. then thatâs what Iâll do. I love all of the Columbiners very dearly, no matter anyoneâs personal opinions on condoning the massacre or other things like that, and I donât wish for any of them to think that the story of Eric and Dylan is the only way out of the abyss. Iâm living proof that thereâs another road to take. Nothing about them was all-bad all the time. They were human. Flawed like the rest of us. They werenât perfect, and they certainly were not gods. Sometimes, that particular notion seems to get a little lost among the hero-worship and the emotion that comes with these boys. And while understandable.. it is also, admittedly, a concerning thing to witness sometimes. =)
(Edited for formatting issues. This time Iâll try to type a coherent response. Yay caffeine.)
While my response to the original post did end up mostly referencing yours, it was due to laziness and not an intent to single you out. The other responses also have things that pissed me off, and the topic in general. I do get angry about millions of things every day though, to the point where itâs recreational, so thereâs no need to worryâIâm not going to lose it or go berserk, and you didnât do anything wrong. đ
The problem with the topic at hand is twofold. First, why did klebold-is-godlike’s post need to be made at all? Why is it necessary to remind everyone that Eric and Dylan did and thought things which are not considered ânice?â The Columbiners already know. Underneath the gushing, the cooing, the cutesy edited pictures, the fanart depicting them as superhuman badasses, the cosplay and the constant quoting of their journals, people here already know. Itâs not news to anyone that Eric and Dylan were misanthropes, rage-filled, homicidal, suicidal, could be mean as hell if they thought someone had slighted them, and ended up shooting innocent people whose families grieve and feel pain. Nobodyâs losing sight of it just because of an influx of positive posts, kawaii photo edits or starry-eyed expressions of awe. So why remind people of something thatâs old news, unless the OP and responders are assuming that certain kinds of fans are unaware of the part where mass murder happened and suffering occurred? Thatâs mildly insulting. Just because one is aware of something does not mean that one will necessarily respond to it in a certain way, and itâs clear you all already know that as well. Iâm not blameless when it comes to unfair assumptions, and Iâm not claiming to be. (Prime example, yup, thedragonrampant, I assumed from your tone that you were nervous around descriptions of ânegative, darkâ emotions/mental states, the kind of person who is allergic to so-called negative energy and must cleanse with lavender incense afterward. I was quite wrong, and that was unfair of me.) But the Columbiners are aware of this topic. Theyâre very aware that Eric and Dylan were not krypton-powered snuggly bunnies with guns in a blockbuster movieâbut sometimes, they donât give a damn. And fanart of E+D standing like stone-cold action heroes atop a pile of dead football players occurs.
(I donât think thereâs anything wrong with that, for the record. The lack of giving a damn, not necessarily the fanartâI can see how the latter would be hurtful to survivors and families and associated individuals, but the former is not, in my opinion, a problem.)
The only other reason I can see for the reminder is to control the tone of the tag. To make sure things donât get too complementary, because itâs somehow improper to have too much ego-stroking of two dead guys going on. To perpetuate something like, as described in the short story Apt Pupil, by Stephen King:
“I really did do a research paper, and you know what I got on it? An A-plus. Of course I had to be careful. You have to write that stuff in a certain way. You got to be careful.â
"âŠAll those library books, they read a certain way. Like the guys who wrote them got puking sick over what they were writing about." Todd was frowning, wrestling with the thought, trying to bring it out. The fact that tone, as that word is applied to writing, wasnât yet in his vocabulary, made it more difficult. âThey all write like they lost a lot of sleep over it. How weâve got to be careful so nothing like that ever happens again. I made my paper like that, and I guess the teacher gave me an A just cause I read the source material without losing my lunch.â
I understand why this tone is applied (it was a mass murder after all,) but sometimes I get sick of it. I get sick of reading it everywhere. I get sick of seeing it informally mandated on almost every forum, every site, every spoken discussion or documentary, every fictionalized reference to the shooting. It didnât bother me as much back before the myspace cults got shut down and chased out, and the websites dripping with blatant hero worship and almost-psychotic ramblings disappeared (or perhaps got disappeared, deliberately, which still makes me worry.) Those sites provided a counterpoint to serious, sober deep-research places, which (while I enjoyed them for their plethora of new information,) usually favored the tone of one âabout to lose their lunch.â This is why I came to tumblr. For a counterpoint to wading through that tone to find thorough information. One of the boards shut down and another I was banned from (posting while drunk was a stupid, stupid idea,) but from the way they talked about the tumblr fansâŠ
Granted, it hasnât been the paradise of insanity I thought it would be. Myspace Reb+VoDKa cultism it ainât. No plotting. No deluge of Nietzsche or Nietzsche-wannabe statements (unless theyâre quotes from Eric.) No talk of bombs. No carrying out missions. Itâs not that kind of place. Iâd post stuff of that ilk, but it would not be received the same way here as it would be on the now-dead sites and rabid fanboards. Someone might even try to call the police on me, or the nearest mental hospital, if I was too vocal. Itâs mostly a lovefest despite what they did, not because of it but not including it eitherâmostly itâs thinking Eric and Dylan were interesting people (and for some, romantically attractive people,) and focusing on that instead of the grim parts. Loving/liking them (warts and all) but hating what they ended up doing. Like I said, itâs no killemall420nbk4ever.com, but itâs a decent enough respite from the obligatory true-crime âsick sad world with sick sad boysâ vibe. Jeez. Let them be irreverent. Itâs tumblr. Theyâd probably show a lot more of what is deemed ârespectfulâ behavior on a different site with different expectations.
On to the second issue: Why are the traits mentioned in the first post and the replies the traits of an asshole? What makes a person with those traits an unpleasant one? I can understand how such traits would be unfavorable traits on the personal levelâif you are like that, but feel worse being like that and want to stop being like that, by all means, find a better way to be. (Another specific response to thedragonrampant: I am glad that you found a way out of a state of mind that was eating you alive and making you miserable. Itâs not an easy task.) I can also understand a personal dislike for those traits in anotherâevery person has things which they dislike in others and prefer not to associate with others who display those disliked things. It all depends on preference. Beyond that, I donât understand why such traits are things that Nobody Should Be.Â
Why is hatred for the human race a trait that nobody should have, and a thing that should always be fixed or gotten rid of? Thatâs implying that humanity hasnât really been that awful to some people, or that the misanthrope is the problem and not human society. Why was it more wrong for Dylan to have shoved a girl in gym class instead of a guy? Thatâs implying that girls are weaker and less capable in a fight. Why not mouth off to teachers who are annoying, who know less than you and yet try to assert authority over you? Illegitimate authority should be kowtowed to, now? And for what? For a good grade that you could get in your sleep, that you donât even care about, so you can eventually graduate and get a job in the same system that creates environments like that classroom, and trade desk-slavery for cubicle-slavery? Why not fake suicide after a breakup? Some people might find it expressive and honest in a way theyâve rarely seen. Why not vandalize the houses of oneâs enemies? Would it have been better for Eric and Dylan to let the bastards get away with it and sit happily in socially-sanctioned entitlement? (Key word here is socially-sanctioned.) Why not vandalize houses in general, a suburban blight full of mediocre zombies and the perceived grievances as a pretense for destroying something bigger than one person? Such as Baumgartâs house. Ericâs reason was flimsy. Tissue paper flimsy. It was less about Nick than what he represented. The Halloween shenanigans, shooting little trick-or-treaters with BB guns, and jumping out of bushes to scare them. Attacking a concept, a representation, soul-eating suburbia as embodied in those kids on that night. Why is any of this even necessarily wrong? Aside from the obvious, because itâs against the law, because it hurts people, because violence is bad and blah-dee-blahâŠaside from that, why? Or should I say, why not?
(Ugh, ranting there again.)
Not everyone who has the âassholeâ traits will break laws or harm people, either. Are they still assholes if they break no laws and harm nobody? And if laws are broken and/or people are harmed, would they still be assholes if it happened after they ended up, say, becoming activists and taking part in a huge demonstration that concluded with a third-world dictator getting tossed out a window and shot? Or a fur factory that violated ethical standards getting burned to the ground after the animals were freed? Where is the dividing line between non-asshole and asshole behavior, what is it and who decides what/where it is?
So thatâsâŠpretty much it, hopefully I was more coherent this time. This stuff Iâve probably said before somewhere, because my opinions on it havenât changed so Iâm guaranteed to repeat myself until my thoughts on the topic do shift, which they probably will in time.
Tumblr’s formatting issues are something I get really pissy about, as well as the fact that this is really not a good discussion place for longer posts like ours. (They’re so interesting and I wish that this platform would support these more easily. I usually end up taking half the debates to private messages/instant messaging systems because Tumblr’s so problematic with this.)
I completely understand that your original post was not meant as a direct ‘single out’-movement on your part towards me. I saw you refer to some points I had made, though, and pretty much decided to roll with it in my reply. đ I find your new response very thought-provoking, so I’m quoting it in its entirety despite this becoming one hell of a long post upon me doing so. *laughs* I firstly want to take the time out to thank you for your personal acknowledgment of the things I wrote in my reply to you. I know I do come across as this wonderfully bubbly "breathe in breathe out do the hippie shake”-person, haha, and I was not surprised to see the assumption on your part that that’s all I’ve got in my system. I must admit that I sometimes take this tone on purpose, particularly here, as a counterweight against the more negative angry/sad tones I see from others.. All good things come in balanced ways, and I quite frankly need myself to stay on that upbeat/positive level concerning Columbine because this case has a habit of grabbing me by the throat in a reminder of my own private demons. I guess you can say that the bubbliness and positivity is a personal defense mechanism as much as it is my general state of being nowadays.
The original post we’re talking about here is not the first of its ilk I’ve seen on the tag. (It’s the same sort of post as the occasional “this tag used to be so much better” and “y’all motherfuckers need Jesus”, you know? You see posts like the original pop up every once in a while and usually timed for release exactly around the time when we’ve had the “you crazy people”-comments from other people stumbling upon our little corner and/or when the fangirling is almost everything you see on the tag.) I think it is very much a balancing factor that serves as a reminder that we’re collectively getting flail-y about two dead murderers who were not most people’s ideal boyfriends by a long shot. I know it, you know it, everyone on the tag knows it: Eric and Dylan were not nice. And I think that there’s some concern that arises every so often that we’ve somehow magically lost sight of this, like this focus we have on things we like about them is somehow going to make us forget that these boys did something pretty terrible. Some of the fangirling gets on my last nerve when I’m having one of my research-mode-live-and-breathe-Columbine moods and find nothing but cutesy shit in the tag instead, sure, and those are usually the moments when I’ll agree vehemently with posts like the original one we’re referring to here. Maybe, then, posts like the original are also very obscure ways to say “hey, I know you guys really like the boys but can we refocus on the case for a second here too”?
There is a quite recent saying over here in my country that you can only work through trauma when you are able to joke about it. Some of the most traumatic events (think 9/11, wars, etc) inspire some of the crudest jokes and random-ass hilarious comments I’ve seen to date. They seem to be a collective way of dealing with the death-murder-mayhem themes that come up when we watch the news. In many ways, I compare the fangirling and the often quite hilarious gifsets/comments in the tag to be very much like this coping strategy. We know it happened, we know it was terrible, and we need to laugh it off every so often and stop making everything about it sound so serious and dramatic. I think it speaks for many of the Columbiners that they are able to crack these jokes and make those comments about the boys inbetween the “ohmigoshsocuuute”, and that there seems to be a safeguard at the same time against doing the same thing about the victims of the massacre. There is respect in the tag concerning the actual people affected by the actions of the boys, which can perhaps be seen most clearly in the way that Eric and Dylan are continuously not excused from any form of snark and witticisms while there are some definite explosions about tiny funny remarks about the people they affected/killed. And, you know, the fanart gets wonderfully creative despite its offensive edges and often makes me laugh out loud. (I’m thinking back to the post of the Hitmen For Hire rants in chipmunk voices, for instance.. That one had me cracking up to the point where I’m no longer able to watch the original video in a sober manner.)
And perhaps, yes, I come at Columbine from an outsider-ish perspective as in that I didn’t grow up in a community like Littleton and that I am based outside of the US. I haven’t seen the firsthand repercussions that the act of NBK had on the country and on the generations of kids going to American schools. In many ways, Columbine is an alien principle for me because we do not have school shootings in my country. The tone media take over here is one of mild exasperation, almost, as they report ‘another US school shooting’. The tone that the Dutch author Tim KrabbĂ© takes in his book on the Columbine case, too, is critical and unforgiving and more objective than I have seen US-based media/authors get. The tone that you mention seeing everywhere is a tone I only see when I go online, but not a tone I am confronted with when we speak about the massacre and events like it over here. I completely understand how it’d be frustrating to see the same “I’m about to lose my lunch”-tone appear everywhere you look on the case – we know it was stomach-turning shit, okay, but that doesn’t mean you have to be repetitive about that any more than you have to repeat the same shit JeffCo has been spewing about the case for years. Sometimes I get the impression that people are scared to dig a little deeper and examine, truly examine, the roots of Columbine and the act of mass murder in and of itself. I can be pretty irreverent and confrontational about the whole deal because I come at it from that outside perspective, but there aren’t a great many places where that sort of tone is acceptable. (Did we somehow venture to the same online places, by the way? I distinctly remember another place I got my ass removed from recently was very, very snippy about Tumblr to the point where it became a taboo subject. *laughs* In many ways, the Tumblr tags and blogs and people are preferable to the heavy-handed shit I see going on elsewhere. I’d love to get some of these blogs into a different discussion format, though, and see where that takes us. I think many of these people might surprise us yet.)
Regarding the ‘assholes’-part of the debate.. I would say that some of the traits that the boys eventually exhibited in their everyday life were problematic for them personally in terms of relating to their peers, finding their little niche in the world, and their day-to-day functioning/coping skills. You can see both of the boys struggle with some of the feelings and thoughts they have simply because they know they are not commonly acceptable to the outside world. Eric amuses me greatly with some of his actions (the staged suicide, really, it gets me every time, and the whole “fuck you Brooks I ain’t paying for shit” makes me shake my head as much as it makes me laugh) and Dylan has his definite moments during his laments on humanity where I can do nothing but agree with him. They are little assholes to me with these words and actions at the same time, sure, but I can find a space of quiet agreement and amusement within myself at it all the same. I think they needed to be taken seriously more than they were, but called out on some of their behaviour that would lead nowhere but fucked-up roads and choices at the same time.
We tell our kids from the moment they’re old enough to understand this that some of these behaviours and ideas and so on aren’t acceptable in our way of being and so our kids learn over time to squash those things down in favour of a more socially acceptable line of being. Eric and Dylan had to do a hell of a lot of the squashing, really, and I guess they got tired and frustrated with the notion that things were never going their way even though they tried to adapt/adjust. I guess that there came a time when both of ’em said “enough” and had their shadow selves come out to play more than ever. Of course, that kind of act is met with resistance. Society isn’t fully equipped to deal with those shadow sides of the self that are violent, extreme, hateful, vengeful, egocentrical, and self-assuring in godlike grandeur. We don’t have a lot of safe outlets for that kind of stuff and the mere mention of them sends some people into a collective stupour of “oh my god how horrible”. I think that if you’re told for so long that this type of thought, this type of behaviour, should not exist inside of you and that it is a bad thing to speak of it at all.. you start to wonder what’s wrong with you first, and what’s wrong with the rest of the world second.. The rejection within society toward this valid side of a person’s character is something that breeds discontent and eventually causes some people to, well, give in completely and become ‘the monster’ they’ve been told they are.
What I personally feel is that Eric and Dylan were not equipped to pick their battles. I pick mine very carefully these days and have learned to gauge just how much I can get away with before society goes ‘what are you doing’ at me. đ The boys didn’t seem to discriminate between a battle you can change something about by yourself and a battle that you can only win when enough people are supportive of your cause. Eric specifically mentions he struggles to put a lid on it, to tamper the Reb-side long enough to hold out until April, and Dylan has enough tiny outbursts of anger/discontent to eventually arrive at the “I don’t care”-attitude that quite a few people noted in him. (It’s quite frankly a miracle to me that nobody caught them in time, but at the same time that speaks volumes about their environment as well..) The war they waged on society as a whole is something they could never have won on their own and nuking the whole place doesn’t really help, now does it, even though it is an understandable sentiment in itself. The way they are spoken of today in the most commonly accepted media outlets, Eric as the psycho leader and Dylan as the suicidal follower, is a direct reaction to the method those boys picked to make their discontent known.. and when you deviate from that opinion, and try to really understand them both as human beings, that’s when you get the good old “y’all motherfuckers need Jesus” because there is apparently not an acceptable way to express your amusement with and your empathy toward these teenage boys when they are everything society never wanted to listen to in the first place.
Everything about Columbine from the venue to the method of killing was about the murder of the self as much as it was about laying a literal and metaphorical bomb in the heart of society’s most precious possessions. (Note that I am saying possessions for a reason: how many of our schools accept conscious out-of-the-box thought, how many of our peers stop and think about the way they are moulded to exist a certain way, how many of us feel like they have to walk down the carefully laid-out path and never deviate from the norm not once because then you can never find your way back? We’re all slaves to the system, and through the act of NBK there comes an exposition of the sickness that we have created all by ourselves.)
Sorry, not sorry
Okay hey so I know that weâre all âcolumbinersâ and shit, and I really donât want to start up a fight or anything.
But if you look past understanding them, and sympathizing and empathizing with them, has it ever occurred to you that Eric and Dylan were in fact completeâŠ
This pisses me off for reasons I donât know how to begin to explain. And yes, Iâve probably taken it personally (which I shouldnât,) considering that much of what made Eric and Dylan âcomplete assholesâ are things for which Iâve been criticized repeatedly. They were human, yes, we know, weâre well aware. Even those who seriously think of them as âgodlikeâ and âheroesâ know thisâŠand surprise of surprises, it doesnât make E+D any less âgodlike and heroicâ in their eyes. Oh, andâŠsome of those things you listed as faults. You sure those are faults at all? What I wouldnât have given to meet people for whom hatred and anger were points of prideâor who sought to achieve a superhuman stateâor hated humanity to the degree that they did (not okay? UhâŠpardon? I know youâre all about tolerance and empathy and things, and so it would be disturbing to examine, but the âhating humanityâ angle was too crucial to their philosophies to dismiss completely as ânot okayâ for them or anyone. There are many criticisms which could be made on the subject of their extreme misanthropy, but to wave such things away as all-bad, always, all the time is missing the point.)
Blah Iâve gone over this too many times need sleep need beer need Dylanthoughtz to calm the hell down
So I had an entire reply typed out to you, and then my phone did something funky and made me lose the entire thing. Consider this attempt 2 at keeping the dialogue open between us. =)
I take it that much of this comment was directed at the comment I placed underneath the original post, and I feel that I must address some of what you said in turn. I feel that many of us have things in this case that we take very personally for a number of reasons, so I’m not surprised at the emotion rising in this discussion either. I don’t want to come at the whole thing from a place of judgment, simply because it’s not something that can be judged quite so easily at all. I understand that my original reply to this was a snapshot statement of character definitions from both boys being “not okay” – allow me, now, to explain why this sentiment of mine took the main stage in there.
About ten years ago, these boys would have been my heroes. Eric and Dylan would have been the guys I looked up to most and wanted to be like. The material available of them, such as their journals and videos, would only have strengthened something I can now classify as ‘hero worship’. My younger self was exactly like the boys – right down to the anger, the hatred, the godlike tendencies, the vitriol, and the isolation. I wore my hatred and my anger like a second skin in those days, and isolated myself in my sorrows for a long time. So long a time that I don’t recall events, peoples, etc in great detail even now that years have passed. Some traumas can’t be fixed by any amount of therapy you go through. You just learn to circumvent most of them, teach yourself how to avoid the triggers, and essentially dance around them for the rest of your life down here. At least, that’s the way I understand things to work today. Back in those days, I raised myself above the rest of humanity because that was the only way I could make it through the next second-hour-day-week-month-year. Disdain is easy, hatred is too.. you cloak yourself in it and you put the blame for your misery at the feet of everyone around you, and that’s how things go for the longest time.
When I approach the case today, I approach it from a place of deep kinship and understanding. Eric and Dylan (particularly the latter) are mirror images of the girl I used to be. Even now, working with the research and writing pieces on them helps me sort myself out in an almost therapeutic manner – it is only through learning to understand Eric’s deep-seated rage and fear that I have finally, finally, learned to come to terms with my own. You say in your post that it would be ‘disturbing’ for me to examine the ‘hating humanity’-angle, and yet for years that same hatred was everything that kept me going. When I say I identify with both of them, I mean that I identify with them to the point where I was very close to doing the exact same thing they did. There is a personal connection for me in this case that I cannot, must not, ignore or brush off.
Sure, yes, over the years I’ve learned to transform the hate. I’ve learned how to work with the shadow side of myself. I’ve learned how to handle the disdain for humanity to the point where it only arises in rare circumstances. One thing I possibly didn’t learn is how to get down from that damn pedestal, haha. đ But I remember all too well what it was like down in that pit where it felt like you were eating yourself alive with all of this stuff. I remember how you sustain yourself throughout the years thinking and feeling the same kind of stuff we see in their journals and in their words from elsewhere. I remember how tough a battle it is, how much of this time is essentially you waging a war on yourself and on the entire fucking world along with it, and I remember that the only thing that separates me from those boys aside from the obvious is the fact that I made a different choice in my life than they did.
So, yes, I ‘preach’ tolerance and empathy nowadays. I have made a conscious decision to do so. I don’t wish what I went through and what these boys went through on anyone else, and if I have the power to influence and impact others through providing the open view that comes with these type of battle scars.. then that’s what I’ll do. I love all of the Columbiners very dearly, no matter anyone’s personal opinions on condoning the massacre or other things like that, and I don’t wish for any of them to think that the story of Eric and Dylan is the only way out of the abyss. I’m living proof that there’s another road to take. Nothing about them was all-bad all the time. They were human. Flawed like the rest of us. They weren’t perfect, and they certainly were not gods. Sometimes, that particular notion seems to get a little lost among the hero-worship and the emotion that comes with these boys. And while understandable.. it is also, admittedly, a concerning thing to witness sometimes. =)
Surprise, beautiful person! Once you get this you must put this into at least 8 inboxes (anonymously) who deserve it! If you break this chain, nothing will happen, but it’s always nice to know someone thinks you are beautiful inside and out <3 ME LOVE U LONG TIME
I love you so mu-hu-huch. â€
Surprise, beautiful person! Once you get this you must put this into at least 8 inboxes (anonymously) who deserve it! If you break this chain, nothing will happen, but it’s always nice to know someone thinks you are beautiful inside and out <3 Why anonymously? I like to show my love in public
Let me love you back in public! †(Did that come out wrong? *giggles*) Come here, you beautiful person. Time for a hug! *hugs*
Surprise, beautiful person! Once you get this you must put this into at least 8 inboxes (anonymously) who deserve it! If you break this chain, nothing will happen, but it’s always nice to know someone thinks you are beautiful inside and out <3
Thank you very much, kind Anon! I’m smiling just like this right now, haha.
Sorry, not sorry
Okay hey so I know that weâre all âcolumbinersâ and shit, and I really donât want to start up a fight or anything.Â
But if you look past understanding them, and sympathizing and empathizing with them, has it ever occurred to you that Eric and Dylan were in fact complete assholes?Â
I mean they werenât nice. Their journals (especially Dylans) expressed sensitivity, but that doesnât mean that, that is how he was?
So in all seriousness, I honestly think they were assholes, however Iâm not saying that they didnât have any good qualities, and Iâm not saying that they were only bad guys⊠But it just seems like everyone is glorifying them on here, and I just wanted to point out that what they did was in fact a horrible act.Â
You’re right on the money with this latest post about Eric and Dylan being complete assholes at times. My understanding of them and my empathy toward them both is one thing, but my gods there are days when all I want to do is go back in time and kick them both in the shins for being such little shits. The whole “oh poor boys they were bullied and they were so alone and nobody understood them”-thing has got to stop sometime. Eric and Dylan weren’t without flaws and faults. They mocked people, became aggressive toward others at times, isolated themselves from their peers, relentlessly pursued NBK for about a year without ever stopping to reconsider or get (more) help for their problems, relished the fact that their hatred/anger/etc made them different from others, sought to become like gods, directed a level of vitriol at humanity in speech and writing that is not okay by a long shot..
At the end of the line, we’ve still got to face the reality of these two kids killing other kids before taking their own lives.. and there is NOTHING heroic or glorious about that act. Far from it, in fact. So while we may seek to understand them through the information available, develop empathy for them out of the knowledge we have of them, and find a space in our hearts where we sympathise with these boys.. We must also, always, be mindful of the fact that they took thirteen other people away from their loved ones and irreparably damaged the lives of those in their community who lived to see the next morning. We must be aware of the impact that their actions have had, not only objectively but also emotionally, upon an entire generation of young people. The fact that so many glorify the act of NBK, and find in Eric and Dylan heroes to look up to.. *shakes head* It is the one thing that concerns me greatly even though I understand the reasons why, and it is a clear warning sign to our society that we are not okay and that these type of eruptions/explosions of violence will keep happening for as long as we do not educate and find a way to change/evolve as people.
What do you think of eric’s parents? I think I have seen you comment on dylan’s but not eric’s, do you think they expected too much from him or they didn’t make him feel loved? I feel so sorry for them.
Dylan’s parents are the easier to comment on, simply because we know more about them. They’ve been very open about their son and their family life, whereas the Harrises have essentially ‘closed ranks’ and the little we do know does not come directly from them. There are some clues in Eric’s own writing that do give off a strong impression of the family, though, and we have some other info that give off at least a vague notion of what it was like to grow up in the Harris family.
I think the Harrises loved their son very, very much. I think they always wanted to see the best in him, and put a level of trust in him that Eric did not always deserve. I think they were very invested in the life of their son, but also put expectations on him that he could not always live up to. I think that they wanted to have this image of the ‘picture perfect family’, in a sense, which can mostly be seen through the notes Wayne kept about the problems his son got into. (He is, for example, very concerned if the trouble Eric got into in school will make it onto his permanent record.)
I think there was an expectation within the family that their boys would ‘fall in line’ with what their parents wanted of them, which makes it a more authoritarian household than the one Dylan grew up in. I also suspect that there was not always a huge amount of space available for the safe expression of emotions. The way Eric handled his emotions plus the vibe I get from his father in particular (the good old ‘man up’-vibe, you know?) gives me the impression that there was an expectation to simply adjust to change and to distressing situations without getting emotionally stuck in these. Eric seems to have been able to speak to his mom about things somewhat – and I think he had the better bond with her overall – but the account we have of him talking with her is surprisingly void of deep emotion.
However, Eric always speaks of his parents highly. He excuses them from everything and lets the responsibility for NBK fall solely on his shoulders. He is the good son, the loyal son, in many ways throughout the respectful words he speaks of them. I think he loved his parents and his brother very much, and it must have been really hard on Eric (as he, too, admits in writing) to slowly detach from them and leave them the way he did. Eric’s memories of his family life are good ones, happy ones, and I suspect that his family has the same sort of memories about their son.
if you had to pick any tv movie or book character that you see dylan and eric in, who would it be and why? =)
Oh man. Oh. This is such a hard question. *laughs*
Reb and Vodka are easily placed in the same line as NBK’s Mickey, Tarantino’s characters from early films, the protagonist of Doom, perhaps even older and more vengeful gods from mythologies all around the world.. It is not hard to see what sort of characters they modelled Reb and Vodka after.
When we’re talking just Dylan, or just Eric.. that’s when I get completely stumped by this question. *laughs* Dylan was such a unique individual, and Eric was very good at hiding himself. I think you could have Dylan as the quiet kid spouting off random moments of wisdom and perhaps even being the voice of reason, and Eric as the good kid completely stuck in some big-ass heroic story waving some kind of stick around as a weapon for whatever. I’d be very curious to see what they would’ve evolved into without the presence of Reb and Vodka – Dylan gives off this major Yoda-vibe somedays, haha, and Eric gives off soldier/warrior vibes for sure. Can’t pick a character that fits the descriptions for the life of me!
Okay so I saw on another blog that Dylan Klebold was a feminist, is that true?
More so than Eric ever was. đ We don’t have Dylan saying anything derogatory about women in general or referring to their places in life as being somehow ‘beneath him’. Witness accounts have Dylan alternate between being respectful of women or being somehow aggressive with them – actions that I suspect depended more on the way they were as people rather than the fact that they were women. I’d say that there certainly was a confusion on Dylan’s part toward women in general, but there wasn’t a public level of vitriol directed at them by him from what I can tell right now. It’s possible that the basement tapes do have him remark on women unfavourably, but then you’d have to wonder how much of that segment was Dylan and how much of it was Eric on a rampage.
I’ve seen other blogs here state that his family and friends said that Dylan was a feminist, but I can’t find the exact source confirming this right now. (If anyone has it, please submit it to me?) Right now, I’d simply say that there’s no evidence pointing at the fact that he wasn’t in favour of women’s rights.
As requested by mellow-moths, a fragment from We Are But We Aren’t Psycho about Dylan.
hello! your blog is amazing. but I would just like to ask of you could translate a wee paragraph from We Are But Are Not Pyscho? it can about anything about Dylan, maybe Dylan’s personality or something. thanks!
Hi! Thank you very much for the lovely comment. :3
I have attempted a translation of a small fragment from the book for you. It details a little of how Krabbe sees Dylan, and how Dylanâs writing signifies his preoccupation with something completely âout of realityâ â it is the clearest image of Dylan being stuck in his own turmoil.
All I hope is that you can read my handwriting! (The fragment is in the post following this ask. ;))
i loved your answer it made me happy and make me laugh! i have another one for you and a little bit naughty, i was always so curious to know what dylan meant by bondage do you think he would have been the dominant or the submis? i know all we can do is guess but id like to no your opinion =) Innocent eyes look away!
I’m so happy to hear you loved it! Seems like a lot of people really appreciated the boys coming out to answer your question, haha. đ
Hm, Dylan’s position in this case is very much up for debate. I’ve seen people argue both sides quite successfully for different reasons. Dylan destroyed the harddrive of his computer, which means that we only have his words and actions to go on concerning his sexual preferences. I am personally in the submissive-camp of the argument, because that makes the most sense to me in terms of both gut feeling and the stuff we do know about Dylan.
Those who argue the dominance-side of him base their words on the witness accounts we have stating that Dylan was, at times, physically aggressive toward girls. (I would argue in counter, here, that there is a very huge difference between an assertation of natural dominance and physical aggression born out of a need to control a situation.) There is also a strong opinion that Dylan, being virtually powerless everywhere else in life, would have relished the chance to be in control and exert his will upon somebody else. There are occasions on which Dylan does take the lead and asserts his dominance, mostly in correspondence with the friendship dynamic Eric provides for him, but they are few in number and don’t seem to have been his natural state of being. Dylan gives off the impression that he is an observer to the world rather than an active participant. When he does assert himself more strongly, he is an aggressor rather than a dominator.
Dylan’s few words on the subject include a ‘foot fetish’, which seems to reinforce the idea of wanting to submit to a woman and essentially ‘worship at her feet’. His writings on his love seem to give off the impression that Dylan put her on a pedestal. He is apologetic in his words about the pornography and his sexual preferences to the point where it feels like he is apologising to ‘the girl’ for giving in to that side of his humanity – as though it taints the love he has for her. There is a guilt and embarrassment in Dylan concerning sex. He claims in the very same journal entry that he has stopped masturbating – what other seventeen-year-old guy does this? Whatever it is that he was watching seems to have been a cause of discomfort for him rather than something to admit to very openly. He is deliberately vague about it (bondage/foot fetish can go anywhere, and take you to some seriously messed-up places) and that does not totally fit in line with the assertion that it was about dominance. It seems far more likely to me that Dylan enjoyed the material that was about a man submitting to a woman completely – not something that is commonly accepted in a very male-dominant society like Littleton, and certainly something that would’ve made him feel like he was again different from everyone around him.
what do you think dylan and eric would feel about their admirers? deep inside i think eric would have appreciate it but i somehow feel that dylan would be uncomfortable. and sorry if you have been ask this question before.
Oh, don’t be sorry. If I’ve gotten a question before, I’ll link you to the answer and maybe add something to it.. It’s no big deal, really. =) But I didn’t get this one before!
I originally wanted to give a regular response to this, but my imagination ran away with me for a second over here so I hope you appreciate this.. đ (And, yeah, I did mellow them out a bit because I think they’d hug just about everyone over here once they’d recovered from the shock..)
Eric: V! Come check this out, dude.
Dylan: What is it now.. *sighs*
Eric: We have followers! Admirers! Dude, they’re fucking everywhere! Look at them. *big proud smile* And they’re quoting us, and everything!
Dylan: *reads a few things, goes a little pale* Dude, they have my journal. They weren’t meant to get that. Why do they have this? I didn’t write this for an audience..
Eric: *rolls eyes* Get over it, come on, they’re loving the whole thing.. Gotta say, I get the guy who wrote that I was the psycho of the two of us a lot better now. Love, dude, really? That’s it? I’m sitting here talking about the world’s demise and you’re writing love letters..? *shakes head*
Dylan: *mumbles something*
Eric: Dude, that’s fucking genius though. Divide and conquer and all that. They’ve got me for the explosions and you for the hugs, right?
Dylan: *reads on silently, trying to change the subject* Uhm, dude. There’s a drawing. Of us.
Eric: *turns back to screen excitedly yakking on about how he knows the drawing will be godlike, then blanches at the sight* Is that.. you and me.. *squints* Are we kissing?
Dylan: *nods silently*
Eric: Fuck this shit.. No offense, dude, but.. ew. Ewww. What the fuck. What the fuck is this..
Dylan: They have stories, too. This one’s nice, about us going shopping and stuff? Oh, wait, how about this one..?
Both: *read on silently, Eric still grumbling, then get mirrored looks of disbelief on their faces*
Eric: *stops reading, looks at Dylan* Is that even anatomically possible?
Dylan: *still reading* What are they doing with that gun over there.. oh. OH! *grabs nearest chair, sinks down into it* I’ve seen it all, dude. I’ve seen it all. What..
Eric: When I said we were gonna have followers because we’re so fucking godlike, I didn’t quite mean.. *gestures at screen with one hand*
Dylan: They seem nice, though, dude. Apart from all the crazy stuff they have going on about us, that is. They get us. They know what we were talking about and they are keeping us alive, right..?
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah.. *turns back, squints at user icons* They’re all so fucking pretty, too, look at them! Dude, we hit the fucking jackpot. We’re dead and we have more game than the live dudes do. *laughs* Why couldn’t we have met them earlier, huh?
Dylan: So, uhm, let’s just take the crazy stuff in stride then.. go see them when they’ve lived out long and good lives, give them a hug or something and say “thanks for quoting so much from my very private journal”?
Eric: You’re expecting me to go to a ninety-year-old woman and go “hey, remember me? I’m the dead dude you really liked back when you were fifteen? Want a hug?”..
Dylan: .. yeah? Dude, why not. Least we can do, right? They’re all we’ve got right now. And by the looks of it, they get quite a lot of shit for liking us that much too. Might not be the admirers you thought about having, but they’re pretty good people..
Eric: Could be worse, yeah. So, hugs for everyone.. They’re gonna be so disappointed, dude. They’ll think I’ll have gone soft in my old age or something. I should be up in their faces cussing them out for spending time on us at all.
Dylan: Dude, you’re forever eighteen.. what old age was that again.. *trails off, shakes head* Let them spend some hours with us.. No harm in it when they don’t forget to live at the same time. We’ve hit a very scary but also very nice jackpot over here.
Eric: We have people remembering us, dude. That’s gold. *happy smile*
How long have u been interested in Columbine and how did u get into it? I’m fair new, i’m glad I found your blog it is very helpful
I’ve been interested in Columbine on and off since it happened, but didn’t get into the full-blown intensive research mode until about two years ago when the Dutch book on the case was released. =)
Welcome to the ‘family’, then, I’d say.. I’m happy to hear my blog is helpful to you! Feel free to ask me anything you want to know. =)
I’m wondering if you know of any way I could get my hands on We Are But We Aren’t Psycho. Is there an English translation? Can’t seem to find anything but it looks like a good book and I see people quoting from it on the Columbine tag quite a bit.
As far as I was checking over the net, there is not English translation. I read in a forum that the author wanted to an English version from his book, but the rights donât give him permission cause there is another book about Columbine and that is enough. So I think this bureaucratic issues donât allow that book to have an English version.
KrabbĂ© does want the translation to happen, as far as I am aware, to the point where he does not even object to amateur translations all too much.. but there are no plans for anything official of the sort happening right now. I guess publishers arenât interested or something, because there are already a fair few English-language books on Columbine? Itâs a damn pity you guys are missing out on it, because itâs a good read.
As you probably know, I have the book in my possession and have posted translations of an entire chapter and smaller tidbits of it on this blog before. If there is anything you want to see, such as commentary on a specific journal entry or what KrabbĂ© says about an event in the life of the boys or anything else you can think of.. feel free to ask me for a word-for-word translation or for the general gist of what he says about it? Iâm always willing to translate things for you as soon as I know what it is you want to see most! KrabbĂ© has been pretty inclusive in his work and focuses almost entirely on Eric and Dylan, so really.. I do take requests. đ
Books on Columbine
Decided to compile a list of books focusing on or making mention of Columbine. It’s not done yet, I don’t think, so feel free to suggest some stuff and add to it when you’ve got something I haven’t mentioned yet. =) List is below the cut.
Focusing exclusively on the case:
No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death At Columbine
by Rob Merritt and Brooks Brown
ISBN: 978-1590560310
Easily one of the more recommended reads books-wise. Its vantage point is what makes it so interesting: Brooks knew both Eric and Dylan for years and grew up in the Littleton community himself. The book not only examines the friendship and enmity that went on throughout the years, but also takes a closer look at the fall-out in the community post-massacre where friends of both boys were concerned. There are a million questions surrounding the ‘why’ of Columbine and none of their answers are ‘easy’, but that doesn’t mean people should stop asking themselves these questions.
Columbine: A True Crime Story
by Jeff Kass
ISBN: 978-1938633263
Also one of the well-recommended books on the case. Kass is a journalist who used his investigative skills to provide a comprehensive view on the case. From the pieces I have seen of it so far, it looks like he did a pretty good job. He cites all of his sources, provides critical notes, and speaks of both boys objectively and uncompromisingly.
Comprehending Columbine
by Ralph Larkin
ISBN: 978-1592134915
Larkin seems to have done a great deal of research for this book as well, and his book is one of those books focusing on the wider scope behind the shooting. His book is an examination of the socio-cultural and psychological bases that contribute to an event such as Columbine. His work is perhaps the more academically oriented of the books written on the case, which can make it a dry read but yet well worth the time.
Wij Zijn Maar Wij Zijn Niet Geschift
by Tim Krabbé
ISBN: 978-9044620542
This book is the guilty party in getting me into full-blown research mode. It is, unfortunately, only available in Dutch with no current translation plans in the works. (I’ve done some amateur translations of one chapter and some tidbits, though. Can’t leave you all hanging completely..) However, its inclusion here is simple: it is one of the best things out there. KrabbĂ© is uncompromising in his examination of not only the day itself, but also of both boys in the years prior to the event. He includes everything from witness statements to journal entries to videos to, well, virtually any material worth a damn. He comments about the other books and articles written about the case as well, and even mentions the online community of researchers for a bit. Essentially, KrabbĂ© gave me the best guideline I could ever hope to have concerning good resources on the case.
Columbine
by Dave Cullen
ISBN: 978-0446546935
Why is this on the list, you may ask.. 
Given the problems many of us researchers have with Cullen’s narrative, it is perhaps a surprising inclusion here. The advice I have concerning this particular one is simple: discard his Eric and Dylan narrative, and stay for the in-depth look he provides into the community instead. Cullen’s view on both boys is highly problematic to me and I can’t even talk about it without wanting to throw stuff across the room, but I really did appreciate the parts in the book where he describes what living in Littleton would be like and what the atmosphere in the town was during and after the massacre. He makes the community come alive with his words, which makes it worth a read when you can get access to it for free somewhere.
Nobody Left To Hate
by Elliott Aronson
ISBN: 978-0805070996
A look at Columbine through the eyes of a social psychologist. The book does seem to take a good look at the case overall, but I suspect that its overall focus lies on the actual prevention of these massacres. Aronson argues that the negative atmosphere in many of our schools contribute to and trigger the pathological behaviour of the shooters. If nothing else, it could be an interesting vantage point.
Focusing on the case in addition to other cases:
Why Kids Kill: Inside The Minds Of School Shooters
by Peter Langman
ISBN: 978-0230101487
Langman’s site is quite a well-known quantity among us researchers, I believe, for its inclusion of the journals of both boys and the full diversion papers alone. This book focuses on various school shootings that happened throughout the years and also has a chapter or two devoted to Columbine. While I do not always agree with Langman’s ideas and conclusions, he has clearly done a lot of work on the case and provides some meaningful points in his narrative.
Crimes That Shocked The World
by Danny Collins
ISBN: 978-1844549740
Columbine is a one-chapter inclusion in this book. I stumbled upon it by accident when I picked it up at a bookfair and saw a very familiar photograph on the backcover. It’s a little spotty on the details and you shouldn’t expect a miracle to come out of these pages, but it was a nice surprise to see the case included at all and the book itself focuses on some other major crimes of interest as well.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces To Clinton’s Columbine And Beyond
by Mark Ames
ISBN: 978-1932360820
Going Postal is another one on my to-read list. It examines the first appearances and subsequent growth concerning violence/massacres in schools and workplaces. There is a strong voice of social critique in this book, or so I have heard, and while his examination of Columbine isn’t flawless it should still be worth the time.
Ceremonial Violence: Understanding Columbine And Other School Rampage Shootings
by Johnathan Fast
ISBN: 978-1590202531
Written by a professor in social work, this book outlines thirteen rampage shootings in all. There is a strong focus on the psychology behind the rampages and goes as far as to offer up a ‘profile’ of the ‘standard shooter’. However, this book also details the ceremonial aspect of many of the killings. A lot of these massacres were meticulously planned, as we can clearly see in the Columbine case as well, and there is a certain ritual involved in the preparations that seems to be globally similar throughout.
Rampage: The Social Roots Of School Shootings
by Katherine S. Newman, Cybelle Fox, Wendy Roth, Jal Mehta, and David Harding
ISBN: 978-0465051045
This book was written by an anthropology professor and four of her students from a doctoral program. It provides an in-depth look at two pre-Columbine shootings in particular, but I have seen at least one review state that Columbine is included in the book as well. I don’t know to what extent Newman and the others focus on the case throughout, but this book should be an interesting read all the same for anyone wanting to read a more sociological approach to school shootings. It seems to be really heavily researched overall and the primary author seems to have a really decent handle on the subject.
Columbine 