April 20, 1999.
On that date, two teenage boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
Harris and Klebold were members of a group/gang called the Trench Coat Mafia. Embittered over years of bullying, the two went on a shooting rampage in which they targeted athletes, Christians, and African-Americans. They killed 12 students and a teacher, and injured 23 others before they turned their guns on themselves and committed suicide.
Harris and Klebold were such extremely disturbed loners that authorities should have seen it coming. It should be easier in the future to identify potential school shooters because of the profiles that could be developed from analyses of Harris and Klebold.
And that’s how it happened . . .
Or is it?
That is certainly what I and most Americans came to believe in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings.
But that is not the picture that is emerging a decade later in the wake of some careful research into the shootings.
A journalist named Dave Cullen didn’t buy the popular version then and his recently-published study, “Columbine,” presents some very compelling evidence to the contrary.
I have to confess that I have not yet read “Columbine,” but I find news reports of its content both fascinating and chilling.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were seriously disturbed young men, but their pathologies may not have been nearly as obvious before the shootings as we had come to believe.
Cullen challenges many commonly-held assumptions about Harris and Klebold. They were not members of the Trench Coat Mafia. They were not driven to commit the massacre by bullying. They did not have any specific targets in mind. They were not complete “loners,” but had a circle of friends. Klebold had taken a date to the prom only a few days before the shootings.
The facts, as they now emerge, are far more complex. Eric Harris was indeed a psychopath. Dylan Klebold battled severe clinical depression. Both were in need of psychiatric care, but, at the time neither was so obviously prone to random violence that it could be said in fairness that the authorities should have divined the disaster that was to come.
It is unlikely, I believe, that this new information will sink very deeply into the American consciousness. Not only are first impressions (especially those repeatedly drummed in by the media) difficult to dispel, but I think we find it more comforting to believe that Harris and Klebold were one-in-a-trillion freaks. Even though there have been several school shootings since Columbine, Harris and Klebold seem to have an unchallengeable grip on our collective consciousness.
The evil that was unleashed on Columbine students that day is so incomprehensible that we would rather its perpetrators be easily dismissed as monsters. We would rather believe that evil comes at us in forms that are obvious and easily identifiable.
As a father, I am troubled that Harris and Klebold were perhaps not quite so far off the Bell curve as we have believed for the past decade. I would prefer to think that potential school shooters can be easily identified by reference to a single profile.
It would be stretching the point considerably to characterize the Columbine shootings as a garden-variety manifestation of the Lucifer Effect in which otherwise normal people commit acts that are mind-numbingly evil. Harris and Klebold brought serious pathologies with them that day to Columbine High School.
But the media coverage of the Columbine shootings does point up one aspect of the Lucifer Effect in that it demonstrates our propensity for distancing ourselves from evil. There are far more potential Eric Harrises and Dylan Klebolds out there than we were led to believe.
I am neither a psychologist nor a sociologist. I have no grand plan to offer that would end school shootings once and for all. I can only pray that facing with greater honesty the evil that was unleashed ten years ago today might get us one step closer to preventing it from ever happening again.
Comments:
Once again, Rev. Webster forces us all to realize that perpetrators of evil are not incomparable from most of us; indeed, that despite the psychological pathologies these students carried with them along with their lethal weapons, their horrific actions were likely not predictable in advance.
One correction to this post: there have been closer to a dozen
mass shootings in the USA since Columbine, most by young male students, but also by other men seeking revenge for perceived unfairness and indifference to their well being. Supporters of free access to guns argue that we need to have more people armed so that they can kill such potential shooters before they kill others. For sure, if we all carried assault weapons to school or to work, would-be shooters would not get very far before being gun downed by the barrage of bullets they would encounter. That is assuming these "community" shooters accurately killed only them and not everyone around them with collateral fire power.
For me, it is the too ready availability of weapons of destruction that easily allows hostile intentions to be transformed into lethal actions. Bullets from guns kill people, people buy and load those bullets into guns and press the trigger to instantly destroy one or more of God's creations. So maybe it is time to stop blaming Guns for the deaths they cause, and recognize the accountability of all Gunners.
Dr. Z.
By Phil Zimbardo | Posted on April 23, 2009, 1:03 am
That is the most educated antigun response I've ever read. However, it supports the very argument we progunners have been saying for years. The vast majority of us seek to allow concealed carry permit holders to carry their firearms on school campuses, the same right to carry they enjoy everywhere else. These individuals are not picking up a firearm for the first time, they have had to take training and safety courses just to be allowed to carry a firearm concealed. This training alone makes it much less likely for them to hit a bystander. The irony of this is that police officers ARE allowed to carry their firearms onto campuses, and yet the FBI has repeatedly stated that criminals are statistically better shots (they practice more) than the majority of police officers. It is these individuals (CCP holders) that are more likely to end an active shooter situation without injuring bystanders than the police themselves are.
As to your argument for firearm owners to take responsibility for their actions, the mentally stable ones already do. The individuals who don't, who do these school shootings, are mentally ill individuals, there is no doubt on that. These individuals WILL lash out even without access to firearms, it is seen all the time. All of the news stories of teenagers killing classmates with beatings, stabbings, and other acts of violence are never recognized as the same type of people who would commit these school shootings. The the safety measures already in place (NICS background checks, age restrictions on purchases) actually ARE effective and most likely prevented these individuals from obtaining firearms and going on massacres as well. Thus, your argument further supports our point that further regulations on firearms will do nothing to stop violence (and that these regulations have often gone too far, disarming victims from being able to defend themselves and having cost countless lives) and that the priority should be on identifying these unstable youth, that have no sense of personal responsibility.
So I ask that you please not attack the sense of personal responsibility that us normal gun owners take pride in. We for certain or not the ones committing these acts of random violence. If you value human life as much as we do, then you can see why we believe carrying the protection of a firearm and being properly trained in its use is the most powerful thing that can be done to protect life.
By Fenix | Posted on April 26, 2009, 12:26 am
Dear Fenix, I respect your comments as well as concern towards the pride of gun carriers' sense of personal responsibility. If holding guns is for taking protection and making others safe, why can't you try to renovate the real world towards a phenomenon where no one is carrying a gun or an arm. You need a gun where evil spirits are holding it. If they are un-armed, why you don't want it. Instead of carrying a gun why can't we think about carrying a sharp mind for attacking evils. (I am not an experienced person in psychology. A lawyer as well a management student (24 years). I make this comment just for sharing my feeling arouse after going through this site)
By PraveenParameswaran | Posted on April 26, 2009, 11:06 am
Evil souls will always have what they want to have - guns or other destructive, murderous devices. That is a fact. To defend and punish these evil doers, the righteous must be allowed to carry such weapons as well - legally!
If only the 'police/authorities' have guns, then you have a Police State.
Gun control leads to genocide.
By Vin DiCator | Posted on April 28, 2009, 2:11 am
there are also rumors that Eric Harris was on prescription drugs
Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness and author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare is an expert consultant in cases like Columbine in which anti-depressant medications are involved. Tracy says the Columbine killers' brains were awash in serotonin, the chemical which causes violence and aggression and triggers a sleep-walking disorder in which a person literally acts out their worst nightmare.
Shortly before the Columbine shooting, Eric Harris had been rejected by Marine Corps recruiters because he was under a doctor's care and had been prescribed an anti-depressant medication. Harris was taking Luvox, an anti-depressant commonly used to treat patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Luvox is in a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). Other SSRIs include Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. An estimated 10 million Americans take anti-depressant medications.
Mark Taylor, the first student shot at Columbine, brought a lawsuit against Solvay, the international pharmaceutical company that produces Luvox. Taylor's 2001 lawsuit said Luvox had caused Harris to become manic, psychotic, and homicidal/suicidal and had brought about "emotional blunting,'' or a lack of inhibition. Tayor's lawsuit also faulted Solvay for failing to warn of the "risks and dangers'' associated with the drug.
In early 1998, according to Taylor's lawsuit, Harris had taken Zoloft for two months, but soon became "obsessional." Harris became obsessed with homicidal and suicidal thoughts "within weeks" after he began taking Zoloft, according to Dr. Tracy. Due to his obsession with killing, Harris was switched to Luvox, which was in his system at the time of the shooting, according to his autopsy. The change from Zoloft to Luvox is like switching from Pepsi to Coke, Dr. Tracy said.
"In the documentary Michael [Moore] states that in the movie Bowling for Columbine they look at all the reasons people were saying Columbine happened and that none of those reasons made sense. The only thing that makes any sense is the killers' use of anti-depressants, Moore said.
"How else do you take a perfectly normal, high-achieving child and turn them into murderous monsters almost overnight?" Moore asks.
"After 16 years of researching and testifying about these anti-depressant medications," Tracy said, "it is my opinion that he could not have stated it better."
By veronica kovachi | Posted on May 17, 2009, 1:16 am
The Columbine incident is by no means the first of its kind, nor will it likely be the last. As long as some kids get picked on as outsiders by those in the roles of insiders we can be sure there will be plenty of animosity to fuel the fire. All that's needed are bullying victims motivated enough to find the means and the opportunity to take whatever steps they think they are necessary to even the playing field. I don't condone the behavior of those who acted out the way they did, but it seems a little sad that those who goaded it weren't held more accountable for their actions as well. I'm sure there are laws against bullying but I've yet to see them enforced in all but the rarest of circumstances. Perhaps Columbine was a wake-up call to some of those who can help prevent the next such incident.
By Malcolm | Posted on July 25, 2009, 10:20 am
The dismissal of Harris and Klebold as "evil" and "freaks" seems to go directly to the point of The Lucifer Effect. Our tendency to classify "evil doers" (a favorite Bushism) as "evil" and ourselves as "good" shields us from examining our own behavior. The Iraq War is a case in point. By calling Saddam Hussein names like "So Damn Insane" and focusing so much on his atrocities, any response became morally permissible.
By Henry | Posted on August 26, 2009, 10:38 am
people should not be allowed to carry concealed weapons to school campuses,that is simply turning an academic environment into nothing more than a war zone.We dont need people settling their disputes including, trival ones by firing away at their opponents,and that is exactly what is expected if carrying of weapons is legalised.
By marion thuo | Posted on October 29, 2009, 11:15 am
Guns certainly provide a level of assurance of protection against armed assault. But armed assault, for most of us, is an extremely rare and isolated phenomenon, not one that we are likely to experience. Since the industrial democracies that more rigidly control guns have far fewer incidents of gun violence than we do in the USA, we are forced either to believe that gun control yields positive results, or that American are overwhelmingly angry, violent, or perhaps psychotic people, compared to people in these other countries. It is like the folks who keep guns at home around small children. When I ask these folks about it, they always assure me that they are in a gun safe, and that they lock up the ammunition separately. What use is that if an intruder enters in the middle of the night? I admit that as tempting as it may be to always carry a concealed weapon to be safe, it seems to me that if messed up kids can get easy access to guns, that poses a far greater threat to us than the unlikely scenario that I will ever encounter an armed attacker in my lifetime.
By Rick PDX | Posted on December 3, 2009, 2:10 am
This is so sad. I feel sorrow for the families of the children killed as well as the two boys families. This story really makes me want to be nicer to people, becuase you never know what they could do, or when it could happen.
By Nic | Posted on January 24, 2010, 8:32 pm
This is so sad. I feel sorrow for the families of the children killed as well as the two boys families. This story really makes me want to be nicer to people, becuase you never know what they could do, or when it could happen.
By Nic | Posted on January 24, 2010, 8:33 pm
I think Columbine is one of many school shootings that leave many unanswered questions. I do not believe that any one single factor is the cause of such tragedies, but very complex situations that we may never understand. I do not believe in all these incidences, you can tell the warning signs; I believe some things just happen and unfortunately, no one can see it coming. I used to believe that these were loaners or individuals too far out of the crowd, but that seems to be a misunderstanding in some cases, which leads us to believe you truly never know what anyone is thinking.
-Amanda
By Amanda | Posted on January 24, 2010, 10:02 pm
the evil that was unleashed was no differnt than the evil jorge w bush unleashet on a highschool and preschool in some other country when he bombed it an hour b4 colimbine!!!
By america is sceard | Posted on April 20, 2010, 10:03 pm
With regard to the last comment, while I may not have been the biggest fan of the Bush Administration, I do need to point out that Bill Clinton was President when the Columbine shootings occurred.
By Rev. Curtis Webster | Posted on April 20, 2010, 10:22 pm
RE: Veronica Kovachi post above
Robert Whittaker's recently published book "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America" addresses the use and over-use of psychotropic drugs and culls the research literature on the effects of long-term use. His research and compilation of existing studies, together with anecdotal case histories, provides compelling evidence that long-term use of these drugs produce the very symptoms they are meant to address. He makes the argument that mental illness and pathology of some people may in fact be iatrogenic.
One of the more disturbing revelations in this book is an instance where the NIH refused to fund a study without pharmaceutical company involvement, indicating this was a way to defer study costs. So we have to fox involved in building the hen house.
Over the years, I have been astonished as I've watched the marketing of these drugs to the general public via television. So few question the necessity, or desirability, of administering these to children as young as 4 even. It's unfathomable to me how we even got here. The broad, indiscriminate use of these drugs is the chemical equivalent of lobotomies, also once hailed as a panacea for mental illness.
How much of this factors into the Columbine incident has yet to be revealed. Yet, drug use, legal and illegal, seems to be a factor in many violent acts.
By Karen Meyer | Posted on June 17, 2010, 1:38 pm
You are sadly misinformed about this subject by a slick, aggressive but ultimately vacuous media campaign promoting this book and its author.
Dave Cullen is nothing but a lying,opportunistic famewhore. His book is riddled with odious lies.
Its disgusting how quick you all are to swallow whatever the liar says without doing any further research.
Anyone with any real knowledge about Columbine knows what a liar Cullen is and how flawed and worthless his book is.Obviously, none of you on this page have more than a surface knowledge of the subject or you wouldn’t be mooning over Cullen’s badly written book of fiction.
=Factual Inaccuracies==
Dave Cullen’s book alleges that Eric Harris was involved in a romantic and sexual relationship with a woman several years his senior, Brenda Parker.
However, according to the official police interview in the 11K she confessed to making up the relationship, in addition to making up knowing about the attack prior to it happening and being afraid to partake in it.
Interview- “After a lengthy conversation she admitted that she wrote the above, but that it was not true. She just made it up to get attention. She stated she has no life and spends way too much time on the internet.”
(note- JC-001-010843 to 010851)
* [http://www.acolumbinesite.com/reports/cr/report.html Link to the entire 11K Report, see pages 10800-10900]
Cullen claims that Eric Harris was a swaggering ladies’ man and confident social king. This assertion is ludicrous.
Cullen writes that Eric “got lots of girls” and had sex with a 24-year-old woman named Brenda Parker. He even quotes Parker in his book. The truth is that Parker had no connection to Harris or the tragedy; she was a “fangirl” who sought attention by making up stories. She has *zero* credibility.
Eric tried to get a date to the prom; he failed. He asked several girls, all of whom turned him down. He finally convinced a girl he met at the pizza place where he worked to spend a couple of hours at his house on the night of the prom; they watched a movie. She declined to attend the after-prom party with him, so he went alone.
Harris was fairly short (5’8?) and very skinny, with a deformed chest due to his pelvus excavatum. As his body language in the following video (recorded in a hallway at Columbine and shown in a documentary about the massacre) demonstrates, he was no match for the larger boys he encountered on a daily basis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZix8_7f_lY
In his final journal entry, Eric wrote:
“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t — say, “well thats your fault” because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh — nooo.”
Does that sound like someone who was confident and socially successful?
…
Cullen perpetuates the long-standing myth that Dylan was a sad little emo follower who was totally led by Harris.
The truth is that Dylan was the one who wrote about going on a killing spree before Eric; he even wanted to do it with someone else.
(Keep in mind that Eric and Dylan intended the massacre to be a bombing event with a shooting element. Their plans went awry.)
…
On Monday, November 3, 1997, Dylan wrote in his journal:
“[edited] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want. more crazy…deeper in the spiral, lost highway repeating, dwelling on the beautiful past, ([edited] & [edited] gettin drunk) w. me, everyone moves up i always stayed. Abandonment. this room sux. wanna die.”
He wrote “*my* killing spree”, not “*our* killing spree”.
…
Those who have seen the basement tapes have said that, on them, Dylan appears far more eager and enthusiastic than Eric.
On the tapes, Eric apologizes to his family; Dylan does not.
On one tape, Eric is seen alone, tearing up when he thinks about his friends back in Michigan. He even turns the tape off so he will not be captured crying on camera.
If he truly was a pure psychopath, as Cullen claims, is it likely that he would have cried while thinking about old friends?
There is also piece after piece of evidence asbout E &D being picked on and ostracized on a wide scale. Something Cullen denies ever happened.
Whats my truth about this event?
My truth is that E &D were bullied and tried as inhuman long enough until they decided that life was no longer worth living and decided to get revenge on a school and community that delighted in degrading them.
I’ve been in their shoes. I know what that feels like.
Unless you’ve been treated that badly long enough by enough people, you do not.
