Posted on 04/20/2009 10:07:03 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Ten years ago today, a shocking display of violence erupted in the affluent Denver suburb of Littleton. Two Columbine High School students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, set two powerful bombs to explode in the cafeteria. When the bombs failed to detonate, the two entered the school, heavily armed. They shot and killed a dozen students and a teacher, wounded 23 and finally took their own lives.
Americans have been trying to make sense out of what happened ever since. Sadly, they've had plenty of opportunities. No fewer than 80 such incidents have taken place since April 20, 1999, observes Denver author Dave Cullen, whose new book, "Columbine," examines the shootings and their fallout.
The nation remains poorly equipped to tamp down this hideous trend. Gun-control advocates make the most noise and offer the least helpful solutions: The degree of government intrusion, confiscation and incarceration required to keep guns away from people who want to do harm to others would render America unrecognizable. And the violence would continue. Keep in mind that the heart of the Harris-Klebold plot was not the guns but the propane bombs, which would have killed as many as 500 people instantly. The two teens intended to use their guns to pick off fleeing students and teachers after the explosions.
The point that seems to escape most people is the Columbine plot did not emerge fully formed. According FBI reports cited by Mr. Cullen, such attacks invariably follow an "evolutionary" path, "with signposts along the way." Might it have been possible to stop Harris and Klebold before their plot ever got started, simply by refusing to tolerate behaviors that preceded the massacre — the online rantings, the criminal acts, the bizarre dress and the manufacture of homemade pipe bombs, to name just a few?
In our April 22, 1999 editorial on Columbine, we singled out for praise a school administrator in Greenwich for standing up to students who, in 1997, asserted their "right" to wear vampire garb to school. The administrator, Eileen Petruzillo, said she had authority to require students "to dress within certain guidelines." She understood what many school officials still don't: that peremptorily shutting down extreme behavior can go a long way toward preventing more extreme behavior, up to and including violence.
The day Americans stop talking about chimeras such as gun control, and address the far more pressing problem of excessive tolerance for misbehaviors large and small in the schools, will be the day the frequency and probability of Columbine-style massacres will diminish.
Yes, Pat will turn 21 in prison doing life without parole, or invent cold fusion and FTL travel, or both. We’ll be shuffling rooms when Anoreth leaves for the Coast Guard in mid-June, which should ease tension among the Brothers. Bill and Tom (15 and 12) have been sharing a room for a *long* time!
I think kids (and adults, too) want attention, even when they say they don’t, and little brothers are better than no attention at all!
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. A type of commonly-used antidepressant drugs which is correlated with violent episodes, especially in adolescents.
Is that like Ritlain. I took that in the Late 60’s Early 70’s.
I get that SSRI’s are drugs but what kind of drugs?
SSRI's are meds such as Paxil. There are about 20 of them by now. If you "Google SSRI's you will find a large controversy about whether or not they cause more harm than good. Now they have finally been forced to put warnings about murder/suicide from teens on the box.
The controversy started with their release on the market. L-Tryptophan is a natural chemical that you get from eating turkey, for example that produces serotonin that your brain uses to calm you and make you happy. We got a bad batch from overseas that killed a person so the gubmint banned ALL L-Tryptophan for sale. The same week, Big Pharma introduced Paxil and the rest is history. A large percentage of people are now on SSRI's of some sort and it alters your brain chemistry. You will have some difficulty getting off of it should you chose to. I've personally seen it with a family member and it looks like someone withdrawing from heroin. Ask a doctor, he says no way.
If I was a conspiracy theory type, I might think the government wants all of us on a drug that we can't live without so we will get Government insurance and accept anything they want to do gladly. A few school shootings will pale in comparison when the government gets 50% hooked and then we vote to cut the program. Ain't gonna happen. I think one of the Robo Cop movies had a similar plot.
Go to a doctor and tell him you have trouble sleeping, He will whip out his pad and give you an SSRI. Tell him you don't want one and he's ready to get you committed. They want you on an SSRI if your toe hurts.
No reference to
“KICKING GOD OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND SOCIETY DECADES EARLIER”
nope, that couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that kids took hunting firearms to school with them in previous decades and never had an incident similar to this.
Remember soma in Brave New World?
Yup. Why shouldn’t you shoot up the school and kill people? If you are willing to kill yourself and there is no God, wouldn’t it be better to take a lot of people with you and become famous?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2233560/posts
This article is interesting. There have always been psychopaths, but their prediction for shooting up schools is something of a novelty. Targets of opportunity and/or personal animosity against the institution.
Besides, the “humans” in the school are only a few thousand years from being apes anyway. It’s not as if there’s anything after this life, after all.
It used to be that if boys (or girls, even, I guess) had a grievance with someone, there’d be a fistfight, and a few weeks later, the guys would be friends.
Now, the pussy.........cats on the left have decided such macho releases of aggression are not acceptable, leading to this kind of explosive evil happening.
Oh, sure enough. I guess it’s my nap time! Off to find my catz ...
For those who have a hard time understanding Columbine, even 10 years later, it would help them to check out the music some kids listen to these days, the video games the play and the movies they attend. Add to that a total loss of discipline at every level, and a population where nearly half of the people are on the public dole to some extent, and you’re off to a good start.
One of my fav's was Equalibrium. If you haven't seen it, by all means get it and watch.
My son was in the care of a quack who gave him Ritalin.
My ex-wife did it without my approval nor with my knowledge. Once he was on it, I was reluctant to take him off because of the withdrawl effects.
A year later, she’s telling me how wonderful he’s doing in school and in camps. Come to find out, my sweet son was having so much rage that if he hadn’t been 8 at the time, he’d have been arrested for assaulting her. He threatened to kill another student. Threatened to chop another into little pieces and threatened to slit another’s throat with a pair of scissors. She was hiding all this so I couldn’t get him back.
Now, we’ve found out all this and finally got him off that horrid drug, and he’s doing so much better. He’s calm, loving and wonderful to be with.
It’s horrid. He went from a sweet little boy to a monster. Now, he’s back.
Thank you, when I was in high school in the early 80’s, I had a gun rack in the back window of my truck and it usually had my shotgun and my 22 in it. I parked in school parking lot and only ONCE did I take the weapons out while at school - the parking lot attendant wanted to see what I had. He then showed me his really nice 30-06 that was in his trunk.
Funny thing, while we were showing off our weapons, two teachers and several students came over and we had a long conversation about weapons.
Of course, I was only one of about 150 trucks that had guns in the window! God I loved growing up in east Texas!
While 13 people were killed at Columbine by two loner nut cases, over 80 people were killed at Waco by the very organization that was created to safe guard us all, the government. The Columbine shooters would have been punished if they had been caught prior to their suicides. No one was ever punished for Waco.
My take on all of this - forget Columbine. Remember Waco.
Nor will I soon forget the two men chiefly responsible for it, Bill Clinton and Janet Reno.
If anyone can't figure out why "American Graffiti" or "Happy days" was such a hit, it's because we Baby Boomers miss our country and long to show our children what they have lost. I tell my daughter these stories and there is just a look of disbelief. If there was a fight, we took it to the smoking circle and you were a coward if you tried to use a weapon or have your friends help you. Gas was less than 25 cents a gallon for most of my single life and we prayed every morning even if you didn't believe. The coach or the principle gave "licks" with a 2x4 that had been run through the shop planer to about 3/4 inches. Then when you got home Dad would give it to you again so you got the message. I worked my whole life, and I mean I worked my WHOLE life. I delivered papers, cut lawns and picked up bottles for my money when in grade school. In HS I pumped gas, sacked groceries, mopped the floor at Henke and Pilot and washed cars and drove a truck for my money. My dad figured if I wasn't willing to work for it, why should he finance it? Many kids today don't get a job till they get out of college. If you want to know why college kids want Obama, they don't pay taxes, have never written a check, balanced their account, and don't have a clue about jobs and the economy.
And just on a side note, I don't believe you can respect life until you have drawn on on an animal, squeezed the trigger and watched some thing that was alive draw it's last breath. You skin it and gut it and bring it home to eat. You don't have to like it or ever hunt again, but you will know that life and death aren't things you see on a movie screen. Then the reality of shooting people is more than some lyric in a song or picture in a video game.
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