History Of The Columbine Shooting

The media has created many myths and exaggerations over the columbine shooting, especially due to this being the first major shooting documented across the world on live T.V. The incident was one of horror that will never be forgotten by those affected. It began when two students of columbine high school, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, entered columbine high school heavily armed and began shooting students and teachers, killing 13 people, wounding 24, and then turning the guns on themselves. This incident brought on sadness and controversy as to why these students would create such a crime. One of the first myths that will be mention was that these two shooters were influenced by being bullied. However, this was not the case such as the media portrayed. They were not considered to be “Goth” kids or “loners” but might have actually been the bullies themselves. Diary accounts reveal the students as referring to kids they bullied as “fags.”After such a terrible shooting people try to look for blame or a reason for such a crime, while the reality is there may not be such a simple answer such as gun accessibility, or that they were bullied.

Further investigation of their plan makes this shooting look more like a terrorist attack, then a sad revenge plot. They had planned this attack for a long time, while saving up money from small time jobs to accomplish their goal. What most people do not know is that the shooters also planned to highjack a plane and had bombs planted in the school. Luckily these bombs were terribly wired and did not go off, ending the shooters rampage after 49 minutes. This shows that the shooters weren’t out for revenge but were out to kill everyone they could.

Another myth created was a story of a woman who wa...

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...e shooters. This was due in major part to the lack of information and false myths that were created. Columnist David Brooks talks about his time during an interview with the Klebolds in a USA today article, “The Klebolds spoke to New York Times columnist David Brooks in 2004 and impressed Brooks as "a well-educated, reflective, highly intelligent couple" who spent plenty of time with their son. They said they had no clues about Dylan's mental state and regretted not seeing that he was suicidal.” Although Harris’ parents knew their son had a problem they had no idea he was planning such an event, they assumed he was dealing with what most typical teenagers deal with during that time of life. At no point would a parent mistake teenage rebelliousness for plans to become a mass murderer. Harris was a smart and manipulative child who was able to fool his own parents.