This was a topic that has been bugging me for a while. Ever since Columbine, even to this day, the fear of School Shootings similar to the crime, I believe was one of the downfalls of society.
Now before I get into this, I must stress that this is not meant to offend the victims or even the families of the shooters. In terms of the families, they have every right to be angry and sad about what happened, because let's face it, it was their children they lost in a pointless bloodbath. As for the families of shooters, that varies. If these people have intentionally abused their kids, which lead to them snapping and killing others, they are to blame. If these parents or other relatives for that matter, didn't realize their kid was gonna become this, then they have my sympathies. I know what it's like to lose family either way.
Now, while there have been shootings after the massacre. This specific event was considered the gold standard for many reasons, including but not limited to blaming many media for putting them up to it.
They blamed video games like Doom:
Which I gotta say, is pretty damn stupid to call this a murder simulator. The gun in the game is already sighted, compared to a real pistol or a rifle, it's too easy to shoot things with it. So calling it a training simulator would be asinine. If one were to blame anything, it'd be the later games, as they tried to make the weapons more realistic. But even then I think that's bullshit anyway.
They blamed movies like The Boondock Saints:
Which while so bloody and vulgar are not involved in things like this, because those characters are not villains, they're Anti-Heroes. They go after bad people. If they saw Dylan and Eric do their thing, they'd make them pray and they'd execute them.
They even blamed Music like Marylin Manson:
Which, while he is a controversial figure for other reasons, telling teens to kill other teens is not one of them....at least that I know of, the man himself is fucking creepy.
Point being is that because it happened around a time when many mediums started to show no filter, from violence to sex, drugs and rock and roll. And they were already slamming it anyway, so what's another blame after that.
That being said, the media did fight back. Starting with this very site:
Although there are many reasons not to show this, including but not limited to a certain musician, but when I first saw this, I had no idea what Columbine even was. All I thought was "Bad guy shooting school, good guy kills bad guy." And that's what it was, in it's simplest form. Pico was the Anti-Columbine, the rarity one trusts to have a piece with them incase others start shooting. While it was meant to be a controversial take on the subject, the impact he left gave many of us Newgrounds kids hope. And I thank @TomFulp For that.
As a result of said impact many popular shows and movies start taking shots at it:
Family Guy started it:
At first when I watched this episode I thought "How dare they? They're turning the situation into a joke." Which at first pissed me off, then I realized, that was the point. While it doesn't show much anymore, Family Guy like many other family sitcom shows like the Simpsons took inspiration from All in The Family:
Using Norman Lear's formula of making a controversial event, look stupid, so that no one takes it seriously and doesn't fear it anymore. The other show inspired by him:
South Park. On top of Cartman being a kid version of Archie Bunker, they did a whole story arc based on the recent shooting at the time. Now Trey Parker and Matt Stone are Colorado Residents, they were there when Columbine went down and even shared their opinion on it:
Granted this is from a documentary I hate, but at the same time, Matt Stone had a real opinion on the matter.
So when they did a story arc where the running gag is that School Shootings are their version of natural disasters, something bad, but nothing that bothers them. Now the aesop of the first episode entitled "Dead Kids" was that Sharon was in the right, that people should care that kids are dead in this. However, because of South Parks "Equal Opportunity and Discrimination." clause, on top of mocking the other side, that said side does have points. This was the same show that has had Aliens, A gigantic Barbara Streisend and Tom Cruise reek havoc on their town, so something as bad as a school shooting, would be Child's Play to them. It made me feel less worried about it, because they were telling people to stop worrying about it too much. Worry that it's your loved ones or the loved ones of a friend, but don't treat it like you're the only one that suffered a tragic loss. And considering these guys stuck with it during Covid, they know what they are talking about.
Now that was just problem number one with this specific shooting. Problem number two is the part that's been bugging me. Because a lot of people never been around the era's before, those that have seen it or heard it in the news, treat it like it's not only the first time they heard of a massacre, but also as if it was the first and ever ONLY school shooting.
Now at first I thought that was odd and as a result I decided to look and see if there were shootings or any kind of murder that happened in schools before. So I looked a list I found here. This is a list of every school murder that has occurred before the year 2000. To list off a few:
- November 12 1840. The first ever documented School Shooting in the United States of America. It happened in Charlottesville Virginia. John Anthony Gardner Davis, a law professor at the University of Virginia school law. A respected teacher whom was shot to death because he tried to break up a fight between two students during a student riot which has been described as periodical. Considering it was the 1800s, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was a six shooter. But that always baffled me. Teachers are often on the block along with the students and this was the first time this was demonstrated. So for all we know this could have been the beginning of a curse or at the very least a massive amount of negative energy.
- August 16 1856. Florence Alabama. The first documented time a teacher killed student to death. While the shooter and the victim don't have names on that list. The killing itself was petty save for the end. A schoolmaster, warned a student not to harm his pet sparrow. The student killed it by accident, resulting in the Schoolmaster, taking the student somewhere private and strangling him to death. The father of said student, went up to the school and killed him. Now considering this took place 9 years before Slavery was put to an end since Alabama, the reason why few talk about it inside and outside that state, is because at the time in comparison to this, more fucked up shit was going on, including but not limited to the closing 9 years of the American Civil War. No different than many wars going all over our world today.
- This one isn't on that list, but it should be. I don't give a fuck whom was the shooter that time. May 4 1970, Kent State Univeristy. During a peaceful protest against the War of Vietnam. Yes that War. The protestors were shot to death by the Ohio National Guard. I don't care what people's opinion on the war was, that was wrong. Very very wrong.
But my point stands, there have been many murders as well as other crimes that happened to school before and the stuff post Columbine is no different. Every shooting invoked fear for those that paid attention to it, while the rest of the world was dealing with problems bigger than that, including but not limited to the many wars going on over the past centuries. But because Columbine overshadowed them all, based on the time and place it was going on, it was like to the people, that the other stuff didn't happen. When in actuality, it's been happening for as long as school, war and weapons have been a thing.
To put it bluntly we been warned, but we never got the message, because bigger stuff took higher priority. Hell, before Columbine, the first ever fictional media depicted involving teens shooting other teens was a dark comedy called Heathers:
To sum up the story. Think the movie Mean Girls only if both the Mean Girls and Cady Heron went to Columbine. At the time, people laughed at this movie, because they didn't think the idea of a teen snapping and killing other teens would happen. But the old comedy rule, as morbid as it sounds still applies "It's funny because it's true." Nowadays, people are struggling whether or not to remake this, due to the subject matter at the time. Hell many of the Anti-Media old timers, blamed this movie for inspiring Eric and Dylan. When if anyone actually bothered watching the movie, they wouldn't discover the Aesop. For starters, despite that clip I just shown, J.D. played by a then up and coming Christian Slater didn't use his gun on school property to murder those two Jocks. The gun had blanks, he got suspended (Which even back then is fucked up, but hey, 80s Comedy rules.) and most of the murders he and Veronica (Winona Ryder) commit were often off property or at the very least far away from the school. However the main theme wasn't to send some message in that way. Each person they both killed had it staged to look like Suicide the gun rarely involved:
That being said, neither School Shootings nor Suicide was the topic. The Aesop was that no matter what you do to fight back, the enemy often feeds off your resistance and gets stronger in ways you cannot imagine. Case in point, they murdered their classmates, staged it like suicide, but because the notes were well written, people saw them not as bullies, but as lost souls lashing out through obligation. Boosting their popularity. It's one of the reasons why I honestly think, even if said shooters were bullied, this would be a stupid way to go about things. Hell, before Veronica stopped him, J.D. was gonna blow up the school and leave the mother of all suicide notes, to make it look like as he described it "A woodstock in the 80s." The idea of bully and innocent student alike would immortalize themselves through a suicide bomb pact. Basically speaking, the movie was trying to tell people, that killing your bullies was a bad idea. Plus it didn't just extend to movies regarding the subject before and after. But also expressed the "Teenage revenge fantasy." in other ways. The ultimate example being Carrie:
Before Heathers, this was the ultimate Teenage Revenge Movie. Imagine this scenario. A quiet, shy, sometimes nice and fearful student. Abused by her parents, tormented by her teens and so unpopular that save for a few sympathetic people, everyone fucking hates her. Then one day, she has a chance at true happiness and is about to change her life for the better. Only for some petty jackasses ruining it for her, not just by humiliating her in a disgusting way, but also inadvertently killing one of the few people that was ever nice to her. Then she fucking snaps and kills everyone she lays her eyes on. Yet as justified as poor Carietta "Carrie" White, was in her revenge, she still died tragically, be it by her own hand or by the hand of someone else too scared to fight her directly. Sound familiar? There's a reason why I posted the same scene in all three different versions. When Stephen King wrote that book all those years ago, he was both ahead and back of his time. He must have at one point looked into school related murders in the past, even ones that don't involve guns. And while he does insist that the original 1976 Brian De Palma movie, is the better adaptation, so better he considers it better than his book, the other two hold a place in this too. The first one, was Pre-Columbine. The not so well received sequel The Rage Carrie 2:
Was released March 12 1999. 39 days before the day of the Columbine Massacre. It barely made it before then, because before it happened, much like Heathers, the hot button topic was teenage suicide and while the sequel is sloppy, I understood what they were doing at the time. Their way of bringing awareness to what was at the time the most talked about topic. Hell Columbine ended with a double suicide, so needless to say, this movie may as well have predicted how it was gonna end.
Which brings me to the new remakes. Between the 2002 remake with Angela Bettis in the title role and Chloe Grace Moretz in the 2013 role. The latter literally 10 years before this article has been written. Now while some of the fans of the original hated this movie I liked it for many reasons. Much like Carrie 2, they tried invoking stuff from the books that wasn't explored in the original film. Such as Carrie's extended powers. But most importantly, they were able to be more apt with their message, because of what happened in Columbine and the shootings that follow. The movies were warning about the consequences of teen revenge and no matter how much they hammered the point, not only did many of us not listen, but some of us humans blamed movies like this as the cause, which can be clearly seen as unbelievable bullshit.
But that's just problem number two.
The third and final problem is blame on a somewhat asinine source: The weapons used in the massacre. For context, Dylon and Eric used the following guns. Two 9MM pistols, one of which a machine pistol, two Twelve Gague Shotguns one of which sawed off, One Rifle. Needless to say the amount of firepower they purchased alone, was enough to start a small scale war. And that is not even getting started on the explosives and knives. The weapons themselves were purchased through fraud and other illegal means, that most law enforcement at the time wouldn't even expect. To to it off both firearms and other weapons alike were modified and customized in ways that it's not legal in that state. So needless to say even if there weren't stricter gun laws, if they got caught with one thing, the cops would have put them in jail or at least gave them some much needed court ordered therapy.
Now here's the thing that bugs me, while it was shown and told that they used other weapons on top of this, the only weapons that were blamed, were the guns themselves.
Now before I say what I'm about to say, let me make this perfectly clear. Save for watching action movies, I do not like Guns. I do not like having guns in my home, I do not like people bringing guns near me if I can help it. However, I know exactly how they work, how to shoot and even with something as small and somewhat harmless in comparison like a pellet gun or a nerf gun or even a simulated shooter like Wii or Virtua Cop, I'm a pretty damn good shot. And while there is a lot of Catharsis, killing video game characters in any way, I never once got violently mad and inspired by said games. I'm one of many examples that anti-media crowd does not want to talk about, because it tears a hole in their bullshit narrative. But getting a bit off topic. I don't like guns, don't want to use them, but that doesn't mean I don't know how one way or another.
And even if I was a gun nut, in my country, it's a lot harder to get a gun here than it is in the states and even here many guns are still sold illegally. In Canada, in order to get a license for a gun, you either need a Firearms License or a Hunting License. However it's not that simple, for both on top of the usual paperwork, you need to get a psych evaluation, to show that you are mentally capable of responsibly using a firearm for the purpose of hunting or home defense. And even if you pass, guns are a lot more expensive and there are more laws preventing you from even using one. To the point where even in self defense you could get charged with First Degree Murder, unless you got a really good lawyer or a lucky horseshoe stuck up your ass.
Now despite my dislike of guns, I do respect the 2nd Amendment, the right to bear arms. So it's a tear between my morality and my need to be lawful good even in countries outside of mine. However, that being said, while a lot of people in the states do not like gun control, even considering it unpatriotic, Gun Control is just as American as the right to own a gun. Case in point the Tombstone Incident. Among many things, the feud between the famous Earp Family and the notorious Cowboys, was sparked by the following things.
- Paranoia. Although Wyatt has retired since the Dodge City Incident, among most things, many of the local Cowboys of Tombstone Arizona, were afraid he was there to bring Law and Order, due to his ferocity in battle and the legend that he never got a single gunshot wound. As later proven when Earp finally snapped and took out Curly Bill. All Wyatt and Fam wanted to do was settle down in a somewhat developed town, make enough money and retire, but these assholes kept pushing them, killing their family members out of spite and even threatening their wives. No different than how many wars small and big started. The definition of self fulfilling prophecy.
- Even though Wyatt himself was out of the game, his brothers Virgil and Morgan became Marshals because they felt bad for exploiting a town already ravaged by crime. Which increased their paranoia even though Wyatt was trying to talk them out of it.
- As an extension of 2, one of their first acts of town Marshall was to ban guns from being carried within town streets. Basically pioneering the Gun Control laws we constantly debate over. I repeat, members of the Earp Family, each one notoriously good with a gun and has a crack shot like Doc Holliday as their ally, were trying to ban guns on the town streets.
Now at this time guns were needed now more than ever. This was in 1881, 16 years after the American Civil War had ended. When people slowly stopped fighting each other state to state and slowly but surely came together as a country. Each state had their own rules and regulations, some of which still damn controversial like the Slave Trade (Which by the way didn't even get the 13th Amendment until 8 months after the war and is still talked about to this day), but at the same time had the common ground of peace and harmony. Even if they didn't agree with how to achieve it. So at the time when Virgil Earp did the first laws that eventually evolved into the Gun Control Debate, he did so in a way that appeased those that needed guns as well as weed out trouble makers:
Now while there were some still clamoring and disagreeing among the crowd. The majority of them weren't even the Cowboys. They were citizens so scared of them that they thought they needed at least a gun to protect themselves or die fighting them. Which back then was serious, but because they loved and respected Virgil's Predecessor Fred White, a man whom while a lawman was so well loved that the Cowboy leader Curly Bill was actually upset when he accidentally shot him after an Opium binge, that they would follow Virgil's word. Even think of said shooting as a factor into it. To put it plainly the innocent citizens would be outraged, but still follow the law. The only ones that didn't follow the gun law were The Cowboys, but not because they were defending the 2nd Ammendment, but because they were murderers, rapists, thieves and killers that gave no fucks what society thought of them so long as they keep doing what they did. So needless to say when one Earp wanted to ban guns in town, they wanted to shoot the entire Earp Brotherhood of course anyone who's either seen the movie Tombstone or any movie depicting the Earps for that matter, knew how that argument went:
Now bare in mind, save for Wyatt, none of the Earps ever killed anyone in a gunfight before. Yet despite that, they along with Holliday killed many in a fight many to this day debate which side started it. However they were there to enforce a law they just enacted. Virgil was leading the charge and the brothers and Doc were just back up in case things go wrong. The definition of Peace Officer. Yet rather than take the hint and the remaining members either surrendering or turning in their guns, they kept on pushing. They kept on pushing until it became an all out war.
Now while I am still on the side of Will Smith regarding the feud, I am reminded of something Chris Rock said when he was in Head Of State:
While he made many good points, he specifically mentioned this.
"How can you help the poor, if you never been poor? How can you stop crime if you don't know no criminals? How can you make drug policy if you never smoked the chronic?"
In case of my life, I live in a crime town, I seen first hand what drugs have done to people and I've literally gone from a spoiled brat from the sticks to a man whom because he's been put through the ringer and keeps on fucking going, is on the way to becoming one of the most respectable if not most dangerous human being in the fucking world. But that's just a glimpse of my life.
In the case of the Earps, they been on both sides of the law, used guns for many things and have witnessed many death and destruction on all sides. Much of which cost them their family's lives. So if anyone has something to fucking say about how guns should be handled it's that family. And yet even those who are fans of the Earps failed to understand their message. They fought so we never had to, but rather than take the hint, we fight in their place. We win some, we lose some. That's Life. But to blame it on anything other that pettiness, pointlessness or just plain fucking stupid things like Media, Personal Revenge and Fucking Guns themselves when other weapons could have done the same if not much more fucked up damage, is completely fucking stupid. Not only that, but a lot of people have not only use the fear to cause further fear along the line. But also exploited it for little more than profit and personal agenda. Even one of the most famous victims of the shooting, the mother whom did a story on her daughter's death, did so to profit and to put her personal, biased, religious based POV on why she thought they did what they did. She made money off her daughter's death that should have either been split among the loved ones or donated to the other victim's families. Making her an evil, manipulative disgusting bitch. But she's only the tip of the Iceberg. Many walks of life, from bad media, to corrupt politicians, used the fear and the confirmation of further shootings post Columbine to get ahead. Jack Thompson, being one of the prime examples. When you get right down to it, the post-Columbine fear became a staple of many scandals, scams and other things people bitch about regarding America.
In my personal opinion on the subject, I respect the legal right, but it literally would not kill you guys to give every legal gun purchase from Gun Shops, To Hunting Shops, to Banks, To God forbid Yard Sales, without at least doing a psych test as well as a background check and seeing if the guy may most likely snap and kill someone. It's not banning guns entirely you fucking gun nuts, just making sure they don't fall into the wrong hands.
But to make a long story short on everything, fear of the Massacre was an even bigger threat than the Massacre itself and that's how Eric and Dylan won in the end of their lives. They became immortalized, treated as martyrs and that's the example future shooters follow, because they spread the fear to keep it going. And it doesn't stop at schools. Shopping Malls, Movie Theaters, Casinos, Bars and Clubs and even Law Enforcement Facilities, Government Buildings and your own neighborhood.
Now just after saying that I'm pretty sure I probably scared you, traumatized you and maybe even made you a little paranoid. If that's the case I do apologize, but there is a point to all this. Every place where these massacres are involved, are places where people are supposed to feel safe, be it through Education, Law, Survival and Overall Leisure. Yet as a result of many murders and even more, the fear and paranoia it spread among the populace, it made them feel unsafe to even be at home. However here's something I learned today. While I myself am not an Alcoholic, AA as well as it's most famous member Stephen King invoked it in one of the Novels I read a few years back. Doctor Sleep. Much like many of his books, King puts quotes in his chapters, as a subtitle. In the case of Doctor Sleep, which among many themes, goes into detail of how Alcoholics Anonymous operates, it uses two sayings that are really one full saying. But it's the Acronym for FEAR.
The first saying "FEAR stands for Fuck Everything and Run." While it applies to alcoholism's hold on a person, it also applies to other aspects of life. Moments where you should have been brave and instead ran the direction. I should know, because I used to be one of those idiots. Then there's the second saying. "FEAR Stands for Face Everything and Recover." Which is basically saying that being afraid is not a problem, but if you're able to face your fears and go forward in life no matter what traumatizes you.
In my case, I was initially afraid of going to the movies because if it could happen in Aurora it'd be most likely to happen in my town. But instead, I went to see Dark Knight Rises and never feared going to the movies again. Including but not limited to the last time I seen a movie in theaters before Covid hit:
Before that disaster hit, the biggest fear that another Aurora would happen, a fear so great that Aurora itself tried to get this specific movie banned from theaters, both to not trigger survivors and the victim's families. As well as not have a repeat of what happened, because they specifically blamed, The Dark Knight for the shooting. Yet when the movie hit the theaters, nothing happened. Despite all fears, nothing happened. Hell Frozen 2 had a more violent reception.
And rather than show praise it didn't happen, Press of all walks, were pissed it didn't because it didn't give them the money making chaos it was looking for. Some were accused of trying to start it or encourage it, but having the same luck as Chief Wiggum did when he spied on Homer and Marge:
It made me realize then and there that many press on all sides would rather capitalize on an attention seeking disaster than document the good sides of life. And when Covid did hit, they got what they wished for. When I said before that fear of the virus was worse than the virus itself, that was what I was talking about. Because in that fear, panicked people do stupid things, smart people keep a cool head no matter how difficult things can be and conniving people on all sides of life would capitalize on everything including but not limited to paying high price for toilet paper.
To make a very long story short, fear makes things worse than they actually are, take it away and it makes those things powerless.
Now the question is, this if you managed to read all that, which FEAR are you. The Fuck Everything and Run type or the Face Everything and Recover type? Let me know in the comments below. If you're the latter, than hopefully people remember Columbine as it used to be. A beautiful flower before it got trampled on by fear, controversy and dumbass mob mentality.
Take care, stay safe and stay tuned for more.
