What if the library massacre never happened?

When it comes to Columbine, I'm sure we all love to speculate with different scenarios. What if the bombs would have worked? What if the police or the SWAT team would have entered the building immediately?

My question to you is: What if the library massace never happened?

What if Patti Nielson would have locked the library doors, so E/D could not have entered? How would it have changed the course of events? (My point here is not to put any blame on Patti Nielson. That is a different story.)

At that point (11:29) E/D had only killed two people (a third one was slowly dying), so they for sure had thirst for killing. So would they have stormed some other room and kill people there? Would they have been able to do it?

And if they would have been unable to enter any room with people, would they have returned to the cafeteria earlier, try to detonate the bombs, and then commit suicide in the cafeteria - maybe as early as app. 11:45?

And if there would have been only three victims (Rachel, Daniel R. and Mr. Sanders), would Columbine be that big? I know it was a live television event that lasted for hours and people thought 25 were dead, but in the longer perspective, if the death toll would have been five, would it be Columbine? After all, the library massacre was the ground zero and the core of it all.

I think about this a lot, too. There's so many 'what ifs' from that day. Like you, I wonder what would've happened if Patti never told the kids to stay where they were and to get under the tables. At the same time, we all know this had never really happened before. So, there's really no way to know what the death total would have been if she told everyone to run and get out of there. Who knows, there could have been so many more fatalities if that was the case. Most of them could have ran right into the line of fire. No one really knew where Eric and Dylan were heading, or even their true intentions.. until they walked into that library and told them exactly what they were going to do.

I'm sure Patti will probably battle with that decision for the rest of her life. She did what she thought was right in that moment, and that's exactly what she was supposed to do. I just really hope she's found some peace, though.

Great question.

Sadly I think they realized that they had to kill people to get all the media attention they wanted. If the library doors had been locked, they would have forced their way into one of the science classrooms and shot at students, probably from just inside the door.

After the killing in the library, they might have lost the stomach for shooting students and anyway they had created the scene of general destruction they wanted, so they did not shoot at others.

If Eric and Dylan were halted and/or incapacitated before they made it into the Library, then it would have spared 10 lives, based on what we know from that day. If the death toll was 5 (including perpetrator's suicides), I doubt it would be known as the Columbine that it is known as today. It may have gained notable media attention; taking into consideration that there were two killers, a very uncommon dynamic in school shootings. I'd imagine that it would have the notoriety akin to that of the Thurston High School Shooting. Let's just say, "5 deaths?" = No forum...

Had the bombs detonated as planned, the perception of Columbine's existence would be greatly altered, much to the point where it would be classed as a "bombing"; which falls under a completely different umbrella of mass violence. I personally doubt Columbine would have been as infamous if the bombs exploded in the cafeteria, it would probably be compared to dozens of other bombings, such as the Paris Métro/RER bombings.

Dataverse wrote:

If Eric and Dylan were halted and/or incapacitated before they made it into the Library, then it would have spared 10 lives, based on what we know from that day. If the death toll was 5 (including perpetrator's suicides), I doubt it would be known as the Columbine that it is known as today. It may have gained notable media attention; taking into consideration that there were two killers, a very uncommon dynamic in school shootings. I'd imagine that it would have the notoriety akin to that of the Thurston High School Shooting. Let's just say, "5 deaths?" = No forum...

Had the bombs detonated as planned, the perception of Columbine's existence would be greatly altered, much to the point where it would be classed as a "bombing"; which falls under a completely different umbrella of mass violence. I personally doubt Columbine would have been as infamous if the bombs exploded in the cafeteria, it would probably be compared to dozens of other bombings, such as the Paris Métro/RER bombings.

What made Columbine a worldwide phenomenon was not the kill count, but the wall to wall coverage by the media.

If they couldn't get in the library they would have went somewhere else.

If they had stopped or been stopped after they only killed 3 and the library massacre never happened, than there's no way it would be as infamous. We wouldn't have gotten the laughing gunmen who spent almost ten minutes taunting their victims before shooting them at close range, all while yelling how they were getting their revenge. Then killing themselves in the same place as most of their victims died. What they did in that library was just so unspeakably cruel.

Eric and Dylan are interesting people to study, but the library massacre is the hook. Without it there just isn't as much to look at.

I also think if the bombs had gone off that nobody would be here discussing this, if those bombs had worked the whole line of thinking would be drastically different.

aubre wrote:

if those bombs had worked the whole line of thinking would be drastically different.

I agree. For example, I don't personally find the Oklahoma City bombing interesting. To me, it is interesting that the perpetrator was 'one of America's own' and not a foreign terrorist, but the bombing itself? Naah.

There is a saying that goes as follows: A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

I think it fits Columbine. Killing 250 people with a bomb is merely a horrific number, shooting 13 people point-blank through a 49-minute spree is a story with scenes; you want to know who the victims were, who the shooters were, what happened.

A little off-topic, but had the bombs gone off and killed app. 250 and destroyed the cafeteria, I'm sure there would be no Columbine High School anymore. They would have torn down the whole building, and there would be a memorial today.

They were even contemplating the same thing with what really happened, but decided to keep the school so that E/D "didn't win".

I suppose you could look at it in the sense 'if they hadn't got in the library, Eric might not have broken his nose and the kill count could have been a lot higher'.

There were still a lot of kids hiding around the school when they were in the library.
When they first were in the cafeteria, there were kids inside under the cafeteria tables hiding and observing E&D.

If there was no library massacre, I'm sure E&D would look for victims elsewhere. They would probably actively seek out kids in the cafeteria, killing them point blank under the tables same way they did in library.

Would the death toll be lesser or greater and how would it occur... I have no idea. We certainly would have no 911 call leaked. Perhaps we would have cafeteria killing video footage leaked. That would be grisly and wet-dream-fuel for future shooters.

When they reached the cafeteria few kids were still there , so i think the plan was 1st library then cafeteria , lol , when E reached the cafeteria first , lol , and this was not planned ( i believe ) , 1st thing he did was shooting the propanes , took few shots , i think it hit them actually , but didnt penetrate the metal alloy .

I admit I myself never looked at it from that angle, only from the angle of, "If I hadn't been there, where would I normally have been?" Oh yeah, the cafeteria!

I  guess if they couldn't get into the library they would have shot out of the cafeteria windows instead, and shot the people still hiding in the cafeteria, and Sean Graves would have been killed.

Eric and Dylan only went into the library because it has the best window view to shoot out at the cops, so going in there was a must, it wasn't to kill the people, they returned back in even after everyone had fled, it was planned as a bombing, this is why they didn't enter any classrooms like other school shootings, and they even got bored of killing and when they went to the cafeteria to try and set off the bombs, they walked past many people and made eye contact with people but weren't interested in killing them.

Personally I don't think they got bored of killing, but instead discovered that shooting people up close is horrifying. I think they both realized it was not the fantasy they thought it was and made an unspoken agreement not to do it anymore. How else to explain the people in the cafeteria, the science rooms, etc.?

lasttrain wrote:

Personally I don't think they got bored of killing, but instead discovered that shooting people up close is horrifying.  I think they both realized it was not the fantasy they thought it was and made an unspoken agreement not to do it anymore.  How else to explain the people in the cafeteria, the science rooms, etc.?

Hard to say, but I am skeptical. They already shot people outside, Dylan shot Kirklin point blank in the head and by all evidence he thought Lance was dead.

Eric stopped shooting people point blank only when he suffered a wound of his own. I think it would be too much of a coincidence for Eric to develop a conscience only after braking his nose. Doesn't sound right.

I'm not the one to say Dylan was just a follower, but I do think Eric was the more active person during the shooting (for many reasons including better guns) and my best bnet is taht he wa steh one askind Dylan: "You are still with me?".
I think Eric was more of a driving gorce and his wound broughty the shooting to a halt as Dylan found himself runnign the shwo and going into more of an inertia.

Once Eric came back to his senses (did he really fully recover at all? Perhaps he was spaced out a bit till the end?) most kids alredy fled and E&D were mostly roaming empty corridors. Trying to blow up the bomb was really one of the few things they had left to do.

A witness did hear Eric say that he no longer has pleasure in killing people, and Dylan suggested him to use knives, which has been changed many times to Eric saying he was out of ammo.

Dylan even tried to open the kitchen door which was being held shut from inside by students, so he gave up, otherwise he'd have just blown holes in the door with his double barrel shotgun.

They also both walked through the halls and walked past students in the hall who were running and looked in at people in class rooms, and even reloaded their gun outside the science room with Dave in it, they just seemed to find shooting people not as enjoyable as they thought maybe or focused on the bombs, they wanted to blow up the school, they were dying soon and wanted to be remembered more than just guys who shot a couple of random people.

I also wonder how the cops and people in the parking lot didn't see Eric and Dylan in the cafeteria, those windows are right there and you can see everything inside.

CharlesWhitman wrote:

A witness did hear Eric say that he no longer has pleasure in killing people, and Dylan suggested him to use knives, which has been changed many times to Eric saying he was out of ammo.

Dylan even tried to open the kitchen door which was being held shut from inside by students, so he gave up, otherwise he'd have just blown holes in the door with his double barrel shotgun.

They also both walked through the halls and walked past students in the hall who were running and looked in at people in class rooms, and even reloaded their gun outside the science room with Dave in it, they just seemed to find shooting people not as enjoyable as they thought maybe or focused on the bombs, they wanted to blow up the school, they were dying soon and wanted to be remembered more than just guys who shot a couple of random people.

I also wonder how the cops and people in the parking lot didn't see Eric and Dylan in the cafeteria, those windows are right there and you can see everything inside.

Well we don't have the exact quote, I think two witnesses gave somewhat varying accounts. One was simply sdomething like:

Quote :

Eric: You know what I'd really like to do now?
Dylan: Yeah, stab someone.

The other account was iirc something like this:

Quote :

Dylan: I need to reload/I'm out of ammo.
Eric: Maybe we should just start knifing people?
Dylan: Yeah, that'd be more fun