What if Eric & Dylan ran into the kid versions of themselves on that day?

Has anyone ever wondered what it would have been like if on the day of the shooting, they ran into a Twilight type of situation where Eric and Dylan ran into the child/kid versions of themselves? Like as they were roaming the halls or the cafeteria or library, they saw these two kids - 8 and 9 years old, approaching them and they discovered the two kids were them as kids. Like does anyone think seeing that would've made them rethink what they were doing? Do you think they would've killed the kid versions of themselves out of anger of seeing them? I wonder how the kids would react seeing the teen Eric and Dylan in "killer-gun" mode. I mean I wonder if that had happened, how would that have played out.

Damn...what a question.

I'm honestly sitting here thinking how to answer

I think it probably would of had a devastating affect on them, I could see them melting in a sense and maybe reality would of hit and they wouldn't of went through with it. Would of shoved perspective in their face in a brutal way.

I mean half way during the shooting reality seemed to set in as they roamed the halls aimlessly shooting at intimate objects not even attempting to kill more people. I'm not sure if they regretted it once they realized it wasn't what they thought it was going to be and that they basically threw their life away.

I don't think they would of killed their kid versions of themselves and I think the kid versions would probably be in shock looking at what they would become.

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

Do you think they would have shot an 8 year old anyway? There is a big difference between killing teenagers who you think have wronged you and small children.

Screamingophelia wrote:

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

You just blew my mind lol! A terminator type situation right there. Honestly I don't see anything changing what they were doing at that time. Also if they ran into these kid versions of themselves inside the school, that would mean that they had already shot so many other people. can't turn back now

Lizpuff wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

You just blew my mind lol!  A terminator type situation right there.  Honestly I don't see anything changing what they were doing at that time.  Also if they ran into these kid versions of themselves inside the school, that would mean that they had already shot so many other people.  can't turn back now

I think in order for them to stop they’d have to meet the kid versions of themselves a while before.

Then how do you warn others? 12 year old Eric telling his parents “guys if we move away from Plattsburgh I’m going to become a mass murderer, so let’s stay here!!”

Screamingophelia wrote:

Lizpuff wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

You just blew my mind lol!  A terminator type situation right there.  Honestly I don't see anything changing what they were doing at that time.  Also if they ran into these kid versions of themselves inside the school, that would mean that they had already shot so many other people.  can't turn back now

I think in order for them to stop they’d have to meet the kid versions of themselves a while before.

Then how do you warn others? 12 year old Eric telling his parents “guys if we move away from Plattsburgh I’m going to become a mass murderer, so let’s stay here!!”

Just think of their younger selves being psychics like that, would be insane

Screamingophelia wrote:

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  It is a very mind boggling scenario isn't it? You know all this kind of shit is right up my alley! LOL This is just the kind of shit that gets me going and I have shelf after shelf of books on crazy things just like this!

I can't even count the number of times I have wished that I could do some time traveling and go back and warn myself of certain things, or certain people etc.

But the bigger question is would they kill themselves to avoid doing what they did, or kill themselves to avoid being so hurt and lost in the future?

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  It is a very mind boggling scenario isn't it? You know all this kind of shit is right up my alley! LOL This is just the kind of shit that gets me going and I have shelf after shelf of books on crazy things just like this!

I can't even count the number of times I have wished that I could do some time traveling and go back and warn myself of certain things, or certain people etc.

But the bigger question is would they kill themselves to avoid doing what they did, or kill themselves to avoid being so hurt and lost in the future?

I wonder if they would have believed it. Really the only way they could’ve known for sure is if there was a time traveler who brought them to the future. And then they can make their own decision. But then what if it was like the butterfly effect and say Dylan killed himself and then Eric just became angrier and commited a terrorist attack or something killing more people

Oh yeah I would love to be a fly on the wall when they first decided to do this. I would find that so interesting. Because one person can make a decision and follow through but these two were planning it for a long time. And they never faltered or turned on each other (as far as we know, they did have that flavor they didn’t talk for a week. I wonder if that was the week that Dylan told Sue that Eric was crazy and when he was trying to avoid Eric when he called? ) . Yes Eric ratted on Dylan for the van break in but that was kind of small potatoes compared to what they did

Screamingophelia wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

If they killed the kid versions of themselves, would they cease to exist at that moment?

Anyway, I’m sorry


It would be interesting to think of time travel and telling 13-year-old e and d what they’d become

I had to think about this a bit more

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  It is a very mind boggling scenario isn't it? You know all this kind of shit is right up my alley! LOL This is just the kind of shit that gets me going and I have shelf after shelf of books on crazy things just like this!

I can't even count the number of times I have wished that I could do some time traveling and go back and warn myself of certain things, or certain people etc.

But the bigger question is would they kill themselves to avoid doing what they did, or kill themselves to avoid being so hurt and lost in the future?

I wonder if they would have believed it. Really the only way they could’ve known for sure is if there was a time traveler who brought them to the future. And then they can make their own decision. But then what if it was like the butterfly effect and say Dylan killed himself and then Eric just became angrier  and  commited a  terrorist  attack or something killing more people

Oh yeah I would love to be a fly on the wall when they first decided to do this. I would find that so interesting. Because one person can make a decision and follow through but these two were planning it for a long time. And they never faltered or turned on each other (as far as we know,  they did have that flavor they didn’t talk for a week. I wonder if that was the week that Dylan told Sue that Eric was crazy and when he was trying to avoid Eric when he called? ) . Yes Eric ratted on  Dylan for the van break in  but that was kind of small potatoes compared to what they did

HOLY HELL The Butterfly Effect is one of my favorite movies! Mainly because it did make me think about how just one tiny change could so drastically effect EVERYTHING!

And the thing that I told you about earlier about the school districts. There’s so much about this case that if one little thing changed it could’ve changed everything

Screamingophelia wrote:

And the thing that I told you about earlier about the school districts. There’s so much about this case that if one little thing changed it could’ve changed everything

Agreed. It really does just make you think that all it would have taken was one of them living a little to far out and having to go to a different school and that could have saved 15 people.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

And the thing that I told you about earlier about the school districts. There’s so much about this case that if one little thing changed it could’ve changed everything

Agreed. It really does just make you think that all it would have taken was one of them living a little to far out and having to go to a different school and that could have saved 15 people.

Maybe we would’ve heard of them for very different reasons. More positive ones or they just would’ve been living their own quiet lives

Screamingophelia wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

And the thing that I told you about earlier about the school districts. There’s so much about this case that if one little thing changed it could’ve changed everything

Agreed. It really does just make you think that all it would have taken was one of them living a little to far out and having to go to a different school and that could have saved 15 people.

Maybe we would’ve heard of them for very different reasons. More positive ones or they just would’ve been living their own quiet lives

Very true I think Rachel would have made a name for herself in some way. Likely the others as well. But I can so picture Rachel doing many things.

Regardless, Columbine never would've happened if the parents of Eric and Dylan never let their kids go to Columbine. It was a toxic school for anyone who wanted to be accepted and they were just not nice people. Students and staff alike.

bradt93 wrote:

Regardless, Columbine never would've happened if the parents of Eric and Dylan never let their kids go to Columbine. It was a toxic school for anyone who wanted to be accepted and they were just not nice people. Students and staff alike.

I'm not sure if going to Chatfield would've made everything better for the two. There were problems way deeper than bullying IMO if their desire was to kill hundreds upon hundreds of people.

Has anyone else read "The social ecology of the Columbine High School shootings" J.S.Hong et am (2011)? I found it a thought provoking study on the combination of factors that led to the shooting.

Pixie13 wrote:

Has anyone else read "The social ecology of the Columbine High School shootings" J.S.Hong et am (2011)? I found it a thought provoking study on the combination of factors that led to the shooting.

I'd never read this before; thanks for mentioning it. It is interesting but I had a few problems with it.
"A recent study by Dave Cullen (2009) disagrees that both boys were the victims of bullying. Cullen (2009) instead argues that they were the perpetrators. Therefore the effectiveness of punitive disciplinary policies and anti-bullying measures since Columbine has been questioned by a number of researchers."
I think we can all agree that what Cullen compiled was most certainly NOT a study and that a significant amount of his "research" is horribly flawed.  

It also says that Eric was prescribed Luvox for OCD- this is unlikely. While Luvox was labeled for OCD and NOT depression at that time, it was being widely used off-label for depression and other psychiatric disorders. Since we don't have access to Dr. Albert's records, we don't know what Eric's official diagnosis was and though I admittedly know little about OCD, I don't believe Eric's signs were consistent with that condition.
Also, in their classification of Eric with "pathological narcissism, anti-social tendencies, paranoid traits, and unconstrained aggression" they fail to recognize that Eric's journal appears to have been written for an audience and that it is obvious that, to some degree, he was posturing. Examination of things other than his writings is needed to get a more complete picture of his mental state; although I disagree that any true psychological diagnosis can be made if the subject cannot be interviewed.

They mentioned that multiple relocations could potentially be harmful to a child's growth and development but then say other studies show as long as you have both parents in the home, this isn't the case. So, despite Eric actually saying that moving so much was harmful to him, the authors have decided this probably wasn't the case because he still lived with both parents.

Overall, there were some interesting points made, like the culture of bullying at the school and whether the Harris’ and Klebold’s were “bad” parents. It also made it clear that school shootings cannot be pinned on X, that the causes are multi-faceted and that addressing all of the causes is necessary to successfully prevent future attacks. Unfortunately, like most research of this type, it says that yes, these things are problems, but gives no concrete solutions on how to rectify them.

thelmar wrote:

they fail to recognize that Eric's journal appears to have been written for an audience and that it is obvious that, to some degree, he was posturing.

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I'm sick of hearing this claim. I've seen mass murderers who were writing for an audience; they don't sound like Eric did. Pekka Auvinen was writing for an audience, Seung-Hui Cho was writing for an audience, William Atchison wqs writing for an audience (though he wrote mostly to troll). I think what convinces me that Eric wasn't writing for an audience is when he offhandedly mentions his frustration that even though he's being honest and laying out his true beliefs, that no one will understand him and how he's going to be dismissed as a lunatic.

QuestionMark wrote:

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I'm sick of hearing this claim. I've seen mass murderers who were writing for an audience; they don't sound like Eric did. Pekka Auvinen was writing for an audience, Seung-Hui Cho was writing for an audience, William Atchison wqs writing for an audience (though he wrote mostly to troll). I think what convinces me that Eric wasn't writing for an audience is when he offhandedly mentions his frustration that even though he's being honest and laying out his true beliefs, that no one will understand him and how he's going to be dismissed as a lunatic.

No offense taken, and I don't think all of what he wrote was bravado, I think a lot of it was how he felt. Harris had some major issues, no question. My point was that anyone trying to make a diagnosis on his writings alone is not going to get the full picture of what his problems were. There's more information out there about him and all of it needs to be looked at, not just a portion of it.  
I think what irritates me most is that a lot of mental health professionals who write about this (or any other case in which the perpetrator is deceased) make statements like, "Eric Harris was a narcissist" "Eric Harris was a psychopath." We can posthumously diagnose a medical/physical issue, but you can't posthumously dissect a person's thoughts and feelings. Since they never got to evaluate him in-person, they should be saying "based on information we've collected, Eric Harris appears to have exhibited behaviors X, Y, and Z which are traits often found in narcissists." It may seem a minor differentiation but I think when opinions are presented as facts it sort of shuts the door on further investigation. Well, it's been decided, he was a narcissist, nothing more to see here, there's nothing more to learn. For example, I can't begin to count the number of times I've mentioned my belief that Eric also may have dealt with depression and, despite offering credible examples, I'll be summarily shut down with "So and so diagnosed him as a psychopath, he wasn't depressed."
I wasn't able to track down the article itself, but here's an abstract of an article I read a few years ago which explains what I mean [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

thelmar wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I'm sick of hearing this claim. I've seen mass murderers who were writing for an audience; they don't sound like Eric did. Pekka Auvinen was writing for an audience, Seung-Hui Cho was writing for an audience, William Atchison wqs writing for an audience (though he wrote mostly to troll). I think what convinces me that Eric wasn't writing for an audience is when he offhandedly mentions his frustration that even though he's being honest and laying out his true beliefs, that no one will understand him and how he's going to be dismissed as a lunatic.

No offense taken, and I don't think all of what he wrote was bravado, I think a lot of it was how he felt. Harris had some major issues, no question. My point was that anyone trying to make a diagnosis on his writings alone is not going to get the full picture of what his problems were. There's more information out there about him and all of it needs to be looked at, not just a portion of it.  
I think what irritates me most is that a lot of mental health professionals who write about this (or any other case in which the perpetrator is deceased) make statements like, "Eric Harris was a narcissist" "Eric Harris was a psychopath." We can posthumously diagnose a medical/physical issue, but you can't posthumously dissect a person's thoughts and feelings. Since they never got to evaluate him in-person, they should be saying "based on information we've collected, Eric Harris appears to have exhibited behaviors X, Y, and Z which are traits often found in narcissists." It may seem a minor differentiation but I think when opinions are presented as facts it sort of shuts the door on further investigation. Well, it's been decided, he was a narcissist, nothing more to see here, there's nothing more to learn. For example, I can't begin to count the number of times I've mentioned my belief that Eric also may have dealt with depression and, despite offering credible examples, I'll be summarily shut down with "So and so diagnosed him as a psychopath, he wasn't depressed."
I wasn't able to track down the article itself, but here's an abstract of an article I read a few years ago which explains what I mean [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I understand where you're coming from, yeah.

I actually do remember in Langman's (first) book he acknowledged Eric did have issues with depression and that even so-called psychopaths can feel inadequate, for what it's worth.