Traumatized after shooting?

Do you think E & D were a little traumatized by what they did?

There are many people who theorize that Eric and Dylan wandered the halls because it wasn't fun to them anymore and it was getting to them.

I sometimes speculate that Dylan yelling at Val to shut up was because it was getting to him, but it could also be that he didn't want to hear anyone yelling.

I think Eric was disappointed that his "epic" plan did not work and Dylan was just done.

Is there any evidence that shooters who survived their shootings have som sort of PTSD? I feel like Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant should have (since they killed so many people up-close) but at the same time they seem to lack empathy otherwise.

mrbaby56 wrote:

Is there any evidence that shooters who survived their shootings have som sort of PTSD? I feel like Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant should have (since they killed so many people up-close) but at the same time they seem to lack empathy otherwise.

I'd suspect not (at least in the case of Anders). Guy is a psychopath with a vendetta against authority.

I think it’s possible that one of them, did something to the b**m$$ to stop them from going off. Other than that, I think that both of them could have possibly been a little traumatized after they targed the wrong people. They were looking for jocks and they didn’t really get any jocks. It’s possible they might have felt bad about it, and particularly felt bad about Rachel Scott and Lauren Townsend since they were girls. However this is just speculation and it doesn’t necessarily mean they were traumatized. They could have just been scared of the swats and been avoiding them and deciding to end it. Another thing, they could have been exhausted and weak from the entire thing. Felt like they were tired after a while and out of breath. There is no reason to say they were traumatized because it could have been anything. Maybe they were upset that the b*###* didn’t do off!!! Exhausted maybe from hitting at them and throwing people on the ground etc Maybe they sustained an injury in the process or they got sick of it when things didn’t go as they planned. Maybe they were saving their energy to target the jocks? It just doesn’t make a lot of sense if someone had planned for so long to suddenly get traumatized over the event. Maybe one of them injured themselves and they had to walk slowly, you know what I mean? It just could be anything... They didn’t really plan on a defective event to happen. Them against the entire schools might have just been too tiring for them to continue. They were after the entire school. With that knowledge, I wouldn’t say they were traumatized at all.

Imagination (or should I say expectations) is one thing, and reality is another. E&D could have planned in the greatest detail, but a lot of things are unpredictable, as is their behavior induced by their feelings in such an extreme situation as killing. I find that the vast majority of people can’t even imagine how they would feel in such a situation, especially when the initial euphoria subsides and reality kicks in.

For example, there was one Columbine-inspired case in my country a few years ago (it is also the only one). The high school student went to his old elementary school, threw Molotov cocktails, but when he was about to shoot the teacher, he simply realized at that moment that it was just "not him" and handed over the weapon. Sure, he was punished and ended up in a facility, but what I want to say is that it’s hard to even imagine what it’s like to find yourself in the situation of a mass murder perpetrator at all. We’re all used to movies and games, but if we really had to shoot someone, I think it would traumatize any at least "normal" person, and by my criteria, E&D were conscious and reasonable individuals who just made a really bad decision.

So, I think there were definitely moments when they realized what they were doing and the enjoyment was gone. That would largely explain their aimless wandering the hallways before committing suicide.

(Of course, I know their plan failed because the bombs did not detonate and that it was a turn off right from the start.)