Columbine doesn't make me as angry as other shootings.

With some, like Sante Fe TX or Parkland Fl, or any racially motivated shooting, I just think of the shooter "You motherfucker" and I'm not too curious about it.

But Columbine is different. Honestly kind of embarrassed about it because while I don't feel bad for Eric and Dylan at all, their act doesn't make me angry. Perhaps it's all the framing of the killers, all that humanizing, warranted or not. And there's Dylan's mother who of course isn't angry at Dylan all that much.

Does it not make you angry with what they said before slaying Isaiah?

Draw_It_White wrote:

Does it not make you angry with what they said before slaying Isaiah?

Oh yeah that's definitely the worst thing. I feel angry about that. It's not why they did the killing but it does make everyone who says they weren't racist look like a fool.

But I don't know why that anger doesn't stick to them, for me.

Funny how for me it’s the polar opposite. I can (sort of) empathize with mass shooters who were/are obviously mentally ill like Lanza, Cho or Holmes, but not with Eric and Dylan because of how normal they seemed. Like, why seek revenge on the world that hasn’t wronged you in any way? Not that they had no issues whatsoever, it’s just their issues weren’t visible (and comprehensible) enough for me to always keep in mind.

I’m not angry at them though, it would be unreasonable to be angry at someone who is long dead and who I have zero personal connection to. The world is full of bad people - some of them immeasurably worse than Eric and Dylan - and you cannot be angry at each and every one of them. Besides, what purpose does it serve?

As for their racism, I think it was for the sake of being edgy more than anything else. Had they had any ideological interest in white nationalism, their journals would have looked more like Dylann Roof’s manifesto or the writings of your average Stormfront user. That’s not to justify or defend Eric and Dylan; after all, compared to what they did on 4/20, being racist almost seems like a harmless personal quirk.*


*unless you pull a Dylann Roof

Yeah shooters who are extremely mentally ill like the Cho, Holmes or Lanza don't make me as angry either.

I guess Eric and Dylan get a little more sympathy from me because they were relatively young.

morgenroede wrote:

Like, why seek revenge on the world that hasn’t wronged you in any way?

Why seek revenge on a world that has wronged you in some way?

Neither will *fix* whatever went wrong.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not in any way defending what E&D did.

All I'm saying is that there's no room for half-measures and half-motives in a spree killing. It is a "vs the world" thing. The only logical reason to commit a spree killing against strange people is because you think the world sucks and you want to cause as much harm and suffering as possible.

... well heck, gosh darn and tarnation, that last paragraph sure ended up sounding edgy.

myshame wrote:

I guess Eric and Dylan get a little more sympathy from me because they were relatively young.

I’m quite a few years older than Eric and Dylan ever were, but their age does nothing for me in terms of empathy or sympathy or whatever. Although I do realize that teenagers are often ignorant and emotionally unstable, it probably doesn’t matter much anyway since many stay like this until they die at 90.

Sabratha wrote:

All I'm saying is that there's no room for half-measures and half-motives in a spree killing. It is a "vs the world" thing. The only logical reason to commit a spree killing against strange people is because you think the world sucks and you want to cause as much harm and suffering as possible.

I get that it was their motive, but at the same time it seems like there was no reason for them to think the world sucks (unless this reason had to do with compassion for those who had it worse, which is most definitely not the case here). Not that there should be an objective reason. As someone who spent the entirety of her teenage years thinking the world sucks even though by all logic I should have been perfectly happy, I get this too, yet on some subconscious level it’s like I don’t consider anyone with a mindset like this to be... deserving of sympathy? I mean, even though I understand that it might be a sign of clinical depression, all I want to say to someone like this is, “Quit your bitching” (which is ironically Eric’s phrase). Idk.

morgenroede wrote:

As someone who spent the entirety of her teenage years thinking the world sucks even though by all logic I should have been perfectly happy, I get this too (...)

There's plenty of reasons that make sense of the one involved, but not for others. Because "fucking snow is gay", "work sucks", "life is one giant waste of time and effort", "I hate falling asleep and waking up", "and everyday it's the same old thing"... etc.

morgenroede wrote:

(...)yet on some subconscious level it’s like I don’t consider anyone with a mindset like this to be... deserving of sympathy?

I doubt most spree killers seek sympathy. Ok, maybe those traumatized as children do.

Sabratha wrote:

There's plenty of reasons that make sense of the one involved, but not for others. Because "fucking snow is gay", "work sucks", "life is one giant waste of time and effort", "I hate falling asleep and waking up", "and everyday it's the same old thing"... etc.

Yes. What I meant to say is that even though hating the world because of things like these may indicate a serious mental health issue (or it may not; also, who is to say for sure that life is not one giant waste of time and effort?), on the surface it seems like unjustified whining and not like when you have legitimate reasons to hate the world.

Sabratha wrote:

I doubt most spree killers seek sympathy. Ok, maybe those traumatized as children do.

Politically and religiously motivated killers do as well but only from the groups on whose behalf they are (or believe themselves to be) acting. Otherwise I agree. Eric and Dylan surely weren’t seeking sympathy. Eric even mocked other school shooters for “trying to be accepted by others”. Sounds like sympathy was the last thing he wanted.

I mean, it should be “another school shooter”. There’s only one Michael Carneal. But it’s Eric who said “those fucks in Kentucky”, not me.