Why didn't they only go after their bullies?

I hate to say this, but I could sort of understand if they wanted to badly injure their bullies throughout their high school years. Why though go after innocent kids who did nothing to you and had nothing to do with your bullying? Instead of the library, why wouldn't they go to the gym where most of the athletes would most likely be? Bullying is mental abuse in my opinion, but at school; not at home.

To increase the kill count.

Also, it might be adrenaline - you shoot one person and now you don't want to stop.

Given it was primarily meant to be a bombing, they picked the cafeteria when it would be at the busiest time. My guess is the bullies, at least some, would be there stuffing their faces. They were gonna stand outside and shoot at survivors running out.

When the bombs didn't work they thought fuck it let's just go in and shoot ppl. Now why they went to the library i don't understand either, it does make more sense to go to the gym etc where the jocks would be and take care of them. Plus the one bully they came across in the library they let go.

They had time too. They really hated that school and wanted everyone to die. Bit messed up in the basement tapes addressing their friends saying 'if you survive'. Dylan did let John Savage go tho and i read someone else he saw crawling around in the roof.

You could just as easily ask this question about Michael Carneal, Pekka Auvinen, Charles Andy Williams, Luke Woodham, Jeff Weise, or Salvador Ramos since they didn't target their bullies either. Speaking of Ramos, we could easily ask why he didn't limit himself to family members since they treated him like shit. While we're at it, we could also ask why Steven Kazmierczak, Seung Hui Cho, or Bill Atchison shot people they never met years after they were the victims of bullying. We could also move away from the bullying question entirely and ask why Patrick Sherril didn't stop after shooting his manager or Charles Whitman didn't shoot his dad.

While many rampage killings have specific targets, typically they're directed against the world, or at least specific institutions and places. It is not about just one person or even a dozen that these people hate, the intent is to maximize the suffering of the community.

On the subject of Eric and Dylan specifically, they both derided people as moronic conformists living pointless existences (Dylan even referred to them as "zombies") and expressed jealously that despite this these same people were living happier and more successful lives. That aside I think it's noteworthy that the one group of people that they (or at least Eric) expresses hatred for the most isn't jocks or bullies, but the police who busted them for stealing. Despite getting picked on repeatedly and having ketchup tampons thrown at him Eric considered his arrest to be the most humiliating moment of his life.

Did Eric and Dylan ever try out for any of the sports teams at Columbine? Was that ever mentioned?

Someone was gonna pay. It didn't matter who, because all bets were off that day, and they always are during these shootings, unless it's a far-rightie, in which case, the whites are usually safe if the perpetrator's careful.

Everyone (except for any friends and acquinatances they spared) was a target.

bradt93 wrote:

Did Eric and Dylan ever try out for any of the sports teams at Columbine? Was that ever mentioned?

Eric played soccer 9th and 10th grade

bradt93 wrote:

I hate to say this, but I could sort of understand if they wanted to badly injure their bullies throughout their high school years. Why though go after innocent kids who did nothing to you and had nothing to do with your bullying?

I always had in the back of my mind that, they probably wouldn't want to kill inocent people (as they eventually spared some kids), but the thing with the grudge they held is that not only they ended up with an incredible amount of hate for their bullies, but the whole situation hurt their ego way too bad too. No girls, small group of friends that were the 'wierdos' of the school and, on top of it all, being constantly labeled as weak too? (Since even girls mocked them knowing they wouldn't probably do nothing in response) They wanted to feel powerful or, at the very least, respected (that's why I think they prepared so carefully the tapes and 'message' they wanted to leave to their copycats), and ended up doing whatever was needed to achieve that, even if it meant acting like a "badass" that cared about nothing and would kill innocent kids. Maybe make their bullies feel the fear they felt.

Because they were lame.

That's a good question, and I've thought about this a lot. Really, bullying is just one aspect of social alienation. A common thread between most mass shooters is that they're alienated from society, which sometimes leads to bullying in their lives. Eric and Dylan weren't just anti-bully, but probably flat out anti-social and against the current order in general, on account of them being outcasts. They made fun of Rachel for being Christian in the basement tapes and ended up killing her later on. I know this is a huge talking point of evangelicals or whatever, but there's something to be said about them targeting Rachel because they saw her faith as an expression of conformity to society, Protestantism being the dominant religion in America.