What do you think that exactly caused Columbine?

I've only read one account of Eric asking a girl out who was a freshman (when he was a senior) and her parents not allowing it due to the age difference. If I'm remembering correctly he was just asking her to prom and not actually asking to date her. I think he reached a level of desperation trying to find a prom date that he didn't care what grade the girls were in. I haven't read anything else that indicates Eric often spent time with much younger girls; he seemed to stay in and around his own age group for the most part

While I do question if Eric & Dylan were abused in any way (besides bullying), I don't think we can point to one incident as evidence either way.

I'm not at all justifying Sue pushing Dylan against a wall, but was this an isolated incident or a pattern ? Even mothers have their limits, and it's quite possible that Dylan found Sue's.

Most likely isolated.

Hi, I'm new here and this is my first post. I started reading this thread but before I got to the second page I already wanted to add my thoughts because what I was reading was thought provoking.

I can only paint some of the picture as I see it, in this first post...

Eric Harris grew up not being able to make long-lasting friends because his family continually moved around when he was younger. That would have had a great deal of effect on him, not just from losing his friends all the time, but because as he got older it would have become harder to fit in and establish strong friendships. By the time he moved to Littleton, he was already feeling socially frustrated because of this, and fitting in would have been that much harder when he found himself in the environment at Columbine, where there was a lot of bullying going on. (And there was, no matter that some will still deny it.)

For Harris, home life was probably typical of many military families: Strict rules while growing up but also a lot of freedom later on based on giving him more responsibilities as he moved into adulthood. Unfortunately, many parents don't pay so much attention to their kids at that age because they're giving them more freedom and expect them to be responsible, so it's very easy at that age to get into things that you shouldn't, and the parents don't know, especially once you've convinced your parents that you have learned well from them already. But excessive strictness makes a person want to exercise their freedoms a little more than otherwise, once they get them. I think that was the case here with Eric.

For Dylan, it was obviously different. He was well-loved in his family, and that affected his character in a good way, making him a very loving person who was very sensitive to others feelings (as much as his own), and that made him very shy and so it was difficult to make friends or feel like he fit in. On the other hand, coming from such a loving family meant that he probably had a lot of pent up frustrations that needed an outlet because he couldn't easily relate his frustrations to his parents, who, like most parents, are out of touch with the younger generation and the sort of problems they face in today's world. Dylan might have been fine and gotten through his issues and come out okay if he hadn't become such close friends with Eric. But I think Harris was the spark that ignited Klebold's deepest feelings and brought them to the surface.

Adulthood was a looming threat to both Harris and Klebold. The future looked very dismal to them both. They would soon have to face a (for Harris, another) major turning point in their lives where they would be separated from those friends they had made, who were all they had at that point, and all they could really expect to have, given how things had turned out. The past had shown them both that real friends were hard to come by. I think that's what made the two of them such good friends to each other. They both recognized the value of friendships and the necessity of having long-lasting ones in order to have a happy and fulfilling life. It wasn't just the lack of a fulfilling social life that caused this tragedy, but that was certainly a major factor.

I'm certain there must have been a conversation between the two of them sometime before they started planning this out where they brought this all out on the table and really looked at their prospects for the future, and decided that it was pointless to go on. That's when they made the commitment to do this, and from that point on, they focused on it completely, and it gave them a sense of purpose. It gave value to their lives, especially when they decided to make as big a splash as they could, and send a message to the world. The main goal was to release themselves from the pain they felt. The secondary goal was to make a point to the world about how fucked up it is that two kids would have go to this length to make a statement about their anguish. Unfortunately, the authorities and the media will take a situation like this and turn it to their own advantage, so the most important message we could have gotten from this event was lost to most people. It became just another tragedy in a world of tragedies. Let's move on, folks. Nothing to see here!

But seriously, we take it far too lightly that the world is becoming increasingly formidable for many young people to enter into. Many will get the breaks and have the right connections to have a happy and fulfilling life and be successful, but many others are doomed to eke out an bare existence where they will never achieve anything that could amount to feeling secure or happy. It only becomes apparent which group you're in once you start getting into adulthood and start having to think about it.

Those sorts of thoughts played a large part in leading Eric and Dylan to decide they wanted to die. They began to embrace the release that death would give them, and from that point on they used every slight and abuse against them to fuel their determination to carry out their plan. This is why they were able to keep their secret so well, and to carry it out in the last instant without any doubts or misgivings. They had convinced themselves that death was the only solution.

The two of them had started planning this as much as two years prior to doing it. In that time, they began to associate with others who helped to fuel the idea, irrespective of their knowledge that these two were planning actually carry this out.
The apparent support of such a plan from their friends, even as idle talk, would have helped to convince Eric and Dylan that it wasn't such a bad idea. And there was talk among them about doing this sort of thing for a long time. I just read a police interview with Chris Morris, who apparently knew about E&D's bomb-making activities long before the shooting, so it wasn't like E&D's friends weren't going to dissuade them. Just the opposite. Their friends had a huge influence on their desire to attack the school.

I'll stop here for now....

I read some comments that suggest that Harris was a psychopath.

Psychopathy is a condition where the emotions are no longer a factor in decision making. Instinctive reasoning is in control.

A little lesson...

The brain is structured in four evolutionary stages that parallel certain responsive traits. To put it simply, the first and lowest stage (brain stem or reptilain brain) deals with purely survival-related responses, the second stage (limbic system) deals with emotion-related responses. The third stage (neocortex) deals with intelligence-related responses. The fourth stage (pre-frontal lobes) deals with planning and predicting. The brain is structured so that signals normally loop through these various stages so that lower-level responses can be overruled by higher-level responses before they're acted on... i.e. you get an urge to react to something based on instinct or emotion, but you catch yourself and think better of it because you foresee the consequences will not be good for you if you do. That wouldn't be possible without looped signals. You would always react from the first and lowest stage.

A psychopath has effectively turned off the emotions. Their brain signals are based on the instinctive drive to survive without any interference of emotional responses. The limbic system is bypassed completely. They still have full use of the other stages, but they bypass the emotions.

The brain is very adaptable and neural changes can occur quite easily and rapidly in certain situations. For instance, sections of the brain can be removed through surgery, and other parts will make up for the loss so that little to no functionality is lost. On the other hand, a part of the brain (or any other part of the body) that isn't used will atrophy and stop working altogether after a while.

Consider this in respect to what I stated in my last post about Eric and Dylan making the decision to kill themselves, after which they fueled that commitment with every slight and abuse against them. At that point, they consciously decided to disregard their emotions and they began to practice doing so. At first it would have been hard, but with time and practice, the brain would become more habituated to not responding and the signals would be more and more easily rerouted. Those signal paths become stronger over time with use. It becomes easier to turn off the emotions. The result is a growing emptiness, coldness, but also a heightened awareness and even intelligence. Psychopathy begins to take root.

I believe that Eric was always denied a healthy amount of love in his family, even if it wasn't a bad home otherwise. I believe that he started shutting off his emotions long before all this, and that a psychopathic tendency was taking root as a consequence. I'm not saying he was a psychopath, but things aren't just there or not there. They come about by degrees. We normally have that ability to temper the emotions in a moment of frustration or anger. Some of us not so well as others, but it's usually healthy to do so anyway. Some of us turn them off, at least temporarily, in order not to have to suffer them. Some of us reach a point where we actually contemplate doing something like Eric and Dylan did. Few of us carry it out however, because we aren't pushed hard enough to decide to shut off our emotions completely long enough to plan and carry out such an act. We catch ourselves because we have reasons to be concerned about the consequences. But when you make a commitment such as they did, it would be a completely different story. At the point that they made their commitment, they only cared about not getting caught with their plans and being stopped.

You know it is interesting that Eric never mentioned suicide. He only mentions getting shot (suicide by cop perhaps?)


From the Basement Tapes:

He says he's going to be "one tired mother fucker come Monday then Boom! I'll get shot & die"


From Eric's Journal:

I know I could get shot by a cop after only killing a single person, but hey guess the fuck WHAT! I chose to kill that one person so get over it! It’s MY fault! Not my parents, not my brothers, not my friends, not my favorite bands, not computer games, not the media. IT is MINE! so shut the fuck up!

REB

Imperator wrote:

The "quiet" period after the library shootings indicates to me that neither had any real motivation to continue to indiscriminately kill further.  Despite the hooting and hollering at that point it became 'self' motivation that was quickly sapping.  Neither used knives (stabbing is real personal in respect to guns and bombs) which further raises the question to the accusations of psychopathy/sociopathy.  Although I do agree they had diminished states of mind or some Dunning-Kruger type effect.  I honestly in the case of Eric or wishful thinking, believe when he reached that point in the library where he knew surrender wasn't an option, he regretted his piss poor choices.

I agree for the most part, but I don't think Eric was the one who wavered with regret. The explanation will become clear at the end of this post.

I have wondered about the planning of this event, more specifically how they planned to deal with any number of the things that might have gone wrong.

AFAIK, the plan was to detonate all those bombs, both in the school and the parking lot, and then to 'clean house' by shooting people as they tried to escape or lay wounded. But I wonder, when most of the bombs failed, did they have a contingency plan? Or what about getting caught before they had a chance to turn the guns on themselves, and ended up with life in prison? Or even failing to kill themselves, and ending up surviving, but as mental vegetables or cripples from their own injuries?

I'm certain that these possibilities came to mind over the long time that they planned this out. Based on how things unfolded, I think they had a basic plan that would assure their own deaths, and the rest of their plans with all the bombs and carnage was for the added excitement and, more importantly, to release their pent up rage.

After their rage was spent in the library, I don't think they really had the heart to keep shooting people in cold blood. At least, not after it started sinking in what they were doing.

They started shooting at the cops, trying to engage them, and I think that was part of their plan. I think they expected the cops to come in after them. They had hoped for 'suicide by cop', but they were still resolved to killing themselves if they had to. And that's what happened in the end when the police held back.

Interestingly, the infamous suicide photos of Eric and Dylan show that Dylan couldn't have shot himself. He was left-handed and the head wound is on the back-right side of his head. That means that Eric shot him, and then killed himself. Was that in the plans? That would be a tough thing for them to have to deal with, but I think it must have been a contingency plan, and it was carried out. They were committed all the way. I think that they agreed that if one of them began to back down at that point, the other would assist. And it was Dylan who would have been the most likely to back down in the end, wouldn't it?

Forgive me if this has gotten slightly off-topic to the thread...

Anthony Forwood wrote:

Adulthood was a looming threat to both Harris and Klebold. The future looked very dismal to them both. They would soon have to face a (for Harris, another) major turning point in their lives where they would be separated from those friends they had made, who were all they had at that point, and all they could really expect to have, given how things had turned out. The past had shown them both that real friends were hard to come by. I think that's what made the two of them such good friends to each other. They both recognized the value of friendships and the necessity of having long-lasting ones in order to have a happy and fulfilling life. It wasn't just the lack of a fulfilling social life that caused this tragedy, but that was certainly a major factor.

I'm certain there must have been a conversation between the two of them sometime before they started planning this out where they brought this all out on the table and really looked at their prospects for the future, and decided that it was pointless to go on. That's when they made the commitment to do this, and from that point on, they focused on it completely, and it gave them a sense of purpose. It gave value to their lives, especially when they decided to make as big a splash as they could, and send a message to the world. The main goal was to release themselves from the pain they felt. The secondary goal was to make a point to the world about how fucked up it is that two kids would have go to this length to make a statement about their anguish. Unfortunately, the authorities and the media will take a situation like this and turn it to their own advantage, so the most important message we could have gotten from this event was lost to most people. It became just another tragedy in a world of tragedies. Let's move on, folks. Nothing to see here!

I agree with some of what you said but I might disagree with the part quoted above. I was reading through this thread a few days ago and there are some points brought up about Dylan's feelings toward Eric and toward their carrying out "NBK" that you might be interested in.
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The quote being discussed is from Dylan's journal in early 1999.

Dylan Klebold wrote:

I hate this non-thinking stasis. Im stuck in humanity. maybe going "NBK" (gawd) w. eric is the way to break free. i hate this.

Regardless of exactly what he means here, there seems to be some indication that although he had been considering it for a long time, he wasn't completely committed to the plan ("maybe," "gawd"), even a few months before they carried it out. I would assume that neither of them were quite sure at first but I don't know if Dylan ever fully committed himself until the very end. I won't suggest that he was an unwilling participant because I believe he wanted to do it but I think it's clear that this was the main event of Eric's life for a year before the massacre while Dylan kept his distance from serious planning and preparation, always letting Eric take the lead. In my opinion, it's possible that they were not both equally committed and focused on this outcome from the beginning. I also question how much (or how honestly) they talked about their personal reasons for doing it and whether Eric and Dylan were as close as their actions might suggest. I feel that the secondary goal you mentioned was discussed far more than their primary goal and I think it's possible that neither of them knew exactly how much pain the other boy was feeling.

On the topic of Eric being a psychopath, I think what you're saying might be true to some extent. These perpetrators seem to develop a strategy by which they can either turn off emotional reactions or train themselves to view their victims in such a way that their empathy is deadened. Anders Breivik was consciously working at this process by viewing his victims as Marxist traitors and "had used Bushido meditation. He said that this involved manipulating your own mind to suppress fear, but also other feelings. ‘That’s the reason I seem de-emotionalised. I couldn’t have survived otherwise’" (although there is evidence that his empathy and emotion was already lacking due to trauma/neglect at an early age). Mary Ellen O'Toole, who reportedly had access to Adam Lanza's journals, said, "Over the course of time he trained his mind to view humans more as objects" (she decided that he was a textbook psychopath, and while this makes little sense to me, there is evidence that Lanza was already impaired in his experience of empathy, possibly due to autism). In Eric's case, he said something indicating that his process was very similar.

Eric Harris wrote:

I have a goal to destroy as much as possible so I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy, or any of that, so I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom like FH [Former Human, mob in Doom] or FS [Former Sergeant] or demons, so it’s either me or them. I have to turn off my feelings.”

In one part of the basement tapes, he says that he wishes he was a sociopath so he didn't have to feel remorse for putting his parents in this position. Some see this as evidence of his psychopathy, since he went ahead with it anyway, but it might be closer to what you are suggesting and I believe that this interpretation may be more likely. Eric may also have had some emotional impairment from an earlier age but the main point is that he had committed himself to this mission and he recognized that he would have to tone down his emotional processing in order to carry out his plans so that is what he worked at. Some people might believe that this would not be possible if you were not already emotionally impaired but this is what military training does in order to turn normal men into soldiers who can kill with no hesitation when they are carrying out a mission. I've heard that tactics to normalize the act of killing while distancing soldiers from the humanity of their targets are routine. If you frame the act of killing properly, it can even become something that a person aspires to.

Check out 8:45-13:00


Obviously soldiers face the possibility of being killed by their enemies so there is a distinct difference between soldiers and other killers but I still think it's interesting to note that while they may not have started out at the same emotional level, Breivik, Lanza and Eric Harris all had an interest in or aspirations to join the military, they all consciously developed their ability to disregard their emotional response or dehumanize their victims as the military does and they all used shooter video games to train their reflexes or mindset to some extent, as the military does. Apparently, there is a reliable process to turn men into soldiers (and killers) and they all seem to have mimicked this process in their own way as part of their preparation.

sscc wrote:

I agree with some of what you said but I might disagree with the part quoted above. I was reading through this thread a few days ago and there are some points brought up about Dylan's feelings toward Eric and toward their carrying out "NBK" that you might be interested in.
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The quote being discussed is from Dylan's journal in early 1999.

Dylan Klebold wrote:

I hate this non-thinking stasis. Im stuck in humanity. maybe going "NBK" (gawd) w. eric is the way to break free. i hate this.

That's very interesting.

Allow me to finish reading what you have to say and looking at all of what you posted here and then I'll get back to you.

sscc wrote:

I feel that the secondary goal you mentioned was discussed far more than their primary goal...

Yes, of coarse, and once the primary goal was decided on (whether or not fully committed) it didn't have to be thought about much, and better that it wasn't. That actually made it easier to focus on the secondary goal and put the other one out of mind.

sscc wrote:

On the topic of Eric being a psychopath, I think what you're saying might be true to some extent. These perpetrators seem to develop a strategy by which they can either turn off emotional reactions or train themselves to view their victims in such a way that their empathy is deadened. Anders Breivik was consciously working at this process by viewing his victims as Marxist traitors and "had used Bushido meditation. He said that this involved manipulating your own mind to suppress fear, but also other feelings.

sscc wrote:

this is what military training does in order to turn normal men into soldiers who can kill with no hesitation when they are carrying out a mission. I've heard that tactics to normalize the act of killing while distancing soldiers from the humanity of their targets are routine. If you frame the act of killing properly, it can even become something that a person aspires to.

Yes, indeed. The military and intelligence agencies both do this routinely. They've studied the human mind inside and out, and have discovered some very interesting things. Early on during MKULTRA, they tried to create the perfect soldier who would kill on command, no matter who the person might be. This posed a problem, because they found out that even when hypnotized, the soldier's underlying morals tended to get in the way. So what they did was they changed the soldier's perceptions. While under hypnosis, they made them think that they were seeing someone other than who it really was, or make them think the person posed a serious threat to them, or whatever else was required to get over the moral issue. It worked very well.

In a sense, this is what Eric was probably doing whenever he projected his anger through computer games or mental fantasies. Computer games are very hypnotic. And I can't dismiss the fact that he was essentially training his mind while playing Doom, and then when he was facing the people who angered him, he was internalizing his feelings in the moment and then processing them through fantasies of revenge in a Doom-like scenario. It was important that that scenario was there in order for them to continue with their plans, even if they didn't realize it. It was one of the factors that kept them focused. All the videos and classroom essays on death and destruction were also part of staying focused. And the focusing was nothing less than maintaining a kind of hypnotic state by continually reinterpreting reality through a substituted one. Just like them soldiers!

Well, not quite. The sort of self-hypnosis that might have been involved here is nothing like the hypnosis that is used on soldiers and spies. Those guys go through very sophisticated processes.

I don't know about Dylan now. You messed up my perfect understanding.

Kiwik wrote:

I've only read one account of Eric asking a girl out who was a freshman (when he was a senior) and her parents not allowing it due to the age difference.  If I'm remembering correctly he was just asking her to prom and not actually asking to date her. I think he reached a level of desperation trying to find a prom date that he didn't care what grade the girls were in. I haven't read anything else that indicates Eric often spent time with much younger girls; he seemed to stay in and around his own age group for the most part

Eric spent prom night at home watching a movie with a girl who worked across the street from him at a hair cutting place or something like that. She would go to Blackjack Pizza to pick up lunch, and he ended up asking her for her number. He called her up that night and invited her over. When she left at the end of the night, she says he gave her a kiss on the cheek. She didn't say anything bad about him and he seemed to be acting normal to her.

Meanwhile, several other girls had reported in witness statements that Eric tried asking them out and they turned him down because they thought he was "creepy" and "weird". Probably more to do with school rumours and wanting to be seen with the 'in' crowd than anything else, but that's how it goes.

I read one witness statement where Eric asked another girl to ask her friend if she'd go to the prom with him, so perhaps at that point he was already getting too much rejection to ask himself any more. The witness stated that he watched her ask her friend, and when he saw her shake her head, he got angry and wouldn't talk to the girl any more. It was just one more blow to his self-esteem.

I agree with you. I think the younger girl was probably asked out of desperation, more than anything. People have a tendency to jump on any possible fault when condemning someone for something like this, even when there isn't any real evidence of the fault at all. Next they'll be saying he was a pedophile.

They were baby killers. End of story. Don't wanna kill babies, don't wanna kill people. They didn't care. They were monsters and idolized monsters, They hated everything and wanted to kill it. They wanted their children to live or die. They wanted yours dead. Fuck em both.

Not unlike the majority of losers that call for revenge. They want to choose who reproduces. USA just killed 2.5 million iraqis and any children they may have had, so more like 10 million dead children on top of that. Funny how retarded everyone is. That was your tax money. No one cares.

ubergott wrote:

They were baby killers. End of story. Don't wanna kill babies, don't wanna kill people. They didn't care. They were monsters and idolized monsters, They hated everything and wanted to kill it. They wanted their children to live or die. They wanted yours dead. Fuck em both.

So what's your point?

sororityalpha wrote:

You know it is interesting that Eric never mentioned suicide. He only mentions getting shot (suicide by cop perhaps?)


From the Basement Tapes:

He says he's going to be "one tired mother fucker come Monday then Boom! I'll get shot & die"


From Eric's Journal:

I know I could get shot by a cop after only killing a single person, but hey guess the fuck WHAT! I chose to kill that one person so get over it! It’s MY fault! Not my parents, not my brothers, not my friends, not my favorite bands, not computer games, not the media. IT is MINE! so shut the fuck up!

REB

True he never writes about suicide in his journal like Dylan does, The only mention of suicide from Eric is in his diversion paperwork. Also perhaps in his counseling paperwork.

Mj2beat wrote:

I would like to know what you guys think that caused everything?

The will to take revenge, but also to leave a powerful and everlasting message. I'm sure that E&D would have found a way to escape the school to wreak havoc in the neighborhoods of Littleton (as Eric originally jotted down in his journal, though it's more like something written on the spur of the moment rather than a careful escape plan thought in advance-- as a matter of fact it wasn't carried out) if they just wanted to mess with everybody with no other reason than to take anger out of their lives

Funny thing is, Eric would have been in the marines and part of the iraq invasion. He would have killed far more than what he did.

In fact 9/11 was in their journal and took place on Klebold's bday. Eerie really.

Eric had been rejected by the Marines, though he may or may not have known it at the time, so he never would have been involved in Iraq.

I personally believe it was a "perfect storm" of conditions that caused Columbine. Bullying, mental illness,simmering anger, access to weapons they should not have been able to access, parents who may not have realized how deeply troubled their sons were, an enabling principal who wanted to be a friend rather than an authority figure, 2 young men who couldn't settle their problems nonviolently . I could continue.

I can't help but think that if even one condition had been different, the outcome would have been very different.

but i watched that war online. and I am affected by it too.

Anthony Forwood wrote:

Interestingly, the infamous suicide photos of Eric and Dylan show that Dylan couldn't have shot himself. He was left-handed and the head wound is on the back-right side of his head. That means that Eric shot him, and then killed himself. Was that in the plans? That would be a tough thing for them to have to deal with, but I think it must have been a contingency plan, and it was carried out. They were committed all the way. I think that they agreed that if one of them began to back down at that point, the other would assist. And it was Dylan who would have been the most likely to back down in the end, wouldn't it?

Present on the left side of the head, in the region of the temple, 1/4" above and 3/4" anterior to the left ear, is a circular, large caliber, entrance type of gunshot wound. Present on the right lateral surface of the head, 1/2" anterior to the mid-portion of the right ear, is a generally circular exit type of gunshot wound.

The projectile penetrated the cranium through the left temporal bone; extended across the undersurface of both cerebral hemispheres; exiting the head through the right temporal bone. The perforated area on the left side is beveled inward; the perforated area on the right side is beveled outward. Powder is associated with the wound on the left side of the head. The projectile traveled left to right, slightly front to back, and slightly downward. The characteristics of the wound are consistent with a large caliber weapon; with a close contact range of fire; consistent with self infliction. The wound is consistent with 9mm ammunition.

sororityalpha wrote:

Present on the left side of the head, in the region of the temple, 1/4" above and 3/4" anterior to the left ear, is a circular, large caliber, entrance type of gunshot wound. Present on the right lateral surface of the head, 1/2" anterior to the mid-portion of the right ear, is a generally circular exit type of gunshot wound.

The projectile penetrated the cranium through the left temporal bone; extended across the undersurface of both cerebral hemispheres; exiting the head through the right temporal bone. The perforated area on the left side is beveled inward; the perforated area on the right side is beveled outward. Powder is associated with the wound on the left side of the head. The projectile traveled left to right, slightly front to back, and slightly downward. The characteristics of the wound are consistent with a large caliber weapon; with a close contact range of fire; consistent with self infliction. The wound is consistent with 9mm ammunition.

Okay, I was misinformed. That's what I get for just taking someone else's word and not check it out for myself.

Thanks sororityalpha

Which means Dylan wasn't afraid to face Eric's carnage while shooting himself. He faced his friend and died next to him. It's bittersweet.