Timothy McVeigh was the "successful" Eric Harris

Eric Harris looked a lot like Timothy McVeigh. (McVeigh was a few inches taller but he was kind of scrawny-looking.)

In high school McVeigh was a gawky geek who struck out with the girls. He graduated and "became a man" by joining the Army and killing some Eye-Rack-Ees. But once he got out he was still disillusioned and disaffected. He drifted through early adulthood until he decided that he wanted to make a lasting impression on the world and bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.

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McVeigh claimed to have been a target of bullying at school, and he took refuge in a fantasy world where he imagined retaliating against the bullies. At the end of his life, he stated his belief that the United States government is the ultimate bully.

Most who knew McVeigh remember him as being very shy and withdrawn while a few described him as an outgoing and playful child who withdrew as an adolescent. He is said to have had only one girlfriend as an adolescent; he later told journalists that he did not have any idea how to impress girls.

While in high school McVeigh became interested in computers, and hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64 under the handle The Wanderer, taken from the song by Dion DiMucci. In his senior year he was named "most promising computer programmer" of Starpoint Central High School (as well as "Most Talkative" by his classmates as a joke as he did not speak much) but had relatively poor grades until his 1986 graduation.

He was introduced to firearms by his grandfather. McVeigh told people of his wish to become a gun shop owner and sometimes took firearms to school to impress his classmates. He became intensely interested in gun rights as well as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution after he graduated from high school and read magazines such as Soldier of Fortune. He briefly attended Bryant & Stratton College before dropping out. After dropping out of college, McVeigh worked as an armored car guard and was noted by co-workers as being obsessed with guns. One co-worker recalled an instance when McVeigh came to work "looking like Pancho Villa" as he was wearing bandoliers.

So was Eric Harris a wannabe Timothy McVeigh, or what?

The idea that Eric (why not Dylan?) was influenced by Tim McVeigh seems to be solely due to his "America, love it or leave it" rant and his wish that he would get the high score for casualties in an attack, at the time held by McVeigh.

Other than that, I don't think there is any influence, just like the Anarchists Cookbook being a source of great influence for them, it's mostly a myth.

I suspect Duke Nukem level 2 was much more of an influence, and is what Eric is talking about when he talks about being into demolition, or parking garages exploding and flames licking up buildings. The bombs were pipes bombs attached to propane tanks, straight out of Duke Nukem 3D. All their weapons were from vidya.

Go to 2:45 here,
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I think that was in his mind a lot more than OKC. In the quote "It's gonna be like the LA Riots, Oklahoma bombing, WW2, Vietnam, Duke, and DOOM" the two video games at the end are the most relevant. The rest is all video games, I'm convinced. LA Riots = Duke Nukem 3D, it's set in LA with mutated LAPD pig cops (it says LARD instead). What I just showed you for Oklahoma bombing.

Wolfenstein 3d for WW2. Blood for Vietnam (where they got the idea for napalm).

And just no about Eric looking like him. Eric looked a lot DOOMGUY. That's who he was thinking of when he got his haircut or similar. That's why he got a nose bleed. His usernames were rebdoomer not rebokcer.

And that idea that Tim was bullied in school  - rather than proving a parallel to Columbine - seems to show how easily every crime is chalked up to abuse and mental health regardless of the evidence, Columbine included.

They wanted to play video games IRL, kill cops for the van arrest, and have followers who wanted to do the same, not to extract revenge for Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Further, it seems to me the division of labor was Eric was gun man, and Dylan was bomb tech. The guns were from DOOM, Eric's favorite game. The bombs were from Duke Nukem 3D, I suspect Dylan's favorite. His triple barred cross he drew a lot, and wore on his ear, and said symbolized "the everlasting contrast" and "the everything" i. e. both good and evil, is from Duke Nukem level 3. Dylan was doing "missions" and so it seems to me making pipe bombs with Zach before Eric was. Duke was blond and wanted girls. Given that, extra silly to say Eric was McVeigh guy rather than Dylan. But neither were.

Timothy McVeigh's political beliefs were simplified, dopey, angry, eternally juvenile right-wing "i hate the government" bullshit.

And even THAT is like Einstein-level compared to what Eric knew about politics. I realize that teenagers are dumb about politics and always will be, but what little Eric Harris ever had to say about the subject qualifies most other teenagers for a fucking Cormac McCarthy genius grant.

I agree that the government fucked up royally at Ruby Ridge and probably fucked up at Waco (I'm still not one hundred percent certain they started that fire), but this doesn't make Timothy McVeigh intelligent, let alone right. And Timothy killed a few kids himself, y'know.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

I agree that the government fucked up royally at Ruby Ridge and probably fucked up at Waco (I'm still not one hundred percent certain they started that fire), but this doesn't make Timothy McVeigh intelligent, let alone right.  And Timothy killed a few kids himself, y'know.  

His iq was 126. The kids who were killed were collateral damage.