Why did they go to the library?

From what I have gathered, Eric and Dylan were just wandering around aimlessly in the school when the bombs didn't go off. They just happened to go into the library? Did they plan on it? Anyone know?

They were probably wandering in the halls and saw evryone in their under the desks so they went in there, they might of gone in there to get a vantage point over the car park and first responders.

They were startled because their plan didn't go well, and in that state of shock they had no power to think rationally, and the first thing they thought of was a library. It's very strange for them, having all the rage towards the jocks, to head to a place which had the least amount of "cool kids". Anyway, they hated everyone at school, either way.

1Mare1 wrote:

They were startled because their plan didn't go well, and in that state of shock they had no power to think rationally, and the first thing they thought of was a library. It's very strange for them, having all the rage towards the jocks, to head to a place which had the least amount of "cool kids". Anyway, they hated everyone at school, either way.

Personally, I think Eric and Dylan were so cowardly they were scared to face jocks even with guns in their hands.

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think Eric and Dylan were so cowardly they were scared to face jocks even with guns in their hands.

I disagree with this, Eric had no issue engaging armed law enforcement, why would he be afraid of unarmed "jocks"? I fail to see the rationale there.

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think Eric and Dylan were so cowardly they were scared to face jocks even with guns in their hands.

There were a couple of jocks in the library, I am certain even if they headed to the gym (a cesspool of jocks), nobody would dare to move. It's common sense to be scared at gunpoint.

I for one just think the library was just there...and full of kids. I think after the bombs, they entered and what is right down the hall? The library. They knew there would be kids in there perhaps they even saw the kids fleeing into there after being shot at with Patti. I think they went in and started shooting just because of convenience.

Columbine was meant to be a bombing. After the bombs failed, they went with a hasty plan B. Perhaps they thought of the library as a high ground considering the views from the wrap around windows, then realized the easiest targets were hiding under the tables. E&D did seem to walk around with no clear purpose or direction after entering the school.

Lizpuff wrote:

I for one just think the library was just there...and full of kids.  I think after the bombs, they entered and what is right down the hall?  The library.  They knew there would be kids in there perhaps they even saw the kids fleeing into there after being shot at with Patti.  I think they went in and started shooting just because of convenience.  

I agree with this. We know for certain Eric saw Evan Todd and fired at him. I'm assuming they realized people were sitting ducks in there. I think that's really all there is to it. When they left and returned I'm assuming that after the bombs yet again failed they returned to kill more and possibly to check the situation outside.

Lizpuff wrote:

I for one just think the library was just there...and full of kids.  I think after the bombs, they entered and what is right down the hall?  The library.  They knew there would be kids in there perhaps they even saw the kids fleeing into there after being shot at with Patti.  I think they went in and started shooting just because of convenience.  

Lizpuff is right, Although I cant find a good layout of the school, The library is essentially just down the hall from the west entrance, where Dylan and Eric entered the school. They probably figured there would be a good amount of students there during a lunch period.

I agree that they knew there would be a lot of students in there and that was an easy choice but I also think [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is right that they wanted a view onto the parking lot. Didn't they walk over to the windows almost immediately after they came into the library, before they killed most of their victims?

I think Eric particularly wanted to see if he could finish what he started with Neil Gardner, especially since Gardner got so close to shooting Eric that he initially thought that he might have hit him in the shoulder.

Also interesting to note- if the bombs had successfully detonated, the floor of the library may have been compromised as it is right above the cafeteria (I believe this is what they had originally wanted to happen). If that had been the case, there would be no library to enter/shoot from.

thought because the windows had clear view out the front for a shoot out

I may have something interesting about the columnbine suicide...how can I have Jenn get in touch with me as she is the one I would like to touch base with concerning this? And i seriously think I might have found something brand new

1Mare1 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think Eric and Dylan were so cowardly they were scared to face jocks even with guns in their hands.

There were a couple of jocks in the library, I am certain even if they headed to the gym (a cesspool of jocks), nobody would dare to move. It's common sense to be scared at gunpoint.

Your reasoning is correct, but Eric and Dylan were exceptionally cowardly.

Let me ask you a question. If they weren't scared of jocks, why DIDN'T they go to the weight room?

lasttrain wrote:

Your reasoning is correct, but Eric and Dylan were exceptionally cowardly.

Let me ask you a question. If they weren't scared of jocks, why DIDN'T they go to the weight room?

As it was previously stated in this thread, the library was the closest thing that came up in their minds, and it had a very good view on the parking lot. They didn't go to the weight room because they thought it wouldn't be necessary, they were certain the bombs would go off at some point and destroy the entire building.

I don't think they even intended to even enter the building? it was just to check on the bombs progress. Then Neil Gardener popped up and they were trapped inside. All they were doing during that time was checking the police situation outside, trying to take out Neil and the new police arrivals from the window, waiting for the bombs to explode, then giving up and trying to manually set them off. The people in the library that were shot were just to 'kill' time while they waited for the bombs to go off.

This was not a school shooting where they planned to go in and shoot people, if they had done that they would have killed more and actually entered class rooms, which they didn't. The people killed outside were done as they were confident the bombs would go off and didn't need outside obstacles. They never planned to enter the building, they thought it would just be rubble, they wanted to wait for people to run out.

spidEr wrote:

I don't think they even intended to even enter the building? it was just to check on the bombs progress. Then Neil Gardener popped up and they were trapped inside. All they were doing during that time was checking the police situation outside, trying to take out Neil and the new police arrivals from the window, waiting for the bombs to explode, then  giving up and trying to manually set them off. The people in the library that were shot were just to 'kill' time while they waited for the bombs to go off.

This was not a school shooting where they planned to go in and shoot people, if they had done that they would have killed more and actually entered class rooms, which they didn't. The people killed outside were done as they were confident the bombs would go off and didn't need outside obstacles. They never planned to enter the building, they thought it would just be rubble, they wanted to wait for people to run out.

That's a very interesting theory.
I still think that they entered the school because they wanted to, not because they were forced inside by Gardner.

Thanks for all the input. Some guy on You Tube challenged me when I said they decided to go to the library after the bombs didn't go off. He told me I was wrong but then never replied back with what he thought. Crazy trolls!

To kill all the FRICKIN' NERDS that Eric bullied and Dylan was Eric's slave so he was forced to go with him. I know this is a fact because I read Cullen's book and he said Eric was a bully and he obviously knows everything about Columbine.

From the library windows was a good overview. Before they committed suicide, they fired from the windows one last time. It seems to me that they wanted to be among their victims. Killers often return to the crime scene. In addition, they were called fagots in school, so they decided not to be alone in one room, trying even after death to avoid such conversations. I think that's why Eric in his farewell mentions this girl, although there was nothing between them. Apparently for Eric it was very important to look like a "real guy".

1Mare1 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Your reasoning is correct, but Eric and Dylan were exceptionally cowardly.

Let me ask you a question. If they weren't scared of jocks, why DIDN'T they go to the weight room?

As it was previously stated in this thread, the library was the closest thing that came up in their minds, and it had a very good view on the parking lot. They didn't go to the weight room because they thought it wouldn't be necessary, they were certain the bombs would go off at some point and destroy the entire building.

I mean when they were planning.

Why didn't they just make the plan to shoot up the weight room in the first place?

lasttrain wrote:

I mean when they were planning.

Why didn't they just make the plan to shoot up the weight room in the first place?

Because going into the weight room and killing a couple jocks would be pointless, they had a much bigger plan, to destroy the entire school, OKC bombing was one of their inspirations.

1Mare1 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

I mean when they were planning.

Why didn't they just make the plan to shoot up the weight room in the first place?

Because going into the weight room and killing a couple jocks would be pointless, they had a much bigger plan, to destroy the entire school, OKC bombing was one of their inspirations.

I agree. Columbine was not only to get back at jocks. It was aimed at the establishment as a whole. From the kids that picked on them, the teachers/Administrators who stood by and let it happen, to the girls that rejected them, etc.  They wanted to destroy the entire school or as much as possible, therefore destroying what the school stood for in their minds.

Then why didn't they go to the weight room after the bombs failed?

Thirty second walk from west entrance.

lasttrain wrote:

Then why didn't they go to the weight room after the bombs failed?

Thirty second walk from west entrance.

I'll repeat the explanation, in case you are confused:

1Mare1 wrote:

The library was the closest thing that came up in their minds, and it had a very good view on the parking lot. They didn't go to the weight room because they thought it wouldn't be necessary, they were certain the bombs would go off at some point and destroy the entire building.

The library's population was around 50 during the shooting so it might be because it was the most populated place in the school at 11:24 pm.

That's the usual explanation; I don't buy it. They didn't kill even the majority of people in there if it was for kill count. Why the library massacre stopped is much an issue then. Don't think it was the view either. The library being above the bombs, and their starting position being just outside the library emergency exit, both seem to me far more relevant, especially when coupled with their statements that the library was still going to explode, and expecting people to get up and run. In general I advise dropping the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17, or had to be set to go at the same time.

When they killed themselves they also killed off any reasoning behind their actions.

The library had by far the best vqntage point. It was part of the new addition in 95/96 with the Cafeteria The rest of the school built in the 70s had very few windows and none over looking the closest parking lot where LE first responded.

I believe in a mix of everything people have said, vantage point and a lot of people already there and how they walked by it a few times before deciding to just venture inside

i do however also believe the self hate they felt toward themselves they turned against other people similar to them, kinda how Eric wrote about picking on people because they looked like him or he saw himself in them.

Personally think anything about just the view or full of people is horrendously misguided, or self hatred, or hatred of technology, or a state of shock. It's the elementary error of thinking of this as a shooting, not a bombing.

The bombs were under the library, next to its pillars, in the cafeteria. How the &^$*^#*$ is that ignored? Drop the 11:17 assumption and see what happens. Make it still a bombing.

The cafeteria was empty because they started shooting outside and the first bomb failed; and people had not fled out of the emergency exit in the library like they seemed to plan for by starting right next to it, hence the frustration that people weren't getting up and running.

The bombs were not set for the same time - hence they say everybody was gonna die in the library and stop abruptly when it fails (see above, they knew about the emergency exit so NO they did not mean anybody is dying after they leave) so they had another set to go off while they were in the library. They could also lure police in to die from the bomb by shooting a few, or at least keep the students in there. The library also wasnt locked, while other rooms were.

As for "did they plan on it", it's orthodox to say the library massacre was improvised, and I agree. I think basically what they did in the library was supposed to happen in the bombed out cafeteria, but it was empty when they started shooting early and the first bomb failed. The library was above the cafeteria, so next best choice.

In between they try to get the first bomb to go off by throwing pipe bombs into the cafeteria, and then again after for the second. The library massacre is 11:29 to 11:36. Just so happens you can see smoke from pipe bombs in the cafeteria at 11:28 and 11:37.

The library.
The library was protected from the windows. The bookshelves were full of books and acted as defensive barriers for them.
The bookshelves protected them from snipers and from being shot.
They reloaded, and killed innocent children, protected from sniper fire and police fire.
That is why.

If not even Randy gets it, I must not be expressing myself too well.

Indeed they killed innocent children and it's awful, but to quote Tom Lange of the OJ case, it seems cold, but you have to see that as evidence to solve the crime, or else you take your eye off the ball.  In this case in particular I think that has wreaked havoc.

If I were to express the problem in a way slightly more in line with the emotional impact: yes, they killed ten children in that library. The others were lucky to survive. Why did they? Why did the library massacre stop?

There's no answer if you take it as just a shooting rather than a bombing, and this isn't the only one. In fact while I prefer my interpretation of the facts for the logic of it, one prefers the ethical implications as well.  

While there are some real looney tunes into Columbine of course, most are probably good people. However, most are forced to accept the looney tunes answer for why it stopped. Along with roaming the halls, they are forced to say 'they snapped out of it' (at exactly 11:35 for some reason) and therefore either were bloody insane and not responsible, or felt remorse and deserve sympathy.

They are forced to do that because the usual narrative is #$&*&#*$ insane and they are trying to make logical inferences. This thread is perfectly legitimate, has been done tons of times, and will be done ad infinitum until that is recognized. Perhaps instead of being so charitable to try and make a positive case, I should focus on the negative case against it.  

Why, if both bombs failed at 11:17, and they felt they could make them explode manually as we see on the camera at 11:40 or so (going from memory) would they have a library massacre in between? Why not just go straight to the bombs? Makes no sense.

Why would they stop at exactly 11:35? Why would they try to make one bomb explode on camera, and not the other?

There's not a bad answer, there's no answer. So, again, guess they were psychotic and aren't responsible. That's a logical inference on this view.

Or you can accept what they literally told everyone in that library, that the bombs didn't fail at 11:17, one was still live while they were in the library. Hence what Eric said to Bree, and what Dylan said to John, and what Dylan said to Evan after they stopped shooting. There's no answer for those either, except pretending they were lying.  Hence they went into the library in the first place rather than the bombs. Hence they go to one, not the other - the one that just failed, after.  It just so happens the clock on it is set to the 35th minute (my profile picture).  It just so happens Dylan said the massacre would last 15 minutes (11:20 to 11:35).

Yes, they went into the library and killed children in there, they used the library shelves for cover (have wondered why more students didn't try to flee doing that), they shot out the windows, they reloaded on the table (pretty sure everywhere else with a table was locked or, in the case of the cafeteria, empty), but all that seems to miss the point.  Why would such a thing be improvised in the midst of a planned bombing? When that's the issue, and they're telling everybody they're gonna get blown up, don't ignore the bombs being under the library.

The other thing is that they told all the students to get up, a lot, as if they expected that to happen. People couldn't run out of the library emergency exit initially because that's where the shooters were. Hm, yeah, exactly, that's probably what they expected to happen when the first bomb went off and/or set off the fire alarm at 11:20, but started shooting early (most likely, this was in fact when Patti interrupted them). That's also relevant to the above, as some will act like they didn't know about the emergency exit and that when they left the library people would flee (they probably could've fled out the main library entrance anyway if they had to). Given the planning and Eric's trench coat inches from it, surely they knew of the exit.

Also, surely they weren't surprised people were in the library. Seems more like they cornered them. However the time was selected for when the cafeteria was full, bombs were placed in there, they could surround it too from their position, etc, but it had emptied when they started early, hence surely that was the focus on plan A.

Very simply, this makes them rational actors responsible for their actions, and the usual narrative does not. They stop shooting because that's when the second bomb fails and when further killing is pointless because the plan is tits up. They also don't have the bomb to get police if they rush in, so probably more focused on them during the period of hall roaming (indeed Eric signals to Dylan he sees cops on video).

The source for 11:17 is not the clocks on the bombs. The only source for 11:17 is Dylan's notes. Even though those notes say "go to outside hill wait", and the idea that going to the outside hill was "plan B" rather than "plan A" comes from assuming they were going to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17, but in fact started from the outside hill at 11:19. But this shows it was plan A, showing it's a false assumption that they were going to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17.  Dylan also has other notes saying 11:16.    So, if you believe Dylan's notes you do it on pain of two contradictions with just the notes - not to mention all the above contradictions with the facts of the case!

Ok.
You are right.
I still don’t get what you are trying to say.
At all.

I have been known to be obtuse at times, but I don’t get what you are saying.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy, and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

Even though they were sheltered teens, it does take something really sick to kill so many people so callously. You think they regretted what they did?

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

No, I'm saying there's a single assumption to drop to make their actions rational instead of nonsensical; instead of going "so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less"  to every contradiction, one can drop the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17.  This bit of your response strikes me as what C. S. Lewis called "bulverism", 'to assume he is wrong, and explain his error', or 'so you're saying...", it's characterizing what is said rather than addressing what is said.

The usual theory I'm up against - which presumably you endorse instead, says they wanted to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17 because it's what soldiers would have done. That's how Cullen presents the reasoning for it. On the contrary, I think most of their idea of how to attack came from video games, hence what I said about pipe bombs creating a chain reaction.  

Very simply, I show a contradiction in the usual story, people don't want to accept that, and so they go "oh so you can explain everything huh". No, that seems a coping mechanism; I'm saying we have a contradiction here, please engage with it.  It is quite the peeve.

And no, I'm saying people are right when they say there was no plan B, and the usual story says both they had no plan B and that at 11:18, they enacted plan B.  My version has no contingencies. "No Plan B" or "Plan A" is the quickest way to title my theory. The usual story says shooting from the stairs was a contingency, assuming they were gonna start at 11:17; it wasn't.  So a joke to say "you must think they had contingency for everything".  Hard to read on from there.  

Rather, I think the library was improvised, which is what everyone believes. So, hard to hold that against me. My point isn't they had a contingency for everything; my point is there is no story of plan A where the library massacre as improvised plan B makes any sense. Not a bad answer on the usual theory; no answer on the usual theory. Just shrug and say well there were windows and books and people in there.  

The library massacre is nothing like shooting from the parking lot, it's more like what happens in NBK.doc, wherein they talk of planning to enter the cafeteria. Surely the cafeteria was where the majority of the murder was supposed to happen. It's not a stretch to say they were supposed to be calling for white hats in the cafeteria, not the library, but when the first bomb failed and the cafeteria emptied from their shooting early and outside, they went to the second thing that the second bomb could still get. Hell, Dylan even entered the cafeteria for a moment.

That's not "they wrote down a contingency for everything", that's "they werent insane and their actions had reasons." Again, I must be really, really, really bad at expressing myself. Or people don't want to hear it, and don't read it.  Shorter paragraphs doesn't seem to help.

"Being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different."

This and the vast majority of the post is the paradigm case of a just so story that I've heard a thousand times.  And it's a just so story predicated on both bombs failing at 11:17 and confusing the bombing for a mere shooting. Then, there's no reason they stopped, except for at exactly 11:35 they couldn't take it any more.  Why then? They don't even think to give an answer.  They were just fine shooting people in the face from 11:19 to 11:34. And planning a year before that. And they had already signed all those kids deaths warrants by planting bombs. Serendipitous for Dylan to predict it will be "the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes."

It also does no explanatory work. Doesn't address any of the questions raised. Despite "all these reasons",  I don't see any reasons or reasoning. I don't see any facts from that day referenced, other than Eric's nose which did nothing to stop the massacre. When you start going "everything became random" understand that's literally synonymous with "here's where the usual theory fails." It's not that you or anybody else is dumb either, it's that they have to make excuses for this dumb narrative.

Either, you can tell some unfalsifiable and implausible just so story about their private mental states "well you see at 11:35 the fire alarm made a specific ping noise that triggered Dylan's C Fibers into the axon terminal and that gave him a sad and all of the sudden they were tired of murdering", or something entirely rational and concrete and consistent with their planning and callousness, the second bomb failed, which all the evidence cited above supports, compared to nothing but story.  They didn't leave the library to have a cry, they left it to make the bomb go off. Anything else is eisegesis.

Only with Columbine would "you're assuming they're rational actors" be a criticism, or taken to be the same as "assume they were super soldiers".  Even worse when on my theory, they don't kill anybody without bombs backing them up and/or forcing their hand, while on yours they're more like super soldiers, taking on all of the school and police with just a gun. "Bombing, not school shooting" should be our "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here."

I truly believe it's nothing but filling a gap in the story with fan fiction. You wasted the second bomb, saying it already failed at 11;17, so have to conjure up this story for why they stop at 11:35.

Addendum:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

No, I'm saying there's a single assumption to drop to make their actions rational instead of nonsensical; instead of going "so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less"  to every contradiction, one can drop the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17.  This bit of your response strikes me as what C. S. Lewis called "bulverism", 'to assume he is wrong, and explain his error', or 'so you're saying...", it's characterizing what is said rather than addressing what is said.

The usual theory I'm up against - which presumably you endorse instead, says they wanted to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17 because it's what soldiers would have done. That's how Cullen presents the reasoning for it. On the contrary, I think most of their idea of how to attack came from video games, hence what I said about pipe bombs creating a chain reaction.  

Very simply, I show a contradiction in the usual story, people don't want to accept that, and so they go "oh so you can explain everything huh". No, that seems a coping mechanism; I'm saying we have a contradiction here, please engage with it.  It is quite the peeve.

And no, I'm saying people are right when they say there was no plan B, and the usual story says both they had no plan B and that at 11:18, they enacted plan B.  My version has no contingencies. "No Plan B" or "Plan A" is the quickest way to title my theory. The usual story says shooting from the stairs was a contingency, assuming they were gonna start at 11:17; it wasn't.  So a joke to say "you must think they had contingency for everything".  Hard to read on from there.  

Rather, I think the library was improvised, which is what everyone believes. So, hard to hold that against me. My point isn't they had a contingency for everything; my point is there is no story of plan A where the library massacre as improvised plan B makes any sense. Not a bad answer on the usual theory; no answer on the usual theory. Just shrug and say well there were windows and books and people in there.  

The library massacre is nothing like shooting from the parking lot, it's more like what happens in NBK.doc, wherein they talk of planning to enter the cafeteria. Surely the cafeteria was where the majority of the murder was supposed to happen. It's not a stretch to say they were supposed to be calling for white hats in the cafeteria, not the library, but when the first bomb failed and the cafeteria emptied from their shooting early and outside, they went to the second thing that the second bomb could still get. Hell, Dylan even entered the cafeteria for a moment.

That's not "they wrote down a contingency for everything", that's "they werent insane and their actions had reasons." Again, I must be really, really, really bad at expressing myself. Or people don't want to hear it, and don't read it.  Shorter paragraphs doesn't seem to help.

"Being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different."

This and the vast majority of the post is the paradigm case of a just so story that I've heard a thousand times.  And it's a just so story predicated on both bombs failing at 11:17 and confusing the bombing for a mere shooting. Then, there's no reason they stopped, except for at exactly 11:35 they couldn't take it any more.  Why then? They don't even think to give an answer.  They were just fine shooting people in the face from 11:19 to 11:34. And planning a year before that. And they had already signed all those kids deaths warrants by planting bombs. Serendipitous for Dylan to predict it will be "the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes."

It also does no explanatory work. Doesn't address any of the questions raised. Despite "all these reasons",  I don't see any reasons or reasoning. I don't see any facts from that day referenced, other than Eric's nose which did nothing to stop the massacre. When you start going "everything became random" understand that's literally synonymous with "here's where the usual theory fails." It's not that you or anybody else is dumb either, it's that they have to make excuses for this dumb narrative.

Either, you can tell some unfalsifiable and implausible just so story about their private mental states "well you see at 11:35 the fire alarm made a specific ping noise that triggered Dylan's C Fibers into the axon terminal and that gave him a sad and all of the sudden they were tired of murdering", or something entirely rational and concrete and consistent with their planning and callousness, the second bomb failed, which all the evidence cited above supports, compared to nothing but story.  They didn't leave the library to have a cry, they left it to make the bomb go off. Anything else is eisegesis.

Only with Columbine would "you're assuming they're rational actors" be a criticism, or taken to be the same as "assume they were super soldiers".  Even worse when on my theory, they don't kill anybody without bombs backing them up and/or forcing their hand, while on yours they're more like super soldiers, taking on all of the school and police with just a gun. "Bombing, not school shooting" should be our "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here."

I truly believe it's nothing but filling a gap in the story with fan fiction. You wasted the second bomb, saying it already failed at 11;17, so have to conjure up this story for why they stop at 11:35.

Addendum:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I apologize for my misunderstanding your question. Reading your response leads me to think we actually agree more than disagree on this topic, we've just communicated it ineffectively.

I 100% agree that the reality was they were comoletely influenced by fantasy and video games and in no way super soldiers. They only, in their immature fantasies, believed they were playing that role, especially Eric. They in reality were nothing at all like their video game inspired fantasy of soldiers.

I apologize if I was unclear in my explanation. I see what you're saying, countering the claim that everything was completely random.

I might have misspoke, I believe they were being influenced by so many different factors, that their actions, while some would be considered rational at one point, only for a different stimuli or thought or emotion to influence the next course of action. It was NOT some existential explosion where they acted completely nonsensical and random.

When you look at their pathology, you can definitely see what may have influenced certain things they did or even their potential thought process. But their actions in the shooting the day of the shooting, weren't a continuous plan IMO. They were disjointed, which was to be expected with the contradictions they were facing, especially when their long idolized fantasy was nothing at all like the reality. They hadn't laid out a specific plan B or C so their subsequent actions were not planned, but spur of the moment based on different reactions to everything from the real life victims crying and begging, injuriess and deaths being a gorey reality, very unlike their video game characters, having the police show up with no bombs having gone off, etc.

I hope I'm a little more clear with that, and again my apologies for not communicating my thoughts as well as I should have in my original post.

My background as I've mentioned, is as a LCSW with a speciality in high risk youth, so my assessment of what I've learned about what they did that day is seen through my clinical social work lens and my experiences with teens that share components that are similar to certain characteristics with Eric and Dylan Of ciurse every person is unique and ai can only speak wirh certainty to my own clients and patients, while with Eric and Dylan it's more a mind exercise and speaking hypothetically.

nopenever wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

Even though they were sheltered teens, it does take something really sick to kill so many people so callously. You think they regretted what they did?

No I don't. If they lived longer, one or both of them may have grown to regret what they did.

At the time, they didnt gave the time or introspection to start the thought process that leads to regret. I think that after the adreniline wore off, their bomvs failed and they started shooting people at close range instead of from a distance, I think they became closer to a type of shell shock, if you will. Their bravado and energy began to fade. Their may have mocked their victims and one horrible things but I believe once that energy wore off, deep down they were not prepared to see the visceral effects of their carnage. They were in no way regretful or empathetic, they didn't think they were in the wrong. It was more if a shock of the reality of killing their classmates was nothing like the fantasy, it was much more horrific. But with everything going on in their heads, including their various psychopathies, they were not introspective. Their feelings were far more primal if that makes sense.

At the end I believe they realized they grand plan didn't turn out at all like it was supposed to, they were exhausted physically, emotionally and mentally, and just empty. They were backed into a corner, and still clinging onto their tattered fantasy, took their guns to their own heads.

Again for a disclaimer- I don't know this as fact or as certainty, and I obviously never worked with Eric or Dylan to be able to make a legitimate diagnosis. This is just what I've come to believe, mixing my LCSW background with all my knowledge of what happened.

milennialrebelette wrote:

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

No, I'm saying there's a single assumption to drop to make their actions rational instead of nonsensical; instead of going "so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less"  to every contradiction, one can drop the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17.  This bit of your response strikes me as what C. S. Lewis called "bulverism", 'to assume he is wrong, and explain his error', or 'so you're saying...", it's characterizing what is said rather than addressing what is said.

The usual theory I'm up against - which presumably you endorse instead, says they wanted to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17 because it's what soldiers would have done. That's how Cullen presents the reasoning for it. On the contrary, I think most of their idea of how to attack came from video games, hence what I said about pipe bombs creating a chain reaction.  

Very simply, I show a contradiction in the usual story, people don't want to accept that, and so they go "oh so you can explain everything huh". No, that seems a coping mechanism; I'm saying we have a contradiction here, please engage with it.  It is quite the peeve.

And no, I'm saying people are right when they say there was no plan B, and the usual story says both they had no plan B and that at 11:18, they enacted plan B.  My version has no contingencies. "No Plan B" or "Plan A" is the quickest way to title my theory. The usual story says shooting from the stairs was a contingency, assuming they were gonna start at 11:17; it wasn't.  So a joke to say "you must think they had contingency for everything".  Hard to read on from there.  

Rather, I think the library was improvised, which is what everyone believes. So, hard to hold that against me. My point isn't they had a contingency for everything; my point is there is no story of plan A where the library massacre as improvised plan B makes any sense. Not a bad answer on the usual theory; no answer on the usual theory. Just shrug and say well there were windows and books and people in there.  

The library massacre is nothing like shooting from the parking lot, it's more like what happens in NBK.doc, wherein they talk of planning to enter the cafeteria. Surely the cafeteria was where the majority of the murder was supposed to happen. It's not a stretch to say they were supposed to be calling for white hats in the cafeteria, not the library, but when the first bomb failed and the cafeteria emptied from their shooting early and outside, they went to the second thing that the second bomb could still get. Hell, Dylan even entered the cafeteria for a moment.

That's not "they wrote down a contingency for everything", that's "they werent insane and their actions had reasons." Again, I must be really, really, really bad at expressing myself. Or people don't want to hear it, and don't read it.  Shorter paragraphs doesn't seem to help.

"Being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different."

This and the vast majority of the post is the paradigm case of a just so story that I've heard a thousand times.  And it's a just so story predicated on both bombs failing at 11:17 and confusing the bombing for a mere shooting. Then, there's no reason they stopped, except for at exactly 11:35 they couldn't take it any more.  Why then? They don't even think to give an answer.  They were just fine shooting people in the face from 11:19 to 11:34. And planning a year before that. And they had already signed all those kids deaths warrants by planting bombs. Serendipitous for Dylan to predict it will be "the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes."

It also does no explanatory work. Doesn't address any of the questions raised. Despite "all these reasons",  I don't see any reasons or reasoning. I don't see any facts from that day referenced, other than Eric's nose which did nothing to stop the massacre. When you start going "everything became random" understand that's literally synonymous with "here's where the usual theory fails." It's not that you or anybody else is dumb either, it's that they have to make excuses for this dumb narrative.

Either, you can tell some unfalsifiable and implausible just so story about their private mental states "well you see at 11:35 the fire alarm made a specific ping noise that triggered Dylan's C Fibers into the axon terminal and that gave him a sad and all of the sudden they were tired of murdering", or something entirely rational and concrete and consistent with their planning and callousness, the second bomb failed, which all the evidence cited above supports, compared to nothing but story.  They didn't leave the library to have a cry, they left it to make the bomb go off. Anything else is eisegesis.

Only with Columbine would "you're assuming they're rational actors" be a criticism, or taken to be the same as "assume they were super soldiers".  Even worse when on my theory, they don't kill anybody without bombs backing them up and/or forcing their hand, while on yours they're more like super soldiers, taking on all of the school and police with just a gun. "Bombing, not school shooting" should be our "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here."

I truly believe it's nothing but filling a gap in the story with fan fiction. You wasted the second bomb, saying it already failed at 11;17, so have to conjure up this story for why they stop at 11:35.

Addendum:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I apologize for my misunderstanding your question. Reading your response leads me to think we actually agree more than disagree on this topic, we've just communicated it ineffectively.

I 100% agree that the reality was they were comoletely influenced by fantasy and video games and in no way super soldiers. They only, in their immature fantasies, believed they were playing that role, especially Eric. They in reality were nothing at all like their video game inspired fantasy of soldiers.

I apologize if I was unclear in my explanation. I see what you're saying, countering the claim that everything was completely random.

I might have misspoke, I believe they were being influenced by so many different factors, that their actions, while some would be considered rational at one point, only for a different stimuli or thought or emotion to influence the next course of action. It was NOT some existential explosion where they acted completely nonsensical and random.

When you look at their pathology, you can definitely see what may have influenced certain things they did or even their potential thought process. But their actions in the shooting the day of the shooting, weren't a continuous plan IMO. They were disjointed, which was to be expected with the contradictions they were facing, especially when their long idolized fantasy was nothing at all like the reality. They hadn't laid out a specific plan B or C so their subsequent actions were not planned, but spur of the moment based on different reactions to everything from the real life victims crying and begging, injuriess and deaths being a gorey reality, very unlike their video game characters, having the police show up with no bombs having gone off,  etc.

I hope I'm a little more clear with that, and again my apologies for not communicating my thoughts as well as I should have in my original post.

My background as I've mentioned, is as a LCSW with a speciality in high risk youth, so my assessment of what I've learned about what they did that day is seen through my clinical social work lens and my experiences with teens that share components that are similar to certain characteristics with Eric and Dylan  Of ciurse every person is unique and ai can only speak wirh certainty to my own clients and patients, while with Eric and Dylan it's more a mind exercise and speaking hypothetically.

Consider this one for the idea that the library massacre was supposed to happen in the cafeteria: Dylan already mentioned "blowing up stuff" in Eric's yearbook, which could mean tossing pipe bombs, but of course taken literally would include the cafeteria bombs, yet still mentions "our revenge in the commons." Crystal Woodman also said during the library massacre they talked about it being their revenge.

The entire reason for thinking that the parking lot was plan A instead, is based on 3 facts:
1) Their cars were in the parking lot
2) They began shooting on the stairs at 11:19
3) One of Dylan's notes say 11:17 for bombs are set.

With 3) it means 2) was "plan B", and they assume 1) shows you plan A. But that's the stupidest plan A ever. Consider if what had actually happened, kids running out and up the cafeteria stairs, happened out while the perps were out in the parking lot. Zero kills, with their backs to approaching police. Their guns were not tied to their cars, and their cars were bombs, not turrets. Worse, no witnesses or other facts support it.

So, if that inference about plan A is false, it means at least one of the above is false. Obviously, 3) is false. Dylan has other notes saying 11:17, and the notes saying 11:17 say the stairs was plan A!  Also, 11:19 to any normal human with five fingers should make you think 11:20, not 11:17.  Hence a bit peeved at saying I think they wrote all their plans down - I don't trust them when they do.  Also, Dylan said plant bombs at 11:09, and set car bombs for 11:18, and not a single person accepts those as correct. Really and truly the best kill shot for the idea that they failed at 11:17 is reading the library witnesses, as clearly one was gonna go off during the library massacre.

Annoying how Krabbe and Gleason get right that they started on the stairs, but still say the bomb failed at 11:17, which makes no sense unless you also do the parking lot nonsense.  They're more correct, but they're annoyingly more logically inconsistent. They accept 1 through 3 but realize the parking lot narrative is false, without realizing that means something has to give with 1 through 3.

So, we need to reconstruct plan A ourselves, based on starting on the stairs being plan A, and without bomb failure until after they begin. I'm confident of that. I revise my attempt at it all the time, but wager I have by far the best simply because other people ignore the above.

And I get it, my background is minimal but in philosophy (BA), so I think about the logic of the case. Still, I beg you, try denying 3) and tell me with a straight face anything they did is 'disjointed', or that explaining their actions without it being disjointed isn't a strength of a theory. The usual theory is disjointed and relies on private psychological states because it's false.

For something not often mentioned for the video game influence: Before leaving the library, quite possibly to kill themselves if they can make the second bomb work. Dylan shoots a tv, says "one more thing" or something like it, and smashes the chair over the desk.  So, it seems like shooting a tv and smashing a chair were something he wanted to make sure to do. Both of those can be done in Duke Nukem 3D (not in Doom). The same for the glass trophy case earlier, though the issue of jocks can confound that one. I've never even seen Duke Nukem 3D's first ending sequence compared with Eric's brother being the kicker.

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

No, I'm saying there's a single assumption to drop to make their actions rational instead of nonsensical; instead of going "so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less"  to every contradiction, one can drop the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17.  This bit of your response strikes me as what C. S. Lewis called "bulverism", 'to assume he is wrong, and explain his error', or 'so you're saying...", it's characterizing what is said rather than addressing what is said.

The usual theory I'm up against - which presumably you endorse instead, says they wanted to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17 because it's what soldiers would have done. That's how Cullen presents the reasoning for it. On the contrary, I think most of their idea of how to attack came from video games, hence what I said about pipe bombs creating a chain reaction.  

Very simply, I show a contradiction in the usual story, people don't want to accept that, and so they go "oh so you can explain everything huh". No, that seems a coping mechanism; I'm saying we have a contradiction here, please engage with it.  It is quite the peeve.

And no, I'm saying people are right when they say there was no plan B, and the usual story says both they had no plan B and that at 11:18, they enacted plan B.  My version has no contingencies. "No Plan B" or "Plan A" is the quickest way to title my theory. The usual story says shooting from the stairs was a contingency, assuming they were gonna start at 11:17; it wasn't.  So a joke to say "you must think they had contingency for everything".  Hard to read on from there.  

Rather, I think the library was improvised, which is what everyone believes. So, hard to hold that against me. My point isn't they had a contingency for everything; my point is there is no story of plan A where the library massacre as improvised plan B makes any sense. Not a bad answer on the usual theory; no answer on the usual theory. Just shrug and say well there were windows and books and people in there.  

The library massacre is nothing like shooting from the parking lot, it's more like what happens in NBK.doc, wherein they talk of planning to enter the cafeteria. Surely the cafeteria was where the majority of the murder was supposed to happen. It's not a stretch to say they were supposed to be calling for white hats in the cafeteria, not the library, but when the first bomb failed and the cafeteria emptied from their shooting early and outside, they went to the second thing that the second bomb could still get. Hell, Dylan even entered the cafeteria for a moment.

That's not "they wrote down a contingency for everything", that's "they werent insane and their actions had reasons." Again, I must be really, really, really bad at expressing myself. Or people don't want to hear it, and don't read it.  Shorter paragraphs doesn't seem to help.

"Being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different."

This and the vast majority of the post is the paradigm case of a just so story that I've heard a thousand times.  And it's a just so story predicated on both bombs failing at 11:17 and confusing the bombing for a mere shooting. Then, there's no reason they stopped, except for at exactly 11:35 they couldn't take it any more.  Why then? They don't even think to give an answer.  They were just fine shooting people in the face from 11:19 to 11:34. And planning a year before that. And they had already signed all those kids deaths warrants by planting bombs. Serendipitous for Dylan to predict it will be "the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes."

It also does no explanatory work. Doesn't address any of the questions raised. Despite "all these reasons",  I don't see any reasons or reasoning. I don't see any facts from that day referenced, other than Eric's nose which did nothing to stop the massacre. When you start going "everything became random" understand that's literally synonymous with "here's where the usual theory fails." It's not that you or anybody else is dumb either, it's that they have to make excuses for this dumb narrative.

Either, you can tell some unfalsifiable and implausible just so story about their private mental states "well you see at 11:35 the fire alarm made a specific ping noise that triggered Dylan's C Fibers into the axon terminal and that gave him a sad and all of the sudden they were tired of murdering", or something entirely rational and concrete and consistent with their planning and callousness, the second bomb failed, which all the evidence cited above supports, compared to nothing but story.  They didn't leave the library to have a cry, they left it to make the bomb go off. Anything else is eisegesis.

Only with Columbine would "you're assuming they're rational actors" be a criticism, or taken to be the same as "assume they were super soldiers".  Even worse when on my theory, they don't kill anybody without bombs backing them up and/or forcing their hand, while on yours they're more like super soldiers, taking on all of the school and police with just a gun. "Bombing, not school shooting" should be our "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here."

I truly believe it's nothing but filling a gap in the story with fan fiction. You wasted the second bomb, saying it already failed at 11;17, so have to conjure up this story for why they stop at 11:35.

Addendum:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I apologize for my misunderstanding your question. Reading your response leads me to think we actually agree more than disagree on this topic, we've just communicated it ineffectively.

I 100% agree that the reality was they were comoletely influenced by fantasy and video games and in no way super soldiers. They only, in their immature fantasies, believed they were playing that role, especially Eric. They in reality were nothing at all like their video game inspired fantasy of soldiers.

I apologize if I was unclear in my explanation. I see what you're saying, countering the claim that everything was completely random.

I might have misspoke, I believe they were being influenced by so many different factors, that their actions, while some would be considered rational at one point, only for a different stimuli or thought or emotion to influence the next course of action. It was NOT some existential explosion where they acted completely nonsensical and random.

When you look at their pathology, you can definitely see what may have influenced certain things they did or even their potential thought process. But their actions in the shooting the day of the shooting, weren't a continuous plan IMO. They were disjointed, which was to be expected with the contradictions they were facing, especially when their long idolized fantasy was nothing at all like the reality. They hadn't laid out a specific plan B or C so their subsequent actions were not planned, but spur of the moment based on different reactions to everything from the real life victims crying and begging, injuriess and deaths being a gorey reality, very unlike their video game characters, having the police show up with no bombs having gone off,  etc.

I hope I'm a little more clear with that, and again my apologies for not communicating my thoughts as well as I should have in my original post.

My background as I've mentioned, is as a LCSW with a speciality in high risk youth, so my assessment of what I've learned about what they did that day is seen through my clinical social work lens and my experiences with teens that share components that are similar to certain characteristics with Eric and Dylan  Of ciurse every person is unique and ai can only speak wirh certainty to my own clients and patients, while with Eric and Dylan it's more a mind exercise and speaking hypothetically.

Consider this one for the idea that the library massacre was supposed to happen in the cafeteria: Dylan already mentioned "blowing up stuff" in Eric's yearbook, which could mean tossing pipe bombs, but of course taken literally would include the cafeteria bombs, yet still mentions "our revenge in the commons." Crystal Woodman also said during the library massacre they talked about it being their revenge.

The entire reason for thinking that the parking lot was plan A instead, is based on 3 facts:
1) Their cars were in the parking lot
2) They began shooting on the stairs at 11:19
3) One of Dylan's notes say 11:17 for bombs are set.

With 3) it means 2) was "plan B", and they assume 1) shows you plan A. But that's the stupidest plan A ever. Consider if what had actually happened, kids running out and up the cafeteria stairs, happened out while the perps were out in the parking lot. Zero kills, with their backs to approaching police. Their guns were not tied to their cars, and their cars were bombs, not turrets. Worse, no witnesses or other facts support it.

So, if that inference about plan A is false, it means at least one of the above is false. Obviously, 3) is false. Dylan has other notes saying 11:17, and the notes saying 11:17 say the stairs was plan A!  Also, 11:19 to any normal human with five fingers should make you think 11:20, not 11:17.  Hence a bit peeved at saying I think they wrote all their plans down - I don't trust them when they do.  Also, Dylan said plant bombs at 11:09, and set car bombs for 11:18, and not a single person accepts those as correct. Really and truly the best kill shot for the idea that they failed at 11:17 is reading the library witnesses, as clearly one was gonna go off during the library massacre.

Annoying how Krabbe and Gleason get right that they started on the stairs, but still say the bomb failed at 11:17, which makes no sense unless you also do the parking lot nonsense.  They're more correct, but they're annoyingly more logically inconsistent. They accept 1 through 3 but realize the parking lot narrative is false, without realizing that means something has to give with 1 through 3.

So, we need to reconstruct plan A ourselves, based on starting on the stairs being plan A, and without bomb failure until after they begin. I'm confident of that. I revise my attempt at it all the time, but wager I have by far the best simply because other people ignore the above.

And I get it, my background is minimal but in philosophy (BA), so I think about the logic of the case. Still, I beg you, try denying 3) and tell me with a straight face anything they did is 'disjointed', or that explaining their actions without it being disjointed isn't a strength of a theory. The usual theory is disjointed and relies on private psychological states because it's false.

You could argue from the very beginning the way they acted in the library was pretty disjointed. They passed it multiple times before deciding to go in.They were mocking and shooting at one point, laughing, the "conversation" with Val wasn't clear, concise or decisive,, their skipping kids at random.

if you disagree with that, after they left library, though they said everyone would die anyone from the bombs, up to the point all their bombs had failed. Maybe is was bluser, maybe it was true hope that maybe one would work.

The time I believe their actions were the most clearly indecisive and disjointed is when they wandered the halls after. Passing class after class of full students aimlessly with no direction. Instead of even trying to fire into the rooms that they could see held frightened classmates, they fired at trophy cases and lockers, threw a few crickets randomly.

I believe that's when their pumping adreniline really had faded, that whatever their psychopathies they were never psychotic, so they had to know in some capacity their plan hadn't worked. If they were clear minded and decisive and still had their mind on their goal, they could have easily shifted to firing at as many students and teachers as they could until they were out of ammo. Instead they passed by these classrooms, many witnesses reported their apparent disconnect and aimlessness. Even their end plan seemed to fail, how could they go down in a glorious firefight against the authorities when they wouldn't even enter the school.

Those acts, plus having a lot of remaining ammo and knowing there were rooms of students if they desired they could shoot their way in or at least shoot through the windows, means only a few things could have happened. They realized reality wasn't as much fun as their fantasies, especially when theur plans failed. Something made them want to stop killing, like guilt or remorse, which I don't believe was the case since remorse and grief take introspection and time to develop. If they got away and went on the run or were even caught and locked up, its very possible at least one of them might have developed that deeper state of mind. But given the timeliness, their actions and the reality they were sheltered teens who only knew fantasy violence not reality, they were running on far more primal basic feelings at this point. I believe that was likely, as that's generally what has been established happens immediately after mass violence occurs especially the younger and more naive and psychologically underdeveloped perpetrators. I know I read some great research papers about that general topic,, I'll see if I can dig them up and I'll share them.

Instead they came back to the library, did random and fairly meaningless things like knocking bookshelves over or shooting at computers. In the end they didn't right out last words in some sort of philosophic glory. After their video manifestos, if they were their rational selves,, they easily could have penned something in the library as their last hooray, especially Eric, as a continuance of the dominant powerful figure he believed he was, the police weren't actively closing in. But it's as if they just gave up and ended it, completely off the playbook, in a way they never fantasized would be a possibility.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I forgot to mention that it's really awesome you have a background in philosophy! I've always found it really interesting but to be honest sometimes it's a bit overwhelming. It's such a complex intellectual field and I always admire people have a background in or just have a solid grasp of it.

milennialrebelette wrote:

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

No, I'm saying there's a single assumption to drop to make their actions rational instead of nonsensical; instead of going "so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less"  to every contradiction, one can drop the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17.  This bit of your response strikes me as what C. S. Lewis called "bulverism", 'to assume he is wrong, and explain his error', or 'so you're saying...", it's characterizing what is said rather than addressing what is said.

The usual theory I'm up against - which presumably you endorse instead, says they wanted to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17 because it's what soldiers would have done. That's how Cullen presents the reasoning for it. On the contrary, I think most of their idea of how to attack came from video games, hence what I said about pipe bombs creating a chain reaction.  

Very simply, I show a contradiction in the usual story, people don't want to accept that, and so they go "oh so you can explain everything huh". No, that seems a coping mechanism; I'm saying we have a contradiction here, please engage with it.  It is quite the peeve.

And no, I'm saying people are right when they say there was no plan B, and the usual story says both they had no plan B and that at 11:18, they enacted plan B.  My version has no contingencies. "No Plan B" or "Plan A" is the quickest way to title my theory. The usual story says shooting from the stairs was a contingency, assuming they were gonna start at 11:17; it wasn't.  So a joke to say "you must think they had contingency for everything".  Hard to read on from there.  

Rather, I think the library was improvised, which is what everyone believes. So, hard to hold that against me. My point isn't they had a contingency for everything; my point is there is no story of plan A where the library massacre as improvised plan B makes any sense. Not a bad answer on the usual theory; no answer on the usual theory. Just shrug and say well there were windows and books and people in there.  

The library massacre is nothing like shooting from the parking lot, it's more like what happens in NBK.doc, wherein they talk of planning to enter the cafeteria. Surely the cafeteria was where the majority of the murder was supposed to happen. It's not a stretch to say they were supposed to be calling for white hats in the cafeteria, not the library, but when the first bomb failed and the cafeteria emptied from their shooting early and outside, they went to the second thing that the second bomb could still get. Hell, Dylan even entered the cafeteria for a moment.

That's not "they wrote down a contingency for everything", that's "they werent insane and their actions had reasons." Again, I must be really, really, really bad at expressing myself. Or people don't want to hear it, and don't read it.  Shorter paragraphs doesn't seem to help.

"Being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different."

This and the vast majority of the post is the paradigm case of a just so story that I've heard a thousand times.  And it's a just so story predicated on both bombs failing at 11:17 and confusing the bombing for a mere shooting. Then, there's no reason they stopped, except for at exactly 11:35 they couldn't take it any more.  Why then? They don't even think to give an answer.  They were just fine shooting people in the face from 11:19 to 11:34. And planning a year before that. And they had already signed all those kids deaths warrants by planting bombs. Serendipitous for Dylan to predict it will be "the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes."

It also does no explanatory work. Doesn't address any of the questions raised. Despite "all these reasons",  I don't see any reasons or reasoning. I don't see any facts from that day referenced, other than Eric's nose which did nothing to stop the massacre. When you start going "everything became random" understand that's literally synonymous with "here's where the usual theory fails." It's not that you or anybody else is dumb either, it's that they have to make excuses for this dumb narrative.

Either, you can tell some unfalsifiable and implausible just so story about their private mental states "well you see at 11:35 the fire alarm made a specific ping noise that triggered Dylan's C Fibers into the axon terminal and that gave him a sad and all of the sudden they were tired of murdering", or something entirely rational and concrete and consistent with their planning and callousness, the second bomb failed, which all the evidence cited above supports, compared to nothing but story.  They didn't leave the library to have a cry, they left it to make the bomb go off. Anything else is eisegesis.

Only with Columbine would "you're assuming they're rational actors" be a criticism, or taken to be the same as "assume they were super soldiers".  Even worse when on my theory, they don't kill anybody without bombs backing them up and/or forcing their hand, while on yours they're more like super soldiers, taking on all of the school and police with just a gun. "Bombing, not school shooting" should be our "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here."

I truly believe it's nothing but filling a gap in the story with fan fiction. You wasted the second bomb, saying it already failed at 11;17, so have to conjure up this story for why they stop at 11:35.

Addendum:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I apologize for my misunderstanding your question. Reading your response leads me to think we actually agree more than disagree on this topic, we've just communicated it ineffectively.

I 100% agree that the reality was they were comoletely influenced by fantasy and video games and in no way super soldiers. They only, in their immature fantasies, believed they were playing that role, especially Eric. They in reality were nothing at all like their video game inspired fantasy of soldiers.

I apologize if I was unclear in my explanation. I see what you're saying, countering the claim that everything was completely random.

I might have misspoke, I believe they were being influenced by so many different factors, that their actions, while some would be considered rational at one point, only for a different stimuli or thought or emotion to influence the next course of action. It was NOT some existential explosion where they acted completely nonsensical and random.

When you look at their pathology, you can definitely see what may have influenced certain things they did or even their potential thought process. But their actions in the shooting the day of the shooting, weren't a continuous plan IMO. They were disjointed, which was to be expected with the contradictions they were facing, especially when their long idolized fantasy was nothing at all like the reality. They hadn't laid out a specific plan B or C so their subsequent actions were not planned, but spur of the moment based on different reactions to everything from the real life victims crying and begging, injuriess and deaths being a gorey reality, very unlike their video game characters, having the police show up with no bombs having gone off,  etc.

I hope I'm a little more clear with that, and again my apologies for not communicating my thoughts as well as I should have in my original post.

My background as I've mentioned, is as a LCSW with a speciality in high risk youth, so my assessment of what I've learned about what they did that day is seen through my clinical social work lens and my experiences with teens that share components that are similar to certain characteristics with Eric and Dylan  Of ciurse every person is unique and ai can only speak wirh certainty to my own clients and patients, while with Eric and Dylan it's more a mind exercise and speaking hypothetically.

Consider this one for the idea that the library massacre was supposed to happen in the cafeteria: Dylan already mentioned "blowing up stuff" in Eric's yearbook, which could mean tossing pipe bombs, but of course taken literally would include the cafeteria bombs, yet still mentions "our revenge in the commons." Crystal Woodman also said during the library massacre they talked about it being their revenge.

The entire reason for thinking that the parking lot was plan A instead, is based on 3 facts:
1) Their cars were in the parking lot
2) They began shooting on the stairs at 11:19
3) One of Dylan's notes say 11:17 for bombs are set.

With 3) it means 2) was "plan B", and they assume 1) shows you plan A. But that's the stupidest plan A ever. Consider if what had actually happened, kids running out and up the cafeteria stairs, happened out while the perps were out in the parking lot. Zero kills, with their backs to approaching police. Their guns were not tied to their cars, and their cars were bombs, not turrets. Worse, no witnesses or other facts support it.

So, if that inference about plan A is false, it means at least one of the above is false. Obviously, 3) is false. Dylan has other notes saying 11:17, and the notes saying 11:17 say the stairs was plan A!  Also, 11:19 to any normal human with five fingers should make you think 11:20, not 11:17.  Hence a bit peeved at saying I think they wrote all their plans down - I don't trust them when they do.  Also, Dylan said plant bombs at 11:09, and set car bombs for 11:18, and not a single person accepts those as correct. Really and truly the best kill shot for the idea that they failed at 11:17 is reading the library witnesses, as clearly one was gonna go off during the library massacre.

Annoying how Krabbe and Gleason get right that they started on the stairs, but still say the bomb failed at 11:17, which makes no sense unless you also do the parking lot nonsense.  They're more correct, but they're annoyingly more logically inconsistent. They accept 1 through 3 but realize the parking lot narrative is false, without realizing that means something has to give with 1 through 3.

So, we need to reconstruct plan A ourselves, based on starting on the stairs being plan A, and without bomb failure until after they begin. I'm confident of that. I revise my attempt at it all the time, but wager I have by far the best simply because other people ignore the above.

And I get it, my background is minimal but in philosophy (BA), so I think about the logic of the case. Still, I beg you, try denying 3) and tell me with a straight face anything they did is 'disjointed', or that explaining their actions without it being disjointed isn't a strength of a theory. The usual theory is disjointed and relies on private psychological states because it's false.

You could argue from the very beginning the way they acted in the library was pretty disjointed. They passed it multiple times before deciding to go in.They were mocking and shooting at one point, laughing, the "conversation" with Val wasn't clear,  concise or decisive,, their skipping kids at random.

if you disagree with that, after they left library, though they said everyone would die anyone from the bombs, up to the point all their bombs had failed. Maybe is was bluser, maybe it was true hope that maybe one would work.

The time I believe their actions were the most clearly indecisive and disjointed is when they wandered the halls after. Passing class after class of full students aimlessly with no direction. Instead of even trying to fire into the rooms that they could see held frightened classmates, they fired at trophy cases and lockers, threw a few crickets randomly.

I believe that's when their pumping adreniline really had faded, that whatever their psychopathies they were never psychotic, so they had to know in some capacity their plan hadn't worked. If they were clear minded and decisive and still had their mind on their goal, they could have easily shifted to firing at as many students and teachers as they could until they were out of ammo. Instead they passed by these classrooms, many witnesses reported their apparent disconnect and aimlessness. Even their end plan seemed to fail, how could they go down in a glorious firefight against the authorities when they wouldn't even enter the school.

Those acts, plus having a lot of remaining ammo and knowing there were rooms of students if they desired they could shoot their way in or at least shoot through the windows, means only a few things could have happened. They realized reality wasn't as much fun as their fantasies, especially when theur plans failed. Something made them want to stop killing, like guilt or remorse, which I don't believe was the case since remorse and grief take introspection and time to develop. If they got away and went on the run or were even caught and locked up, its very possible at least one of them might have developed that deeper state of mind. But given the timeliness, their actions and the reality they were sheltered teens who only knew fantasy violence not reality, they were running on far more primal basic feelings at this point. I believe that was likely, as that's generally what has been established happens immediately after mass violence occurs especially the younger and more naive and psychologically underdeveloped perpetrators. I know I read some great research papers about that general topic,, I'll see if I can dig them up and I'll share them.

Instead they came back to the library, did random and fairly meaningless things like knocking bookshelves over or shooting at computers. In the end they didn't right out last words in some sort of philosophic glory. After their video manifestos, if they were their rational selves,, they easily could have penned something in the library as their last hooray, especially Eric, as a continuance of the dominant powerful figure he believed he was, the police weren't actively closing in. But it's as if they just gave up and ended it, completely off the playbook, in a way they never fantasized would be a possibility.

This is just all doubling down on assuming the bombs failed at 11:17 which is going to be narrative anybody familiar with the case has heard from day one. Yeah, if they failed at 11:17, then we have to come up with all this make believe, but there's no reason to assume that.

I don't feel like my point was addressed, which I feel is as rigorous as I can explain it. There are five choices:

Deny 1) They had cars in the parking lot
Deny 2) They started shooting on the stairs at 11:19
Deny 3) Both bombs were set for 11:17
Deny 4) Some basic inference, say like the law of non contradiction
Accept 5) They were going to shoot from the parking lot and changed plans to the stairs in one minute (the usual narrative, dumb)

1), 2), and 3) together with 4), is what yields the error of the conclusion 5)

Denying 1) or 2) is contradicting basic facts
Denying 4) or accepting 5) is absurd.
But denying 3) is supported by tons of evidence.

There is no sixth option. If you bite the bullet on the absurdity of 5), then you will have nothing but a story to explain why they stop at 11:35, and yeah the whole thing will be just an unplanned irrational psychotic shooting.

On top of tons of evidence, including my profile pic, it makes more sense for the bombs to be set at different times. If they were set for the same time, just make one bomb the size of two, rather than two. Why is it so easy to think the diversion, cafeteria, and car bombs were all set for different times, but not for each diversion, each cafeteria, and each car bomb set for different times? Why did Eric have "six clocks" if he only really needed three?

Yes, the library massacre was improvised and took them a second to enter rather than was a spontaneous reflex. That doesn't mean irrational or disjointed. They were still trying to make the first bomb explode, and figure out what to do given the cafeteria was emptied of people and people didn't run out the library emergency exit. And the cops were there. So, toss some pipe bombs into the cafeteria, shoot out the west entrance at cops, etc, before going into the library, telling them there's a live bomb, telling them they had expected them to get up and run, presumably out the emergency exit they started by. If cops rush in when they shoot at them or students in the library, they perish in the second bomb with the perps.

While if both bombs failed at 11:17 the library massacre makes absolutely no sense just go to the bombs. Do what you saw on camera at 11:40 at 11:30.  Read the link I gave; literally the majority of library witnesses support me that there was a live bomb.

"Instead of even trying to fire into the room" Doors were locked and several barricaded with tables and such by that point, second bomb had failed which was probably for when cops rushed in and meant the plan was really tits up, building was surrounded by cops they had expected to rush in, and they'd be pretty dumb to corner themselves in a class room.

Really, one should assume they were rational, then come up with a story. Not come up with a story, and, as long as it works, disregard if it makes them irrational.

The philosophy lingo would be it needs to be necessary, not merely sufficient. Yeah, if their adrenaline stopped working at 11:35 exactly for no reason, then that would explain their stopping at 11:35. But so would my story about the fire alarm making a magic triggering sound at 11:35 for no reason. That's why I said that. One should look the other direction so to speak, explain "if they stop shooting at 11:35, then their adrenaline stopped working", which is absurd.

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

cakeman wrote:

milennialrebelette wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Correct me if I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to ask, but I think the main trouble you're having is because you're trying to find a rational explanation to all their actions, as though they had complex detailed plans that laid out contingencies for every potential outcome and they were like elite well trained special forces soldiers being able to carry those out.

Even if they were older, mature, psychologically tested and trained elite, there's still the potential for human error. Of course they were far from that, they were two immature, highly emotional, teenage boys, likely with their own unique psychopathies and dysfunctions, each of these qualities likely to produce a distortion between reality and fantasy,  and combined together making their fantasy realm complex and detailed but with little to no connection to reality at all.

Despite all the BS about how they were so desensitized to violence because of movies and video games of the era, it's one thing to think of playing a video game and getting revenge against faceless pixelated generic figures no matter how much they pretended those were representations of their real life anger but when push came to shove they were shooting at real human beings, kids and teachers they saw everyday, with parents just like them, who cried and begged in agony and terror for their lives, their weapons not leading to clean kills but instead creating very gory very real injuries, very different than even the best quality video game especially back in the 90s. Before the shooting they may have been immersed in fantasy violence but they had no experience with real violence and graphic injury and death. They talked a big game but they'd been coddled in their suburban existence, they weren't from war torm areas where kids were forced to become child soldiers, or even from NE Denver where 1994 was declared thr Summer of Violence as a proliferation of drive by and gang violence led to infants and toddlers dying from ricochet bullets. I highly doubt either boy could point out Montbello or Northeast Park Hill on a map. They may as well been on a different planet from those realities.

So being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different.

All these reasons, in my opinion of course since there is some speculation on my behalf, a lot based off my professional background as an LCSW with at risk youth, led to chaos, as soon as the bombs didn't go off and they started shooting there was no real plan or rationale to most of their actions. They planned for bombs to go off but they didn't, when they started shooting students and seeing the results, they weren't prepared for that as much as they blustered. Even physically the adrenaline would wear off, not even to mention Eric's likely broken nose. They would been in emotional, physical and mental overdrive. A random memory prompting one trigger squeeze, the disgusting sight of a shotgun caused headwound the next, physical agony led to what came after, all disconnected and often contradictory.

Their plans were all based in fantasy so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less. I truly believe they died shell shocked but horrified, manic but exhausted, overwhelmed but empty, confused and broken. Very very different than the powerful icons they'd fantasized their glorious revenge would make them.

No, I'm saying there's a single assumption to drop to make their actions rational instead of nonsensical; instead of going "so when reality hit they were completely off script and random more or less"  to every contradiction, one can drop the assumption that both bombs failed at 11:17.  This bit of your response strikes me as what C. S. Lewis called "bulverism", 'to assume he is wrong, and explain his error', or 'so you're saying...", it's characterizing what is said rather than addressing what is said.

The usual theory I'm up against - which presumably you endorse instead, says they wanted to shoot from the parking lot at 11:17 because it's what soldiers would have done. That's how Cullen presents the reasoning for it. On the contrary, I think most of their idea of how to attack came from video games, hence what I said about pipe bombs creating a chain reaction.  

Very simply, I show a contradiction in the usual story, people don't want to accept that, and so they go "oh so you can explain everything huh". No, that seems a coping mechanism; I'm saying we have a contradiction here, please engage with it.  It is quite the peeve.

And no, I'm saying people are right when they say there was no plan B, and the usual story says both they had no plan B and that at 11:18, they enacted plan B.  My version has no contingencies. "No Plan B" or "Plan A" is the quickest way to title my theory. The usual story says shooting from the stairs was a contingency, assuming they were gonna start at 11:17; it wasn't.  So a joke to say "you must think they had contingency for everything".  Hard to read on from there.  

Rather, I think the library was improvised, which is what everyone believes. So, hard to hold that against me. My point isn't they had a contingency for everything; my point is there is no story of plan A where the library massacre as improvised plan B makes any sense. Not a bad answer on the usual theory; no answer on the usual theory. Just shrug and say well there were windows and books and people in there.  

The library massacre is nothing like shooting from the parking lot, it's more like what happens in NBK.doc, wherein they talk of planning to enter the cafeteria. Surely the cafeteria was where the majority of the murder was supposed to happen. It's not a stretch to say they were supposed to be calling for white hats in the cafeteria, not the library, but when the first bomb failed and the cafeteria emptied from their shooting early and outside, they went to the second thing that the second bomb could still get. Hell, Dylan even entered the cafeteria for a moment.

That's not "they wrote down a contingency for everything", that's "they werent insane and their actions had reasons." Again, I must be really, really, really bad at expressing myself. Or people don't want to hear it, and don't read it.  Shorter paragraphs doesn't seem to help.

"Being immature teenagers, with two different psychopathies, they were in no way prepared for the consequences of their actions. Shooting anonymous students from a distance is one thing, seeing blood, bone fragments, etc and hearing the desperate cries and screams of other teenagers is something completely different."

This and the vast majority of the post is the paradigm case of a just so story that I've heard a thousand times.  And it's a just so story predicated on both bombs failing at 11:17 and confusing the bombing for a mere shooting. Then, there's no reason they stopped, except for at exactly 11:35 they couldn't take it any more.  Why then? They don't even think to give an answer.  They were just fine shooting people in the face from 11:19 to 11:34. And planning a year before that. And they had already signed all those kids deaths warrants by planting bombs. Serendipitous for Dylan to predict it will be "the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes."

It also does no explanatory work. Doesn't address any of the questions raised. Despite "all these reasons",  I don't see any reasons or reasoning. I don't see any facts from that day referenced, other than Eric's nose which did nothing to stop the massacre. When you start going "everything became random" understand that's literally synonymous with "here's where the usual theory fails." It's not that you or anybody else is dumb either, it's that they have to make excuses for this dumb narrative.

Either, you can tell some unfalsifiable and implausible just so story about their private mental states "well you see at 11:35 the fire alarm made a specific ping noise that triggered Dylan's C Fibers into the axon terminal and that gave him a sad and all of the sudden they were tired of murdering", or something entirely rational and concrete and consistent with their planning and callousness, the second bomb failed, which all the evidence cited above supports, compared to nothing but story.  They didn't leave the library to have a cry, they left it to make the bomb go off. Anything else is eisegesis.

Only with Columbine would "you're assuming they're rational actors" be a criticism, or taken to be the same as "assume they were super soldiers".  Even worse when on my theory, they don't kill anybody without bombs backing them up and/or forcing their hand, while on yours they're more like super soldiers, taking on all of the school and police with just a gun. "Bombing, not school shooting" should be our "Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here."

I truly believe it's nothing but filling a gap in the story with fan fiction. You wasted the second bomb, saying it already failed at 11;17, so have to conjure up this story for why they stop at 11:35.

Addendum:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I apologize for my misunderstanding your question. Reading your response leads me to think we actually agree more than disagree on this topic, we've just communicated it ineffectively.

I 100% agree that the reality was they were comoletely influenced by fantasy and video games and in no way super soldiers. They only, in their immature fantasies, believed they were playing that role, especially Eric. They in reality were nothing at all like their video game inspired fantasy of soldiers.

I apologize if I was unclear in my explanation. I see what you're saying, countering the claim that everything was completely random.

I might have misspoke, I believe they were being influenced by so many different factors, that their actions, while some would be considered rational at one point, only for a different stimuli or thought or emotion to influence the next course of action. It was NOT some existential explosion where they acted completely nonsensical and random.

When you look at their pathology, you can definitely see what may have influenced certain things they did or even their potential thought process. But their actions in the shooting the day of the shooting, weren't a continuous plan IMO. They were disjointed, which was to be expected with the contradictions they were facing, especially when their long idolized fantasy was nothing at all like the reality. They hadn't laid out a specific plan B or C so their subsequent actions were not planned, but spur of the moment based on different reactions to everything from the real life victims crying and begging, injuriess and deaths being a gorey reality, very unlike their video game characters, having the police show up with no bombs having gone off,  etc.

I hope I'm a little more clear with that, and again my apologies for not communicating my thoughts as well as I should have in my original post.

My background as I've mentioned, is as a LCSW with a speciality in high risk youth, so my assessment of what I've learned about what they did that day is seen through my clinical social work lens and my experiences with teens that share components that are similar to certain characteristics with Eric and Dylan  Of ciurse every person is unique and ai can only speak wirh certainty to my own clients and patients, while with Eric and Dylan it's more a mind exercise and speaking hypothetically.

Consider this one for the idea that the library massacre was supposed to happen in the cafeteria: Dylan already mentioned "blowing up stuff" in Eric's yearbook, which could mean tossing pipe bombs, but of course taken literally would include the cafeteria bombs, yet still mentions "our revenge in the commons." Crystal Woodman also said during the library massacre they talked about it being their revenge.

The entire reason for thinking that the parking lot was plan A instead, is based on 3 facts:
1) Their cars were in the parking lot
2) They began shooting on the stairs at 11:19
3) One of Dylan's notes say 11:17 for bombs are set.

With 3) it means 2) was "plan B", and they assume 1) shows you plan A. But that's the stupidest plan A ever. Consider if what had actually happened, kids running out and up the cafeteria stairs, happened out while the perps were out in the parking lot. Zero kills, with their backs to approaching police. Their guns were not tied to their cars, and their cars were bombs, not turrets. Worse, no witnesses or other facts support it.

So, if that inference about plan A is false, it means at least one of the above is false. Obviously, 3) is false. Dylan has other notes saying 11:17, and the notes saying 11:17 say the stairs was plan A!  Also, 11:19 to any normal human with five fingers should make you think 11:20, not 11:17.  Hence a bit peeved at saying I think they wrote all their plans down - I don't trust them when they do.  Also, Dylan said plant bombs at 11:09, and set car bombs for 11:18, and not a single person accepts those as correct. Really and truly the best kill shot for the idea that they failed at 11:17 is reading the library witnesses, as clearly one was gonna go off during the library massacre.

Annoying how Krabbe and Gleason get right that they started on the stairs, but still say the bomb failed at 11:17, which makes no sense unless you also do the parking lot nonsense.  They're more correct, but they're annoyingly more logically inconsistent. They accept 1 through 3 but realize the parking lot narrative is false, without realizing that means something has to give with 1 through 3.

So, we need to reconstruct plan A ourselves, based on starting on the stairs being plan A, and without bomb failure until after they begin. I'm confident of that. I revise my attempt at it all the time, but wager I have by far the best simply because other people ignore the above.

And I get it, my background is minimal but in philosophy (BA), so I think about the logic of the case. Still, I beg you, try denying 3) and tell me with a straight face anything they did is 'disjointed', or that explaining their actions without it being disjointed isn't a strength of a theory. The usual theory is disjointed and relies on private psychological states because it's false.

You could argue from the very beginning the way they acted in the library was pretty disjointed. They passed it multiple times before deciding to go in.They were mocking and shooting at one point, laughing, the "conversation" with Val wasn't clear,  concise or decisive,, their skipping kids at random.

if you disagree with that, after they left library, though they said everyone would die anyone from the bombs, up to the point all their bombs had failed. Maybe is was bluser, maybe it was true hope that maybe one would work.

The time I believe their actions were the most clearly indecisive and disjointed is when they wandered the halls after. Passing class after class of full students aimlessly with no direction. Instead of even trying to fire into the rooms that they could see held frightened classmates, they fired at trophy cases and lockers, threw a few crickets randomly.

I believe that's when their pumping adreniline really had faded, that whatever their psychopathies they were never psychotic, so they had to know in some capacity their plan hadn't worked. If they were clear minded and decisive and still had their mind on their goal, they could have easily shifted to firing at as many students and teachers as they could until they were out of ammo. Instead they passed by these classrooms, many witnesses reported their apparent disconnect and aimlessness. Even their end plan seemed to fail, how could they go down in a glorious firefight against the authorities when they wouldn't even enter the school.

Those acts, plus having a lot of remaining ammo and knowing there were rooms of students if they desired they could shoot their way in or at least shoot through the windows, means only a few things could have happened. They realized reality wasn't as much fun as their fantasies, especially when theur plans failed. Something made them want to stop killing, like guilt or remorse, which I don't believe was the case since remorse and grief take introspection and time to develop. If they got away and went on the run or were even caught and locked up, its very possible at least one of them might have developed that deeper state of mind. But given the timeliness, their actions and the reality they were sheltered teens who only knew fantasy violence not reality, they were running on far more primal basic feelings at this point. I believe that was likely, as that's generally what has been established happens immediately after mass violence occurs especially the younger and more naive and psychologically underdeveloped perpetrators. I know I read some great research papers about that general topic,, I'll see if I can dig them up and I'll share them.

Instead they came back to the library, did random and fairly meaningless things like knocking bookshelves over or shooting at computers. In the end they didn't right out last words in some sort of philosophic glory. After their video manifestos, if they were their rational selves,, they easily could have penned something in the library as their last hooray, especially Eric, as a continuance of the dominant powerful figure he believed he was, the police weren't actively closing in. But it's as if they just gave up and ended it, completely off the playbook, in a way they never fantasized would be a possibility.

This is just all doubling down on assuming the bombs failed at 11:17 which is going to be narrative anybody familiar with the case has heard from day one. Yeah, if they failed at 11:17, then we have to come up with all this make believe, but there's no reason to assume that.

I don't feel like my point was addressed, which I feel is as rigorous as I can explain it. There are five choices:

Deny 1) They had cars in the parking lot
Deny 2) They started shooting on the stairs at 11:19
Deny 3) Both bombs were set for 11:17
Deny 4) Some basic inference, say like the law of non contradiction
Accept 5) They were going to shoot from the parking lot and changed plans to the stairs in one minute (the usual narrative, dumb)

1), 2), and 3) together with 4), is what yields the error of the conclusion 5)

Denying 1) or 2) is contradicting basic facts
Denying 4) or accepting 5) is absurd.
But denying 3) is supported by tons of evidence.

There is no sixth option. If you bite the bullet on the absurdity of 5), then you will have nothing but a story to explain why they stop at 11:35, and yeah the whole thing will be just an unplanned irrational psychotic shooting.

On top of tons of evidence, including my profile pic, it makes more sense for the bombs to be set at different times. If they were set for the same time, just make one bomb the size of two, rather than two. Why is it so easy to think the diversion, cafeteria, and car bombs were all set for different times, but not for each diversion, each cafeteria, and each car bomb set for different times? Why did Eric have "six clocks" if he only really needed three?

Yes, the library massacre was improvised and took them a second to enter rather than was a spontaneous reflex. That doesn't mean irrational or disjointed. They were still trying to make the first bomb explode, and figure out what to do given the cafeteria was emptied of people and people didn't run out the library emergency exit. And the cops were there. So, toss some pipe bombs into the cafeteria, shoot out the west entrance at cops, etc, before going into the library, telling them there's a live bomb, telling them they had expected them to get up and run, presumably out the emergency exit they started by. If cops rush in when they shoot at them or students in the library, they perish in the second bomb with the perps.

While if both bombs failed at 11:17 the library massacre makes absolutely no sense just go to the bombs. Do what you saw on camera at 11:40 at 11:30.  Read the link I gave; literally the majority of library witnesses support me that there was a live bomb.

"Instead of even trying to fire into the room" Doors were locked and several barricaded with tables and such by that point, second bomb had failed which was probably for when cops rushed in and meant the plan was really tits up, building was surrounded by cops they had expected to rush in, and they'd be pretty dumb to corner themselves in a class room.

Really, one should assume they were rational, then come up with a story. Not come up with a story, and, as long as it works, disregard if it makes them irrational.

The philosophy lingo would be it needs to be necessary, not merely sufficient. Yeah, if their adrenaline stopped working at 11:35 exactly for no reason, then that would explain their stopping at 11:35. But so would my story about the fire alarm making a magic triggering sound at 11:35 for no reason. That's why I said that. One should look the other direction so to speak, explain "if they stop shooting at 11:35, then their adrenaline stopped working", which is absurd.

Do you miss your high school? I do sometimes, because it actually it was a fun part of my life. I didn't hangout with the kids after the school, because I was still introverted and shy. Most people seemed to like me though.

Randy wrote:

Ok.
You are right.
I still don’t get what you are trying to say.
At all.

I have been known to be obtuse at times, but I don’t get what you are saying.

Despite English being my native and only language, I do honestly often struggle with it.

I am trying to say the popular narrative has both cafeteria bombs failing at 11:17 a. m. but I doubt that's the case. There is no good reason to think that. I think the first was set for 11:20 a. m., and the second of the two was set to go off at 11:35 a. m,  hence the library massacre stopped then, when Corey is shot. I believe this for reasons of logic and the evidence, but there are moral implications as well.

The popular narrative has no bomb to explain them stopping at exactly 11:35 a. m., so what is left is the fan fiction you see such as in the reddit thread "Expectations vs. reality;" just-so stories about adrenaline running out at exactly that time, or them feeling remorse at exactly that time. But they didn't feel any remorse. They planned for a year on killing everyone. They didn't go turn themselves in. They didn't go cry in a corner.  They went to go make the bomb go off that had just failed. If the main features of my narrative are correct, that debate is over, thank goodness.

If you click the link I provided above under "addendum", you see just how many library witnesses recount them talking about a still live bomb during the library massacre, way after 11:17 a. m. Rebecca Parker even has them say "Oh, it failed." before leaving. Three witnesses in particular illustrate the point in this brief format:

Eric told Bree he didn't need to shoot her, because she was going to die when they blow up the school anyway. I am simply taking him at his word, rather than constructing a story about him lying, or going insane over a nose bleed.

Dylan told John to run because of the live bomb. No need to run to avoid being shot, they can point the guns in another direction, and several did survive.

After they stop shooting at 11:35 a. m., Dylan tells Evan he will let him live when he doesn't shoot him. Evan didn't have to run to survive like John did, because it's after 11:35 a. m.

The cops aren't such buffoons then either. The point of the library massacre may well have been so cops rush in before 11:35 a. m. and die at 11:35 a. m. One would think they expected cops to rush in like the rest of the country. Dylan is quoted on the Basement Tapes saying it would take 15 minutes. 11:20 a .m. to 11:35 a. m. is 15 minutes. My profile picture is even a picture of the clock on the second bomb. Note the minute hand on the 7, the 35th minute. Hell of a coincidence with all of the above.

bradt93 wrote:

Do you miss your high school? I do sometimes, because it actually it was a fun part of my life. I didn't hangout with the kids after the school, because I was still introverted and shy. Most people seemed to like me though.

I don't think you're asking me, but I still wanted to answer. I do in a lot of ways. I came back to live with my mom in Littleton because I was getting in trouble at my dad's. Nothing hardcore, just ditching a lot to surf, hanging out with much older guys and failing a good number of classes. Back in Littleton in the summer I started hanging out with some of my neighbors I knew in elementary school, they were cheerleaders and into partying and stuff. Driving around Wadsworth at night trying to pick up guys,, meeting up at Clement Park, house parties with different schools and big BBQ boating all day parties at Chatfield Reservoir. It was the last time I felt young and innocent even though at the time I thought I was wildly mature.

Once I started working full time I couldn't hang out as much and my one of the few rules mom had was I had to sign up for LifeTeen, the youth group atbour parish. I met some of my best friends to this day and reconnected with people I hadn't seen since we were in elementary school.

When school started it was another wake up call, I was told I had to enroll at McLain the alternative school because I not only needed some of the credits I failed, Columbine's graduation requirements were way stricter. I really freaked out and so did my friends. Mr. D and my counselor came through though, they helped me set up a schedule where I was able to rejoin my friends at Columbine most of the day. One or two afternoons or nights a week I took excelerated versions of some of my missing basic core credits up at McLain and had a couple online classes that were set up similarly.

However my mom took an unexpected turn for the worse so I was caring for her and taking her to doctors and treatments when I could, studying my butt off, working after school and weekends at the restaurant. My friends condensed to mostly church friends and I was okay with that. They had my back and didn't just fade away because I couldn't go out and hang out and go to parties anymore.

If my mom hadn't been so sick I would love to go back to that year. I really had to mature quickly but I met some true friends for the first time in my life that weren't family. We had a lot of fun, our youth group leaders were really hilarious, energetic and creative. All my teachers were great, they didnt treat me like I was dumb like the school I went to at my dad's, which was one of the worst in Hawai'i where the schools are already some of the worst in the US. They saw my potential and nutured me and encouraged me to achieve my best and my friends were the same way.

It seemed so out of left field I thought maybe it was for another thread or another user. But if it really was for me, no I don't particularly miss high school. I'm pretty introverted as well.   I'm one to like writing the research paper, but not to like attending class if it's more than a lecture on the topic, or dealing with over-socialized teachers and students.

Also, one more on the moral implications: Eric didn't shoot Bree, told her he didn't need to, she'd be dead anyway from the second bomb.

If we pretend both bombs failed at 11:17, well then it's easy to make up some story like he spared her because he really didn't want to kill her and once she spoke to him he was imagining marrying her or whatever Columbiners say. He's making up some reason not to shoot her.

If you see there's a still-live bomb, then he's not lying at all, and you're more apt to say Eric just didn't want to hit himself in the face with the gun again.

Yet another illustration of how you can either accept that it's wrong to say both bombs failed at 11:17 and have them be perfectly rational, cold blooded killers, or take on faith that both bombs failed at 11:17, and have them be totally irrational comic book anti heroes who really just wanted a hug. Hence it sticks in my craw, and hence OPs confusion.

There is NO way that Cakemans first language is English. FLOBADOB BLIB BLOB BLIB!!!

>pretending I don't speak English to defend JeffCo's narrative