You likely won't agree with me
But does what happened really surprise anyone?
You can only push a person so far and treat them like shit or outcasts so much before it comes back to bite you in the ass.
I wonder how many more times this will happen before we stop identifying people as insane or sick when we could be looking at the reasons in our society (or school, workplace, whatever) and the way we treat those in them.
This didn't happen for no reason.
This didn't happen because of drugs.
This didn't happen because of music.
This didn't happen because they were crazy.
It happened because people don't care about people who are singled out and abused by closedminded, stupid people who cannot and therefore will not understand a person, and make them into an outcast. They think, "Better him/her than me" and walk away. This review is not specific to Columbine, this is an insight from my perspective on this issue in general, and I believe that behaviour like this should NOT be a surprise to anyone with a fucking brain in their heads.
We all have been to school and seen what kids do to other kids, don't deny it or sugar coat it. Whatever side you were on, whoever you supported of whoever was involved, you knew how it must have felt to be bullied, and yet most of you probably did NOTHING.
I know because nobody helped me. Nobody helped my friends. Instead, our pain was ignored and silenced because teachers didn't do SHIT to stop it. I'm not surprised at all that something like this could happen, and I won't be surprised when it happens again until humanity develops a more adequate and less exclusive and critical moral conscience.
The solution? I'll give you all a hint. It has nothing to do with banning things, or identifying reasons why it wasn't your fault if you stood by and did nothing while the trigger incidents and abuse kids like these two suffered occurred.
It's not Marilyn Manson's fault. It's not the fault of any teen infulence aside from parents, teachers, fellow students and so-called friends who ignored the suffering of people who needed their help to stop the social abuse they were arbitrarily subjected to, and that is my say.
Agree or disagree, you cannot dispute the truth, and that truth will be harder to ignore the next time someone snaps under that kind of bullshit.
Don't like what you saw here?
Then next time you see someone being abused, don't sit idly by.
An extended hand rather than an averted gaze and being utterly ignored could put these kinds of thoughts out of the minds of someone planning to do this.
You'd be surprised how little it could take for something like this to be quelled, or even prevented.
I agree that there are better ways of solving your problems than kiling them, and I would certainly never do something like those kids did, because it is not in my nature to kill, or do another human that kind of injustice simply because I have had injustices done to me.
But aside from pulling a Columbine of their own, kids who already feel left out and hated have little other defence or hope in the face of two or three hundered students who all dislike them for one reason or another, and can hardly change all that negative opinion. Think about that; how would you escape? How would you stop it, really? And finally, how many of you could stop it when it happened to you?
That's my say.
Don't ignore the signs. Do the right thing.