* Id: Columbine * Revision: 1 * State: submitted * * Log: * Revision 1 1999/06/14 Jon Canady * Initial submitted version. * * Checked-out 1999/07/09 Alex McLintock * * Withdrawn 1999/09/22 * Presumably on grounds of taste, after discussion with Alex. Return-path: Received: from pop.argonet.co.uk [194.131.104.13] by argbg34.argonet.co.uk with pop3 (ANTmail1.29b) id po0131e9a; Mon, 14 Jun 99 11:13 +0100 Envelope-to: mseaborn@argonet.co.uk Delivery-date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 02:51:52 +0100 Received: from (silk.spiders.net) [206.24.0.7] by golden.argonet.co.uk with smtp (Exim 1.82 #3) id 10tLuh-00033l-00; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 02:51:51 +0100 Received: (qmail 11374 invoked by uid 2590); 14 Jun 1999 01:51:47 -0000 Delivered-To: cleggp-megadodo-mark@megadodo.com Received: (qmail 11371 invoked by uid 2590); 14 Jun 1999 01:51:47 -0000 Delivered-To: cleggp-megadodo-submit@megadodo.com Received: (qmail 11368 invoked from network); 14 Jun 1999 01:51:46 -0000 Received: from mail5.lax.netzero.net (209.0.233.48) by silk.spiders.net with SMTP; 14 Jun 1999 01:51:46 -0000 Received: (qmail 13194 invoked by uid 0); 14 Jun 1999 01:51:43 -0000 Received: from pppa20-resalecolumbus1-2r1168.saturn.bbn.com (HELO p4058) (4.48.76.79) by mail5.lax.netzero.net with SMTP; 14 Jun 1999 01:51:43 -0000 Message-ID: <000001beb610$0ec86a60$4f4c3004@infinet.com> From: "Jon Canady" To: Subject: Article Submission: The Columbine "Incident" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 02:51:51 +0100 Status: O X-IS-UID: 929359039 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456 %t The Columbine "Incident" * Formatted by WinPGG v1.5 (1999/06/13) %n R %s Realizstic Reasons About What Made The Columbine Students Open Fire %a Jon Canady (NerferX@netzero.net) %d 19990613 %e For those of you that either don't get out much, don't have any contact with the outside world, or are just plain too young remember or even know of the Columbine Incident, it involved a group of children that, one day, were pushed over the edge. They went to school with very automatic weapons and wreaked bloody havoc. It was the most terrible school shooting to that day. The media, always with the stupidity, offered several unrealizstic reasons as to why these children would do such a horrific thing. They were: Violent Games and Movies, the fact that they were Gothic (More on Gothicism later), and that they were in a group reffered to as "The Trench Coat Mafia." Viloent Games and Movies was one of the dumbest things I ever had the displeasure of hearing, one of the reasons being that I am an avid supporter of violent games and movies. I own and play some of the bloodiest games ever.[1] I have never even thought about the possibility of going to school with a real gun and shooting real people. Just as I also watch very violent movies, and don't do any of the things that the movies do. Why? Because there is a very very large difference from holding a real, live, automatic weapon, and controlling a computer character who holds a fake, very unreal automatic weapon, or watching someone holding a real weapon, shooting people very unrealistically. Gothicism. This one got to me. I have friends that are Gothic. I know them very well. They would never, in their wildest...maybe in their wildest[2]...but certainly not in their right-minded dreams, shoot anyone, at all. They may want to, but that doesnt mean they do. And they also watch very violent movies. The media seemed to want to blame this on Gothic. They called it "The Gothic Movemen." That makes it sound like a militia. It isn't. Being Gothic just means you don't act within the "normal" boundaries.[3] Wearing all black isn't any kind of requirement, but, most do anyway. And about the Trench Coat Mafia. The media want's us to believe that the Trench Coat Mafia is some kind of national movement, that every school has a "chapter." This is stupid, and was probably developed just to fill the last few minutes of the Twelve O'Clock news. I'm willing to put money on the idea that the Trench Coat Mafia was just a joking name. C'mon, a group of kids always wore black trenchcoats and liked to stir up trouble. Trench Coat Mafia was just sticking out, waiting to be used. So kids started calling their little circle the Trench Coat Mafia. Nothing more than a humorous name. Yet, the media blew it all out of preportion. Now comes the good stuff. The real reason why the students went to school and felt the need to kill innocent people, and then themselves. They had to have been mentally unbalanced. People constantly poked fun, made fun, and otherwise used them as the butt of their jokes. All the time. That just really tore them up. Then, to top it all off, one of the students just got rejected when he asked a girl he very much liked to the Prom. This snapped him. Him and a friend went to school, and opened fire, throwing bombs and the like, and generally causing a horrid mass genocide, leaving many killed or injured. Also, I contribute it to bad parenting. The bombs I reffered to were homemade, in their garages. The parents knew something was going on in there, but, not what. A responsible parent would have checked in on them once in a while, just to make sure they were doing legal things. (With the avaliability of bomb-making books on the internet today, you do have to be careful.) They didn't. They claimed, when asked by police, that they didn't know their son was in their garage making explosive devices. How do you _not_ now that someone is making bombs in your garage! Thats stupidity! Bad parenting, all over. And those are the real reasons the Columbine students went over the edge and did what they did. Well, maybe not the _real_ reasons, but certainly better and more thought out than the ones the media supplied for us. [1] - For those of you that must know, Doom II, Half-Life, Quake, and Quake II. [2] - Let's not get into my friends' wild dreams. You don't want to go there. [3] - Whatever normal is. What is normal, if everyone's different? Replace normal with average. That's a better word. %e *EOA*