So it�s been, what 4, 5 years since Eric Harris and the other guy (Dylan something?) waltzed into school and declared themselves the most extreme hall monitors ever. All I know is that I was a senior in high school and I remember being in my sociology class when those creepy TVs turned on by themselves with this big news piece about some massacre out west. We watched the TV horrified, while our bootlegged last-minute Sociology teacher practically got a giant erection at fact that she finally had something remotely interesting or current to discuss in sociology class for the next few days.
By the way, before I continue, if anybody reading this knows anybody who listens to Marilyn Manson or maybe Tool, you should get up right now and report them to the proper authorities. Actually, all you have to do is go to http://www.CatholicSafety.gov/prevention~satan/music.kills and enter their information. Because anybody listening to this kind of music is clearly running errands for Lucifer, and should have a close eye kept on them, especially by their parents.
Speaking of parents, one of the things that was big after the shooting was blaming the parents. If you watched the press conferences and interviews, you were likely to hear things like� "Uh, upbringing... er, parents should� em� don�t let your kids.. ur� should be paying attention � to� what your kids are up to� parents should, er� be aware if their kids are stockpiling�hmmm� yea.. weapons� uh� we should� try to prosecute�uh.. the parents of these� er� yea�
Excuse me, sir, but, Blame the parents???? Oh no, I'm sorry, it seems you missed a meeting. I'm afraid we have something in this country called a Justice System. And as hideously flawed as it may be.. the day that parents become responsible for the actions of their offspring, I'm picking up and moving to Singapore, end of story. That, my friends, is a guarantee (guarantee void if I don't have my own offspring around to spazz out and get me in trouble, cuz in that case, eff that).
Besides, you really don't have to try to blame the parents for this for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I'm sure they feel shitty enough as it is. I mean parents hate it when they get a call from school saying their son started a food fight in the cafeteria or an embryo fight in the bio lab� How do you think they felt when they got the call saying, "Uh, hi this is Columbine Highschool... today in school your son committed suicide... but not before killing everything that moved... Ouch! *tug nervously on shirt collar*
Also, I'm sorry to say that the ancient myth that parents are wise sages and are always going to be smarter than their kids and should always know what their kids are up to is a fiction of the tallest order. I don't know about you, but my parents are pretty smart and I still could have run a combination Meth-Lab/Asian Whore-House/Black-Market Organ-Dealership out of the garage if I wanted to. And out of the attic or cellar crawlspace? Forget it. Russian Prison-delousing-station/Brandy-Distillery/Marlton branch- Church of Satan. Piece of cake... just ask my little sister.
Anywho, what it basically comes down to is that these boys took initiative (uh-oh!). These boys acted on impulses that many of us have every day (especially during high school). For many of us, the impulse to kill everyone we know is one of the only things that keep us going. The only difference is that we don't actually do the shooting, because we know that if everybody did everything they feel like doing, we'd all be dead all the time (check back at around the year 2019 to see how that concept has moved along).
Now before the FCC decides that enough's enough and it's time to censor the internet, let me just say that Gonzo Sandwich does not condone the actions of these boys, or of any violent men except for Balls Mahoney, Mr. White, and that guy from X-Men who was forged in a cylinder somewhere in Canada with adamantium claws and the ability to heal really quick. But one thing that we do sympathize with is daily struggle against the maddening stupidity, shallowness, and the unquenchable thirst for ignorance that plights most high schools in America. In that sense I can say that I personally agree with the ideology behind what they were doing. But where they went wrong seems to be the same place where all the arbitrary killers of modern times seem to go wrong: They just shot at EVERYONE. That's no good. Let me be the very first to say that it was probably a bad move.
First of all, if you're going to go crazy and start killing with total disregard for the consequences, try to have some social awareness. Nobody's going to be impressed by simply killing people you see in the hallway. That was the biggest problem with the Sniper. Remember that down in the Washington D.C. area? That was a few years after Columbine. I never watched the news more than when they were reporting that a sniper was shooting people like once a day at his own discression. See, that was another unfortunate event because people were just getting killed for no reason. However in this case, if you look at it from a different perspective, as we at Gonzo Sandwich occasionally do, you can see the bright side of the scenario.
"Bright side??" you say? Well look at it this way. During those few weeks when everybody in the D.C. area knew full well that there was a sniper around, people were probably on their best behavior. People made small efforts not to make themselves stand out. At the very least, you can bet that one less road-rage-aholic decided to roll down the window and scream at fellow motorists that week. One less person set their cell-phone ring to the theme song from M*A*S*H. One less person decided to wear a sombrero to work on casual Friday. Having the sniper around is like having a social watch-dog and it probably kept people on their toes, and positive things resulted. Visors were not worn upside down and backwards. Street mimes called out sick. David Blaine didn't come do a stunt where he stands on a giant platform in the middle of town without blinking for 2 weeks straight. You know why? Sniper.
But still despite these social benefits, the Sniper shootings were still tragedies, because again, they just shot random people. They didn't shoot rapists or KKK members or television executives or even the kid from the Dell commercials. None of them! They all were free to waltz around without concern knowing that for some reason their odds were just the same as everybody else's. And on top of that, the sniper proved that he was just killing people randomly because if you watched the news, you may have seen that they compared the shootings and predicted patterns. They analyzed the circumstances of the shootings as they went along and said things on TV like, "So far, the sniper doesn't do this... or that... and then the next day they would be proven wrong. For instance, one time they said something like, "He never kills people in small towns". And then the next day someone in a small town would get killed. The media kept doing this and he kept proving them wrong. Now we're all intelligent people. Why didn't the media take advantage of that phenomenon? They totally could have been like, "We'd like to remind you that according to his pattern, the sniper will definitely not be turning himself in tomorrow." Or, "According to his pattern, we guarantee he will absolutely not bring the slightest bit of harm to Carrot Top"..
Anyway, back to the Columbine kiddies... It is obvious that they felt very strongly about murder. The surprising thing to me, is that at the end of all this, they killed themselves. If they hated these other people so bad, you'd think they'd stick around for a few minutes to enjoy the newly cleansed landscape. But I suspect what happened is that a chunk of reality sank in. They probably snapped out of whatever trance they were in... They looked around and saw piles of dead students... Looked down and saw guns in their hands, and, in true Krusty the Clown form, said, "That's not good... and chuckled nervously as they wondered how they were going to get out of this mess. They probably thought things like, "we can probably get away with this if we just blame it on rock music or our parents" But in the end one of them probably decided to set the example and do himself in because, let's be honest... at a crime scene of that nature, you GOTTA get out of there somehow... You don't want to wait around to deal with the awkward scene when the S.W.A.T. team shows up and you're standing there with a gun and corpses are lining the corridor, and you have to look them in the eye and say, "Uh, I know what this looks like, but... you see..."
Allan Alda once said, "Tragedy plus time equals comedy". Granted, he was just saying that because those were the lines that Woody Allen wrote for him. Either way, I think it's true. Granted, only 4 years or so have passed since this particular tragedy, but for me, the ability to make light of any situation is what separates us from the animals (as well as the squares.). My prayers still go out to the families of the victims of this massacre. But if the day ever comes where I'm not allowed to make fun of deceased mass-murderers in this country� It's Singapore time!
(Nope, no thesis, you just read the equivalent of a Sienfeld episode of social commentary, except without the punchlines or the baseline... you've got a big internet to get back to, no time to dilly-dally)...
