Columbine: Who Are We To Blame? It seems that one of the most controversial issues in society lately has been violence in schools, i.e. Columbine shootings. The shootings not only got peoples attention, it made them go crazy with fear and search desperately for a hidden cause behind all of this. People can’t stand the idea of not having anybody to accuse besides two dead teenagers. “Certainly somebody must be punished,” they say. “Certainly somebody is to blame!” What if there isn’t? Then what happens? Will it rip a big gaping hole in the space time continuum and destroy us all? Why are we so afraid of resting the blame on the two psychopaths that pulled the trigger? At first I figured it was just going to be passed on as yet another act of senseless violence in schools. I thought it would simply stir up some dust and then just be swept back under the rug. However, the shootings at Columbine instantly sparked nation wide attention, and before the crisis was even dealt with, people were already warming up their index fingers, looking for all possible things to throw the blame at, without even fully understanding the situation. Then people start uncovering some of the facts. Uh oh! Looks like the boys listen to a German band called KMFDM. Well gee, certainly if the band is German they must be neo-nazis, after all, that’s the preferred German stereotype of the 90’s. Did anyone else pick up on the fact that this is just ignorant people being prejudice against Germans simply because one of their rulers sixty years ago was a psycho? Just because they were our enemy during World War II? What kind of primitive thinking is this? KMFDM wasn’t even around. They weren’t part of it. They weren’t even born. There are hardly any people old enough to remember the war. Now in the 90’s we probably have just as many, if not more Nazis in this country then there are in Germany. Also it seems that this band has influenced our children to commit violent acts of murder, because they’re advocating violence. This is also more ignorant bullshit. KMFDM is anti-war and anti-violence. It is not the belief of KMFDM that you should go around your school shooting your peers in the face. With even the slightest bit of research, people in the media could have figured this out, but no, they just decided to throw KMFDM out to be ripped apart by the eagerly awaiting public. It seems that the two boys also liked to play a popular video game called Doom. Everybody knows that Doom is a violent and graphic video game. It shows imaginary monsters getting mutilated and spewing their pixilated blood all over. Doom has probably been the most widely played video game of the last 5 years. However, to say that it would drive somebody to kill his or her fellow classmates is absurd. If Doom is so bad, how come only two out of millions of people playing it decided to go ape shit? That’s like saying Nike shoes made them “Just Do It” simply because they wore their shoes and saw their ads. Most people with an average IQ can figure out that the bloodshed on Doom isn’t real, and that it is wrong to saw pink monsters in half with a chainsaw. It’s common sense. If you don’t realize that, you’d probably end up killing people regardless of having or having not played Doom. Another big problem is that people blame the parents. Sure the parents are supposed keep watch over their children, but they can’t be hanging over their shoulder day and night, constantly censoring what they run into on the internet, or making sure they’re not building pipe bombs. They have to trust that their children are doing the right thing. Despite what some people say, there were not really any blatantly obvious “warning signs” that would convince the average parent to interfere with their kids behavior. They seemed like relatively normal kids. Sure they may have written some violent essays, but so have thousands of other kids that so far haven’t killed anybody. It may have made them a little different from other kids, but if we questioned people just for being different, we’d be right back where we started. No parent, regardless of how much they try, can ever know what their child is doing and thinking every second of every minute of every hour of every day of the week. It’s impossible (unless they are ex- KGB). I don’t understand how other parents can say it was the parents fault. They know how hard it is. Can’t they show some compassion? How do you think they feel about what their children did? Do you think they enjoyed watching the news and having their lives be ripped apart by reporters thousands of miles away whom they have never met? I don’t think any of us can imagine the pain they must be going through. Yet we shower them with tormenting questions like: “What kind of parent are you?” and “Don’t you have any idea what your children are doing?” Who the hell are we to harass these people when we know that we ourselves live on the same system of trust with our parents or children? So who is to blame? Well, if you must blame somebody, blame the gun manufacturers, blame K-mart for being the biggest seller of guns in the U.S., blame mass media, blame society, but most of all, blame the people who committed the crime. The other thing that gets on my nerves about this whole ordeal is all this talk about “warning signs.” People say that the kids showed all these different warning signs, but who is to say what is and is not a “warning sign?” According to their stupid signs, I’m probably stocking up ammo right now and getting ready to start World War III. These so called “warning signs” are things that are part of everyday life for many people, regardless of whether or not they’re going to kill somebody. For example, being anti-jock is not an uncommon thing. Killing people for being jocks on the other hand is very uncommon. People joke about jock mentality all the time and talk about how they want to rid the world of jocks. They may even joke about killing them, but what it’s really all about is trying to eliminate a certain mentality that some people have; not the people themselves. People who think it’s cool too beat people up, use women and drink heavily. People who think its cool to be violent in general. Being anti-jock does not mean being anti-sports or anti-school spirit. Being anti-jock means being anti-violence, anti-prejudice, and anti- ignorance. To me this is hardly a warning sign. I think the first real warning sign was when they started throwing pipe bombs in the school parking lot. If we start discriminating against people simply because they are anti-jock, look different, or have radical ideals, we are taking away their basic freedoms granted to them by the republic in which we live. Aside from throwing blame left and right and looking for “warning signs,” now parents say that schools aren’t safe enough for their children. They say there needs to be tighter restrictions in schools and harsher penalties for breaking the law. First of all, it’s hard to make schools much safer. Some think that metal detectors should be installed. Sure, they may catch the occasional pocketknife or fancy belt buckle, but are the people monitoring these systems really prepared for an attack with sawed of shotguns and pipe bombs? Plus, these things are expensive. I don’t want to have to pay for metal detectors every week when I get my paycheck. Also, instating new laws for harsher penalties for kids committing crimes is not going to do anything about instances like this one. Harsh laws won’t stop insanity. First of all, laws are a deterrent of crime for the rational mind. When kids are following after Hitler and plotting to hold a massacre at their school, the realm of rational thinking has long since passed. So what good is making a law that doesn’t really deter crime? We need to think about all these things more deeply before jumping to conclusions. We are afraid of what we do not understand, so we must understand to become unafraid. Violence is part of human nature. It will be around forever. There is no stopping it. However, it can be limited. We live in a free (well, mostly free anyway) country. With this freedom there are inherent risks. To take away these risks is to take away the very freedom that the entire framework our country is built upon; the freedom that makes this country so different and so special, and gives us the right to choose. For these reasons, we must encourage peace and understanding to live our lives to their very fullest. -Ryan Overhauser