The Columbine Generation

So, who's against the ban on assault weapons? Oh, yeah, the rednecks want everyone packing. That's right.

I was in public school when prayer was a part of our daily routine. I say routine because that was what it had become. You said the pledge of allegiance and the Lord's prayer every day. As a matter of routine. I'm not against prayer in school, but I am against it as a matter of routine. To blame the removal of a rote mantra, done as a matter of routine, for what has happened in our schools, is blasphemy to a living God who seeks intimacy with us; not endless recitation. The Pharisees of the Christian Right can blame themselves as much as Atheistic norming. In the preceeding verses from the Bible that the Lord's prayer is taken from, Jesus warns against making prayer routine. Maybe God took prayer out of school because of the mockery it had become? I see the pain in these articles and comments, and the question that seems to arise is not does God exist, but does a loving, caring God exist? Pain cannot be factored out of life, but neither can the Hope that comes from feeling God in your life, not just intellectualizing God. If you lose Faith, seek Hope, which may be found in the Love that is in the world. No one, whether armed with shotguns, or fanatical rhetoric, can kill the Love that is all around us, if we choose to look for it. The crazies win if we abandon that search. I'm not going to let them dictate who I am. Please don't let them do that to you...

Please forget about EH & DK. Remember the victims:
Cassie Bernall
Steven Curnow
Corey DePooter
Kelly Fleming
Matt Ketcher
Daniel Mauser
Daniel Rohrbough
Rachel Scott
Isaiah Schoels
John Tomlin
Lauren Townsend
Kyle Valasquez
Coach/Teacher Dave Sanders

Don't read the book because it just breeds the hate, makes EH & DK the infamous killers they want to be, and gives kids more ideas.
I am making a difference by being a teacher and listening to my students!

1. WRINGING HANDS AND CALLING ON GOD WILL NOT SOLVE THE INTRINSIC PROBLEM OF THE AMERICAN GUN CULTURE

2. CONDITIONING FROM THE WESTERN MOVIES TO THE DANNY CRANE TYPE TELEVISION CHARACTERS HAS REPLACED THE FACTS OF THE SITUATION

3. MASS MEDIA SOCIALIZATION IS SO COMPLETE NOW THAT VIOLENCE IS THE ACEPTED MODE OF SOLUTION TO ANY SERIOUS DISAGREEMENT. ILLOGICAL VIOLENCE HAS REPLACED LOGICAL REASONING

4. THE CONFORMIST GUTLESS SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS ARE AS MUCH TO BLAME AS THE GUN/KNIFE TOTING KIDS AND BULLIES WHO INFEST THE SYSTEM IN WESTERN SCHOOLS

5.WHERE ARE THE METAL DETECTORS, THE SCHOOL SECURITY STAFF AND THE PSYCHOLOGISTS TO HANDLE THIS ESCALATING PROBLEM?

THEY DONT EXIST BECAUSE THEY COST MONEY
THE MORE VIOLENCE, THE LOUDER THE RADIO JOCKS AND THE MORE FASCIST THE POWERFUL TV TALKSHOW HOSTS. THE MORE ADVERTISING AND THE PROBLEM EXACERBATES

SO STOP TALKING AND DO SOMETHING NOW!!!!

No point in asking the teachers cos they are too scared of losing their jobs!

I know because I was invooved a long time ago and took early retirement to save my own sanity!

In the space of five days, we honor Jackie Robinson???s finally breaking into the major leagues and we also memorialize Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolt???s massacre at Columbine High School ten years ago. They each faced a failed system ??? but in opposite directions ??? and they illustrate character and courage ??? but at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The stories about what was done and said to Jackie Robinson fill volumes. I was born in Brooklyn and was old enough to go to Ebbets Field to see Robinson play in his second year. The insults, curses and threats from the players and fans were still going on then.

The rotten system that kept Robinson out of baseball and harassed him for years was full of anger, hatred and the very real possibility of killing him and his family.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolt faced a rotten system on the other extreme. They were allowed to be violent, destructive and threaten classmates, but instead of being removed from contact with other students who were their victims, the two were coddled.

A generation in charge of the school and the police falsely believed that if you kept extremely troubled kids in contact with the rest of us and gave them lots of counseling, the troubled kids would stop being crazy bullies. Harris and Klebolt showed a generation what the price was for living that false educational philosophy; each one of those psychopaths could kill about ten innocent people.

We still haven???t righted the system. Thousands of innocent kids are bullied and harassed at school each day while society, the legal system and school principals don???t stop the bullying juvenile delinquents, psychopaths and psychotics.

Jackie Robinson had the character and courage to endure and surmount far worse than the bullying that is claimed to have pushed Harris and Klebolt over the edge. Robinson didn???t give up or explode.

Neither Harris nor Klebolt had character or courage. Bullying didn???t push them over the edge. They ran willingly and repeatedly right to the edge and then jumped off. None of the adults stopped them or removed them.

When will we start protecting the rest of us from the bullies and crazies?

Disclosure: In addition to having six children, growing up in Brooklyn and living in Denver, I???m a practical, pragmatic coach and consultant. I???ve written books of case studies, ???Parenting Bully-Proof Kids??? and ???How to Stop Bullies in their Tracks.??? Check out my website and blog at BulliesBeGone (http://BulliesBeGone.com).

Whose fault was the killings at Columbine High School? And how can we help our children resist bullies, not become bullies themselves and thrive after horrible killings?

Seven of the most common targets of blame are:
1. The bullies who pushed Harris and Klebolt over the edge.
2. The parents of the bullies who didn???t stop their children.
3. The school principal who didn???t stop the bullying of Harris and Klebolt, or stop the earlier violence of the killers.
4. The parents of the killers who didn???t raise their kids better and didn???t had them incarcerated or committed.
5. Harris and Klebolt were simply psychopathic, psychotic killers.
6. A society that is violent and corrupt.
7. A society that has lost its connection with God.

Looking to blame and then fix one part of human life is the wrong way to go. Our efforts to change our school and legal system are necessary, useful and laudable, but they???re not a solution that will prevent future massacres.

Face reality. Bullies, psychopaths and killers are like the weather ??? they???ve always been with us and always will be. Assigning blame won???t change that.

The useful question for us is how we prepare our children and teenagers for a world in which they???ll face crazy, violent people.

We must teach our children not to use bullying tactics, and to be resilient in the face of bullying and to learn how to stop bullies in their tracks. Obviously, Harris and Klebolt never learned this. The hardest task for parents is to recognize when our children have gone bad and to do something about it.

Answering these difficult questions will help us teach our children better than hand wringing or assigning blame.

Disclosure: In addition to having six children and living in Denver, I???m a practical, pragmatic coach and consultant. I???ve written books of case studies, ???Parenting Bully-Proof Kids??? and ???How to Stop Bullies in their Tracks.??? Check out my website and blog at BulliesBeGone (http://BulliesBeGone.com).

Whose fault was the killings at Columbine High School? And how can we help our children resist bullies, not become bullies themselves and thrive after horrible killings?

Seven of the most common targets of blame are:
1. The bullies who pushed Harris and Klebolt over the edge.
2. The parents of the bullies who didn???t stop their children.
3. The school principal who didn???t stop the bullying of Harris and Klebolt, or stop the earlier violence of the killers.
4. The parents of the killers who didn???t raise their kids better and didn???t had them incarcerated or committed.
5. Harris and Klebolt were simply psychopathic, psychotic killers.
6. A society that is violent and corrupt.
7. A society that has lost its connection with God.

Looking to blame and then fix one part of human life is the wrong way to go. Our efforts to change our school and legal system are necessary, useful and laudable, but they???re not a solution that will prevent future massacres.

Face reality. Bullies, psychopaths and killers are like the weather ??? they???ve always been with us and always will be. Assigning blame won???t change that.

The useful question for us is how we prepare our children and teenagers for a world in which they???ll face crazy, violent people.

We must teach our children not to use bullying tactics, and to be resilient in the face of bullying and to learn how to stop bullies in their tracks. Obviously, Harris and Klebolt never learned this. The hardest task for parents is to recognize when our children have gone bad and to do something about it.

Answering these difficult questions will help us teach our children better than hand wringing or assigning blame.

Disclosure: In addition to having six children and living in Denver, I???m a practical, pragmatic coach and consultant. I???ve written books of case studies, ???Parenting Bully-Proof Kids??? and ???How to Stop Bullies in their Tracks.??? Check out my website and blog at BulliesBeGone (http://BulliesBeGone.com).

review of dave cullen's cook:

""I am a Columbine parent. I am a very well-informed Columbine parent.
This book does not tell the true story of the Columbine Tragedy. It is full of errors, and full of assumptions that are so ridiculous that this book gets very close to becoming a work of fiction.
The author is an excellent writer, but his facts in this book are not very well researched. In fact, I lived this tragedy, and I was questioning so many things about Columbine that I began to wonder if I was actually there.
That is a very disturbing experience.
This book is not the true story of Columbine.
The two largest problems I have with this book are as follows: First, the author ascribes feelings and emotions to the killers, without any basis in fact. He actually makes some statement that gives Eric feelings of regret while in the library. This is absurd, because Eric killed himself soon after, ad there is no record or evidence to support such a statement. Second, he and the FBI investigator who helped him with the book say that bullying was not the cause of the murders. This is rewriting history, and goes against many many witness statements, the journals of the killers, and testimony of their closest friends.
In fact, that is the worst part of the entire book. The FBI investigator says that bullying was not the problem and that Eric, for one, was a psychopath. Eric was crazy. That is so easy, and so convenient. It lets all of us off the hook for any part we may have played in the bullying and hatred that he endured.
"Crazy" is easy. Learning the real lessons is very hard. Facing the real truths is painful.
"Crazy" is easy. If you want easy, you have found the right book.
The author of a book like this has a responsibility to the victims, to the public, and to the honesty of history to be accurate in explaining motivations and facts. This book does not honor the facts or the victims.
If you read this book, do not expect a perfectly factual account. You can expect a well written book, but do not expect to learn the truths of Columbine. They are hidden from this author, and missing from these pages.
Randy Brown
A Columbine Parent. "

review of dave cullen's book:

"I am a Columbine parent. I am a very well-informed Columbine parent.
This book does not tell the true story of the Columbine Tragedy. It is full of errors, and full of assumptions that are so ridiculous that this book gets very close to becoming a work of fiction.
The author is an excellent writer, but his facts in this book are not very well researched. In fact, I lived this tragedy, and I was questioning so many things about Columbine that I began to wonder if I was actually there.
That is a very disturbing experience.
This book is not the true story of Columbine.
The two largest problems I have with this book are as follows: First, the author ascribes feelings and emotions to the killers, without any basis in fact. He actually makes some statement that gives Eric feelings of regret while in the library. This is absurd, because Eric killed himself soon after, ad there is no record or evidence to support such a statement. Second, he and the FBI investigator who helped him with the book say that bullying was not the cause of the murders. This is rewriting history, and goes against many many witness statements, the journals of the killers, and testimony of their closest friends.
In fact, that is the worst part of the entire book. The FBI investigator says that bullying was not the problem and that Eric, for one, was a psychopath. Eric was crazy. That is so easy, and so convenient. It lets all of us off the hook for any part we may have played in the bullying and hatred that he endured.
"Crazy" is easy. Learning the real lessons is very hard. Facing the real truths is painful.
"Crazy" is easy. If you want easy, you have found the right book.
The author of a book like this has a responsibility to the victims, to the public, and to the honesty of history to be accurate in explaining motivations and facts. This book does not honor the facts or the victims.
If you read this book, do not expect a perfectly factual account. You can expect a well written book, but do not expect to learn the truths of Columbine. They are hidden from this author, and missing from these pages.
Randy Brown
A Columbine Parent. "

A journalist from one of the organizations Cullen praises, the Rocky Mountain News, has actually written his own book on Columbine, and some of the conclusions differ from Cullen's. This is a review from Amazon of Jeff Kass' Columbine: A True Crime Story, a victim, the killers and the nation's search for answers:

This fine work of investigative journalism by former Rocky Mountain News reporter Jeff Kass is possibly the best book written on the subject that I have read. Kass not only tells the story of the development of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold through their own writings and interviews the author conducted, but he also shows the common denominators among school shooters across the country.

The book also tells the story of Kass' ten-year battle to get police records of Columbine released, the Columbine killers' parents own battles to block that information, and the flaws in the system that allowed this tragedy to happen.

The two most noteworthy things for me that set this Columbine book apart from others I have read is that this is the first book written by a journalist who actually covered the story in the town that it happend. The second is that Kass, unlike other books on the subject, actually has new--never before seen information.

Kass uncovered a previously undisclosed federal deposition from the lawsuit filed against the company that manufactured the psychiatric drug taken by Columbine killer Eric Harris. The deposition is from Robert Kriegshauser, the Jefferson County diversion counselor who supervised both Harris and Dylan Klebold after they were arrested for breaking into a van. Kriegshauser has never spoken publicly.

Kass also unearthed a psychological profile of Dylan Klebold's mother, Susan Klebold, from when she was a teenager. The profile, reprinted in the book, shows an eerie preview of Columbine, the psychiatrist treating Susan concludes she has a "death phobia."

Fellow gunman Dylan Klebold's never-before released college applications essay shows a child only two months before the shooting writing that he knows he has made poor decisions in his life and with the people he has chosen to hang out with.

Kass also has uncovered a videotape of John Kiekbusch, one of the lead Columbine investigators who later came under scrutiny by a grand jury for alleged cover-ups, acknowledging mistakes at Columbine and contradicting the advice dispatchers gave to students in the library, where ten of the 13 Columbine victims were killed.

A journalist from one of the organizations Cullen praises, the Rocky Mountain News, has actually written his own book on Columbine, and some of the conclusions differ from Cullen's. This is a review from Amazon of Jeff Kass' Columbine: A True Crime Story, a victim, the killers and the nation's search for answers:

This fine work of investigative journalism by former Rocky Mountain News reporter Jeff Kass is possibly the best book written on the subject that I have read. Kass not only tells the story of the development of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold through their own writings and interviews the author conducted, but he also shows the common denominators among school shooters across the country.

The book also tells the story of Kass' ten-year battle to get police records of Columbine released, the Columbine killers' parents own battles to block that information, and the flaws in the system that allowed this tragedy to happen.

The two most noteworthy things for me that set this Columbine book apart from others I have read is that this is the first book written by a journalist who actually covered the story in the town that it happend. The second is that Kass, unlike other books on the subject, actually has new--never before seen information.

Kass uncovered a previously undisclosed federal deposition from the lawsuit filed against the company that manufactured the psychiatric drug taken by Columbine killer Eric Harris. The deposition is from Robert Kriegshauser, the Jefferson County diversion counselor who supervised both Harris and Dylan Klebold after they were arrested for breaking into a van. Kriegshauser has never spoken publicly.

Kass also unearthed a psychological profile of Dylan Klebold's mother, Susan Klebold, from when she was a teenager. The profile, reprinted in the book, shows an eerie preview of Columbine, the psychiatrist treating Susan concludes she has a "death phobia."

Fellow gunman Dylan Klebold's never-before released college applications essay shows a child only two months before the shooting writing that he knows he has made poor decisions in his life and with the people he has chosen to hang out with.

Kass also has uncovered a videotape of John Kiekbusch, one of the lead Columbine investigators who later came under scrutiny by a grand jury for alleged cover-ups, acknowledging mistakes at Columbine and contradicting the advice dispatchers gave to students in the library, where ten of the 13 Columbine victims were killed.

To dismiss the shooters as merely 'crazy' should clearly indicate that the author has learned absolutely nothing from the shooting - and has demonstrated a certain dismissive, narcissistic attitude that's quite common in Generation Y. Sadly, the author feels somehow 'enlightened' enough to share his total ignorance for what might motivate his fellow classmates to mass murder - ignoring the fact that the shooters weren't just some random strangers who missed their psych meds. They were a failed-culture byproduct of Generation Y and there will be more of them in the future, since absolutely nothing has changed socially.

Columbine isn't any more special than any other school. Other schools have had shootings as well. The only difference seems to be if this happens in a wealthy school district it's a special event! I've heard from one instructor at the school complain how various parents would tell the school that their children were not to associate with anybody who didn't have at least a five hundred thousand dollar home. Lets also bring up the facts that surfaced about the two boys constantly being shunned in events because they didn't meet the correct financial social qualifications. Talk about socially dysfunctional! What kind of learning environment is that?

"Columbine was a grisly milestone for my generation. It was the violent day that made Gen Y feel like victims, the first time that '80s toddlers realized that their overprotective helicopter parents couldn't protect them from everything."

This is called growing up.

Every generation thinks their generation has the ultimate in tragedy, and the method of delivery the ultimate in technology. I spent my junior high and high school years watching the Viet Nam war unfold on the news, night after night, as the brothers of my friends were swept up in the draft. My parents' listened to World War II unfold via the radio daily for 3 and a half years while they were in school. And the current generation has been exposed to the horrors of 9/11 and it's aftermath for almost 8 years.

Columbine was one event involving less than three dozen people, that took place over a period of 4 hours. Yes, it was tragic, shocking, and violent, and involved young people still in school. The same can be said of the hundreds of alcohol-related deaths that occur every year in high schools across the country on prom night.

Columbine as a defining event? Compared to generations before and since, it just wasn't all that.

The 500-pound "What if?" that no one EVER discusses in this case: What If Harris' parents had been competent, involved parents? What IF they had questioned Eric about why he was making bombs in the family garage? Good people have bad kids. I get that. But bomb making in the garage without a question asked? PLEASE. These people have been let off the hook BIG TIME. Dylan Klebold's parents have some explaining to do also, but he was a sidekick, not the master mind. Had he never met Harris, Klebold likely would've been just another tragic teenage suicide. But Harris had the psychosis, drive and free pass from his parents that allowed all the ugly details to fall into place. Harris' parents have the blood of the victims on their hands, and I for one, will never forgive them.

The 500-pound "what if?" that no one EVER seems to mention in Columbine articles: What IF Harris' parents had been competent, involved parents? What if they had questioned their son about why he was making bombs in the family garage? Good people have bad kids. I get that. But bomb making in the garage goes unnoticed and unquestioned? PLEASE. His parents have been let off the hook in this tragedy BIG TIME. They have the blood of the victims on their hands in my opinion. Klebold's parents have some explaining to do also, but Klebold was a sidekick, not a master-mind. He probably would have wound up being just another tragic teenage suicide had he not met up with Harris, who had the drive, psychosis, and free pass from his parents that allowed Columbine to happen.

There will always be Columbines (apparently with increasing in frequency) until the etiology of such events is found. To blame the players in the event does little to address the issue (i.e., why are these episodes becoming more frequent, or, in "Eineyesque" terms, why so many more "bizerky wanna-bes?"). I suspect (with "Einey") the individual motivations are the wrong place to look. Contra "Einey," the increasing probability of children's deaths may be worth a snot or two. Until we get a handle on the dynamic involved, these episodes remain a Rorschach -- a meaningless recepticle of our own projections.

Even giving an iota of time and attetion to the Killer K-twins is a colossal waste of time. It feeds other little bizerky wanna-bes imagination, it takes away valuable print space that could be bettered used (even a best pet tricks article would be of more human value that writing about the eeky K-brothers) and frankly my dear, I don't give a snot about what motivated these cockroaches, what they were or we not made up, what color their clothes were or anything else about them.

How can we continue to claim to be a civilized society when killings like Columbine continue to happen and we find ourselves hostage to a special interest gun lobby.