Different Take On Columbine

[brandondrury]

I went on a 4 day vacation to the lake this passed week / weekend. Late at night on History Channel or Discover Channel, a show came on that sort of retold the Columbine tragedy. Wow! Not perfect, but highly recommend!

Anyway, the show sort did the "recreation" thing and paid actors to sort of reinact the events.

I must say that I thought the Columbine shoot took about 20 seconds. You'd think killing 12 people with a machine gun would only take 20 seconds. It turns out that it took hours and they had shot more than 60 people (I think).

There was one particular scene in the library. 50 kids or so are hiding under the desks, terrified, as they heard gun shot after gunshot. The Trenchcoat Mafia walks in the library, looks under a desk and shoots the person in the face. The repeat this is a slow, casual, and methodical method over and over. I can't understand why only 12 people died because you'd think that shooting up person after person at point blank range would have a pretty high kill rate.

Either way, the way the story was potrayed, it turned out to be one of the most sickening, twisted, and disgusting stories I've ever heard about. The news never told it quite this way....at least I never perceived it this way.

The show is highly recommended to everyone. I wish I could think of the name of it.

Brandon

[brandondrury]

Ironically, the very next day the kids with on vacation watched some movie called, "Kids In America". I caught the tale end of the stupid movie (which was based on real events). Part of the plot is a one girl is suspended for writing a story about a student killer her teacher.

Normally, I'd just say "get over it, the girl can write just about anything she wants". However, after watching the Columbine show just 15 hours before, I was in a very unique position. All the sudden the girls freedom to write whatever she wanted was overshadowed by the horrendous outcomes that are possible.

After Columbine, an enormous amount of time was spent on who was to "blame". For whatever reason, people can't accept that two kids who flew off their rocker were to blame. People want to blame drugs, society, bullies,...you name it. A lot of people were really upset at Columbine because there were so many chances to stop these lunatics early on. There were so many signs that these kids were in serious trouble, but no one did anything about it. (Ironically, while the shootings were taking place, one of the father's of the 2 Trenchcoat Mafia members called the cops because he thought his son was probably one of the guys doing the shooting).

So, I guess I've changed my tune. I'm willing to give up the right to 100% freedom of speech (which never existed anyway) in order to prevent a few Columbines. Of course, the irony of this is 100% freedom never really exists. We all have rules we have to live by. I can't run into Walmart butt naked running throughout the store screaming profanity. Why does a student in school logically think she has the right to create a story about killing a teacher?

Brandon