Morbid Fact Du Jour For August 25, 2011
Today’s Resentful Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
At midday on April 20, 1999, students at the Columbine High School at Littleton, near Denver, Colorado, heard sounds like the explosion of firecrackers. But many recognized them for what they were – gunshots. In the library, which was full of students, two black clad youths walked in and began shooting, using automatic weapons. Sutdents dived under tables, but many were shot – one girl nine times. Strangely enough, the gunmen did not look grim – they were laughing as they fired and reloaded their weapons, or tossed home-made bombs. (Both also had bombs strapped to them.) One student, a girl named Janine, recognized them as two teenage students named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And as one of them pointed his gun at her, she begged for her life. He seemed to be in no hurry, for he listened to her pleas, and told her that he was killing people “because people had been mean to me last year”. And he ended by sparing her life. When the massacre was over, half an hour later, fifteen students lay dead, and forty were injured. The dead included the two killers, who had turned their guns on themselves.
Harris and Klebold belonged to a group of ten or so students who called themselves “the Trenchcoat Mafia,” and who (so its members claimed) were shunned by the rest of the student body – hence their resentment. Why two students from comfortable middle class backgrounds should decide to embark on mass murder was hard to determine. But an analysis in Time magazine pointed out that many students of the same generation spent their spare time playing video games which involved shooting large members of “the enemy” at top speed, and that as a consequence, they were deadly shots.
Culled from: The Mammoth Book of the History of Murder by Colin Wilson
Oh, Puh-leeze. I have watched many violent movies and played really violent video games and have never wanted to bump off anyone.
Didn’t this happen on April 20?? Pretty sure they chose the 4/20 date on purpose.
@Jetti Kleeb I checked and the book states April 30th. Another reason I hate that book. Don’t know why I use it for facts at all… Anyway, I’ve fixed the date. Thanks!
It was supposedly Hitler’s birthday and that’s why they chose it.
“as a consequence, they were deadly shots” – a trained (even *poorly* trained) marksman does not need to shoot a target nine times to score a kill… whatever they supposedly learned from video games didn’t translate into any real-world skills.
I ? DOOM!
@Magnoire La Chouette
I meant “I <3 DOOM"! My little heart didn't come out.
Lots of people watched violent films and play violent games and don’t kill anyone-some brain researchers believe spree or serial killers are missing components in their brains, and these missing pieces cause them to go over the edge when other factors like child abuse, emotional abuse, or repeated exposure to violence occurs during childhood. Or maybe they were just nutballs.
It boils down to, they do it because they feel like it. 99.99 percent of killers know in their heads that what they do is wrong and unacceptable, but they choose to do it anyway, because 1. they enjoy it. 2. They are sure they’ll get away with it 3. They are counting on it to be worth the risk, or any combination of these. And the tiny percentage that don’t know in their heads that they are doing wrong, those are the really obviously bonkers ones, and they were known to be bonkers long before they crossed that line.
As to video games and movies, I’m reminded of an old Jewish saying I read once: “A saloon can’t corrupt a good man any more than a synagogue can reform a bad one.