POST 12: School shootings in the USA

The Columbine School Shooting.

I didn't have time to read a 10th of the information on the blog which is very detailed on every part of this tragic event. But what i thought was most interesting was:
*How the shooters plan the event, and how it happened, because every deteil given in the blog about what happenned shows that it was indeed planned by lost teenagers who, even though killed and injured a lot of innocent people, "failed" to do what they wanted, which was blowing up their school. In the sumary of the event, it is said that most of the bombs and molotov cocktails they had prepared failed to explode, which was initially part of a plan that they started a whole year before. i had heard of this shooting but had no idea how planned it was and it really surprised me.

*The shooters' profiles, especially Eric Harris, and what is said about him. At first sight, he has a James Deam kind of look, is handsome and looks confident, which is actually ery important to be accepted in high school years. Also, comments of people who knew him stroke me because they say he was a "nornal guy" with a "classic type" and the description of his life, wanting to raise two sons, joining the marine, does not give us at all the image of frustrated and rejected teen, but someone who had life goals. I think it is very interesting because it calls into question the whole theory that school shootings are done by rejected teens who want revenge.

*The diaries of the killers, which i didn't read but i caught a sentence written by Eric Harris which is very shocking and interesting at the same time: "I'm full of hate and i love it."
*Some pictures that i picked and wrote below

This is the first photo i saw and the website. The girl on the right, Jessica Holliday, just escaped the school and this picture captured in a very artistic and striking way, the chaos and the sudden pain that was going around during the event.

This is also a very beautiful moment well captured by a picture. The suffering going along with maybe relief on this boy's face makes us feel what was going on in people's minds this day.

Through an artistic point of view this is the best picture, although it is violent and sad but it makes the viewer question himself: "Whose shoes are these? Is this person dead? Injured? Maybe these are the shoes of one of the killers..."

For the films and movies that illustrates this topic, i choose American Horror Story's first season for several reasons: first of all because i started to watch this show a few months ago and loved it because of how it is shot, the great actors and the unusual topics.

Also because i thought of the first season as soon as we started talking about school shootings in class, but mostly because a part of the first season is inspired by the event of Columbine.

Some things, like the name of the school, or the fact their were 2 shooters, have been changed, but most of it stayed, for example this very striking moment in the library when Kyle (the shooter) asks for the Jocks to get up. Also, we get to know the character during the show and try to understand what is going on in his head, which i think is way more interesting then just talking about the facts.

 Here is the link to the episode of the shooting from 0:00 min to 4:50 min.

The main reasons that are given to explain school shootings are vendetta (because they were bullied, rejected or for other reasons), because they were deranged or because they were exposed to violence in their everyday lives. All of the other reasons revolve around loneliness, access to drugs and weapons, bad social background or mental problems or ideas like not valuing life, etc... Even though these are really the main reasons why these tragic events happen, i think putting every one of them in the same bag is going to fast, and studying the psychologic part of their act more interestinf maybe to prevent it from happening again...