At least we talk about it now. People are aware of the problem. Teachers are trained to look for problems, and try to identify and resolve issues.
—
Do parents talk to their children and listen? Do they spend time with them and let them know they care? Do they build up their self confidence so that a casual, off-hand remark doesnt turn into a spiteful vendetta? Do they teach their kids that standing up for themselves doesnt mean pounding someone in the face, just because they called them a name? Do they teach their kids that the world is a hard place, but you don’t have to turn into a monster to live in it? That strength is measured in how we bend, as well as in how firm and resolute we can be? And finally, that high school is not the real world and that it will end in just a few years and, guess what, you’ll probably miss it when you’re done. You don’t have to be a victim. In the end it is your choice. We all have to stand up for ourselves sometime.
—
And please, don’t get me wrong. Columbine was a tragic disaster. I grieve every year. And it’s always worse because we know it was so senseless.
SURE we learned something!–we learned NOTHING and NOBODY can stop people from having their god given right to own assault weapons, that they clutch so dearly to their hearts.
Dypak: I wish I’d had room in the strip to say everything you said. It’s not the simple issue some people would like it to be. In the Columbine story, everyone was a villain and everyone was a victim.
“I sure those millions killed by British imperialism feel the same.”
Please note that British Imperialism is a thing of the past (reason immaterial, for the purposes of this discussion).
School shootings are still depressingly common.
Powerful commentary, and thoughtfully a bit apart from most conventional thinking – as the couple of outraged responses indicate. I still remember clearly, shortly after Columbine and other school tragedies, part of “zero tolerance” and school “alertness” was a systematic pressure to keep watch not only on bullies but even moreso on their targets!
Working in the denver area underground club scene I run into kids that were going to Columbine 3 years ago and they say that the jock centric/jocks can do no wrong attitude is still there, as is the seething hatred of the alternative kids towards the bullies.
edit: the kids tend to have to same quote “the only school that didn’t learn from Columbine was Columbine”
The two boys who shot up that high school were not “good” boys who were bullied into revenge”. They weren’t kids led astray by music, and weren’t “goth” with long black trenchcoats. The latest info on the Columbine killers was that they were sociopathic and psychotic. They deliberately set out to kill EVERYONE at that school and the only reason they didn’t was because they were so completely inept at their bomb building. The idea of calling the dead children at Columbine “villains” is misguided and disrespectful at best and downright disgusting at worst.
Pab, look up the latest information on the shooting and especially the shooters before you respond to this. I would like us to both be fully informed.
JanCinVV: I’ve done exhaustive research on Columbine, along with the other notorious school shootings in the U.S. I did this back in 2005 while writing my first novel, which was centered around a group of school shooters. And today’s strip was actually driven by the new “evidence” that seeks to further whitewash the whole affair and further the myth of the saintly little “victims” of Columbine.
Columbine was not the first shooting. In fact, there’s evidence that Eric and Dylan were inspired by the shootings at Paducah and Jonesboro. They picked their targets carefully, singling out the jocks in the classrooms they went through. It struck me at the time, and even more so while researching the shooting between 2003 and 2005 for various reasons, as a classic revenge killing on a grand scale.
Columbine has been one of the most investigated and most documented crimes in modern history. Anyone writing a book ten years later claiming “everything you know is wrong” about a crime we’ve all seen investigated and replayed to death (no pun) is probably taking part in revisionist history if you ask me.
It’s not unlike the effort a few years back to recast Matthew Sheppard’s killers as only intending to rob him, not single him out because he was gay, despite what they themselves admitted in their trials.
However we shake it, the only people who REALLY knew why the Columbine shooters did what they did, and what their targets may have done to them, are ten years dead.
And how we as a culture have reacted to Columbine was akin to putting a band-aid on a brain tumor. I dare say that the shootings that have come since (like Henry Ford, Virginia Tech, Delaware State, NIU just to name a few recent notorious ones) are due at least in part because we DIDN’T learn the lessons of Columbine.
In my still unsold novel (I’ve gotten praise from every editor who’s passed on it, took), Jake (my narrator) put it best:
“By all rights, Columbine should have gotten the message across loud and clear to kids across the country: don’t ** with the wrong people or you will end up dead. It didn’t, though, and neither did the killings that came later, because people love victims. Because a couple of kids who were sick of being kicked around killed their oppressors, they wound up making themselves into the bad guys, and made the bad guys into victims in everyone’s eyes. People were too overcome with grief over the senseless bloodshed to think about what had driven the two shooters to do what they did. And for those jocks, having their blood spilled wound up washing away their sins as far as everyone was concerned. Don’t think about what they were really like, turn them into perfect little angels in everyone’s eyes. And, personally, I am not really in favor of giving the world of jocks any new martyrs.”
The truth is that EVERYONE at Columbine was a victim: shooter, casualty, and bystander alike. And EVERYONE was a villain for perpetuating an atmosphere that bred those killers and drove them to killing.
But, like the man said in /The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance,/ “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The legend is that two psychopaths took out 13 perfectly innocent people, and that’s unfortunately what history is probably going to reflect.
There has been at least one lesson learned from Columbine…by the police.
Current training and doctrine now says NOT to stand by waiting for SWAT to arrive while people are getting killed. Now the police are to run to the sound of gunfire and perform their duty to protect the public.
Pab, by your concepts of guilt and innocence, the U.S. was as guilty in WWII as Nazi Germany and rape victims must have been asking for it. Bullies are loathsome but they don’t deserve to get murdered. I’m disappointed in you.
kfaatz925 about 15 years ago
Powerful strip, Pab - thank you.
wndrwrthg about 15 years ago
I sure those millions killed by British imperialism feel the same.
Durak Premium Member about 15 years ago
At least we talk about it now. People are aware of the problem. Teachers are trained to look for problems, and try to identify and resolve issues. — Do parents talk to their children and listen? Do they spend time with them and let them know they care? Do they build up their self confidence so that a casual, off-hand remark doesnt turn into a spiteful vendetta? Do they teach their kids that standing up for themselves doesnt mean pounding someone in the face, just because they called them a name? Do they teach their kids that the world is a hard place, but you don’t have to turn into a monster to live in it? That strength is measured in how we bend, as well as in how firm and resolute we can be? And finally, that high school is not the real world and that it will end in just a few years and, guess what, you’ll probably miss it when you’re done. You don’t have to be a victim. In the end it is your choice. We all have to stand up for ourselves sometime. — And please, don’t get me wrong. Columbine was a tragic disaster. I grieve every year. And it’s always worse because we know it was so senseless.
Yukoneric about 15 years ago
We’ll never learn, unfortunately.
3hourtour Premium Member about 15 years ago
…this strip pisses me off so much I just want to shoot someone….
Nighthawks Premium Member about 15 years ago
SURE we learned something!–we learned NOTHING and NOBODY can stop people from having their god given right to own assault weapons, that they clutch so dearly to their hearts.
HAPPiness is a warm gun, bang bang shoot shoot!
Pab Sungenis creator about 15 years ago
Dypak: I wish I’d had room in the strip to say everything you said. It’s not the simple issue some people would like it to be. In the Columbine story, everyone was a villain and everyone was a victim.
mivins about 15 years ago
Has it been ten years? Oh lord.
Thank you, Pab.
fairportfan about 15 years ago
Thank you.
fairportfan about 15 years ago
wndrwrthg says:
“I sure those millions killed by British imperialism feel the same.” Please note that British Imperialism is a thing of the past (reason immaterial, for the purposes of this discussion). School shootings are still depressingly common.
kolling about 15 years ago
Saying bullying justifies murder? Now that’s sick.
Digital Frog about 15 years ago
Kudos to Pab and Dypak
ironflange about 15 years ago
3hourtour said: …this strip pisses me off so much I just want to shoot someone….
Wow. I hope this is just a joke.
Pab Sungenis creator about 15 years ago
kolling: No, it doesn’t justify it, but the “victims” of Columbine were no less to blame for the shooting than the “villains” were.
Dana Kuhar Premium Member about 15 years ago
Powerful commentary, and thoughtfully a bit apart from most conventional thinking – as the couple of outraged responses indicate. I still remember clearly, shortly after Columbine and other school tragedies, part of “zero tolerance” and school “alertness” was a systematic pressure to keep watch not only on bullies but even moreso on their targets!
KingRat about 15 years ago
Working in the denver area underground club scene I run into kids that were going to Columbine 3 years ago and they say that the jock centric/jocks can do no wrong attitude is still there, as is the seething hatred of the alternative kids towards the bullies.
edit: the kids tend to have to same quote “the only school that didn’t learn from Columbine was Columbine”
JanLC about 15 years ago
The two boys who shot up that high school were not “good” boys who were bullied into revenge”. They weren’t kids led astray by music, and weren’t “goth” with long black trenchcoats. The latest info on the Columbine killers was that they were sociopathic and psychotic. They deliberately set out to kill EVERYONE at that school and the only reason they didn’t was because they were so completely inept at their bomb building. The idea of calling the dead children at Columbine “villains” is misguided and disrespectful at best and downright disgusting at worst. Pab, look up the latest information on the shooting and especially the shooters before you respond to this. I would like us to both be fully informed.
Pab Sungenis creator about 15 years ago
JanCinVV: I’ve done exhaustive research on Columbine, along with the other notorious school shootings in the U.S. I did this back in 2005 while writing my first novel, which was centered around a group of school shooters. And today’s strip was actually driven by the new “evidence” that seeks to further whitewash the whole affair and further the myth of the saintly little “victims” of Columbine.
Columbine was not the first shooting. In fact, there’s evidence that Eric and Dylan were inspired by the shootings at Paducah and Jonesboro. They picked their targets carefully, singling out the jocks in the classrooms they went through. It struck me at the time, and even more so while researching the shooting between 2003 and 2005 for various reasons, as a classic revenge killing on a grand scale.
Columbine has been one of the most investigated and most documented crimes in modern history. Anyone writing a book ten years later claiming “everything you know is wrong” about a crime we’ve all seen investigated and replayed to death (no pun) is probably taking part in revisionist history if you ask me.
It’s not unlike the effort a few years back to recast Matthew Sheppard’s killers as only intending to rob him, not single him out because he was gay, despite what they themselves admitted in their trials.
However we shake it, the only people who REALLY knew why the Columbine shooters did what they did, and what their targets may have done to them, are ten years dead.
And how we as a culture have reacted to Columbine was akin to putting a band-aid on a brain tumor. I dare say that the shootings that have come since (like Henry Ford, Virginia Tech, Delaware State, NIU just to name a few recent notorious ones) are due at least in part because we DIDN’T learn the lessons of Columbine.
In my still unsold novel (I’ve gotten praise from every editor who’s passed on it, took), Jake (my narrator) put it best:
“By all rights, Columbine should have gotten the message across loud and clear to kids across the country: don’t ** with the wrong people or you will end up dead. It didn’t, though, and neither did the killings that came later, because people love victims. Because a couple of kids who were sick of being kicked around killed their oppressors, they wound up making themselves into the bad guys, and made the bad guys into victims in everyone’s eyes. People were too overcome with grief over the senseless bloodshed to think about what had driven the two shooters to do what they did. And for those jocks, having their blood spilled wound up washing away their sins as far as everyone was concerned. Don’t think about what they were really like, turn them into perfect little angels in everyone’s eyes. And, personally, I am not really in favor of giving the world of jocks any new martyrs.”
The truth is that EVERYONE at Columbine was a victim: shooter, casualty, and bystander alike. And EVERYONE was a villain for perpetuating an atmosphere that bred those killers and drove them to killing.
But, like the man said in /The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance,/ “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The legend is that two psychopaths took out 13 perfectly innocent people, and that’s unfortunately what history is probably going to reflect.
And more and more people will suffer as a result.
pschearer Premium Member about 15 years ago
There has been at least one lesson learned from Columbine…by the police.
Current training and doctrine now says NOT to stand by waiting for SWAT to arrive while people are getting killed. Now the police are to run to the sound of gunfire and perform their duty to protect the public.
Pab, by your concepts of guilt and innocence, the U.S. was as guilty in WWII as Nazi Germany and rape victims must have been asking for it. Bullies are loathsome but they don’t deserve to get murdered. I’m disappointed in you.