4 Comments

• 1. JF  |  September 20th, 2010 at 6:40 am

  To me the columbine shooters are heros. Why well they are like alot of students. Pushed to suicide wouldve done it and no one would have noticed. By going on the offensive they gave a voice for the victims of bullyng. They made it clear our schools failed them. They also finally made a stand against the bullies and harrasers.

• 2. Matthew  |  October 21st, 2010 at 8:11 pm

  While I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t believe the taking of any innocent lives can be “heroic”. Yes, the Columbine shooters may have killed those who bullied them. But they also killed a bunch of innocent bystanders.

  Additionally, when you think back to wars vs. peaceful movements, what are the examples that we all remember as inspiring progression? Peaceful movements, it seems. Martin Luther King JR., Gandhi, etc. were all much more effective for their cause than mass killings or war ever are. For instance: don’t you think Osama Bin Laden just made his “cause” much worse by masterminding 9/11? Now he has the US after him, and many people in our country sadly discriminate against Muslims, albeit on a subconscious level in many ways. What if Osama had tried a more peaceful movement? Do you think his cause would have been so negatively affected?

  Same goes for the Columbine shooters. I feel like they have given a bad name to those that have been bullied. Instead of sympathizing with them, many see them as ticking time bombs and are afraid of them. I’m not saying I have all the right answers, just saying that violence never seems to be the most effective one.

• 3. lionel  |  July 12th, 2011 at 11:17 pm

  @2-how is a fifteen year old supposed to stage “peaceful protests?” If Ghandi and MLK barely succeeded in changing their conditions how are teenagers going to?

  I was bullied too. All kids look for is some way to humiliate and belittle you. If people want proof of mankind’s relation to the apes of Africa South Hadley is it.

• 4. Anon  |  January 4th, 2012 at 5:53 pm

  @2, I have a few points to make in response:

  1. You claim that innocent lives were taken at Columbine, but as far as I’m aware there is no evidence to support the notion that any of the victims were innocent of bullying Harris and Klebold. This is not to say that everyone who was killed deserved it, but we have no evidence to say for sure either way.

  2. Peaceful movements in the middle east have, sadly, seldom worked, and using Bin Laden to justify your claim is taking the situation out-of-context. Firstly, Bin Laden’s cause was not to defend his country from the USA, but to destroy a culture that he, as a fundamentalist Muslim, found disgusting. He believed in enforcing people to become Muslims. There was no peaceful alternative for Bin Laden because oppression of freedom of speech was fundamental to his beliefs, and hence it cannot be compared to the feats of Gandhi and King, who were fighting for the opposite: equality and liberty.

  3. Thirdly, you mention Harris and Klebold have given a bad name to those who are bullied. How? They are already considered to be lesser human beings by their peers, hence why they’re bullied, but anyone could be put in that situation, and everyone has their limits…it’s not a reason to fear them, it’s a reason why the prejudiced should try and understand human nature and understand that their victims have the same limits that they do.

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