The Public & The Internet: Open Forum

brent_clements writes "With the recent shootings in colorado, and other recent shootings around the country, I have been seeing articles such as this one, touting that these kids used the "internet", played games such as DOOM or Duke Nukem and were general geeks who were picked on in school. The articles that I am reading give me the impression that by using the internet or playing these games the kids were somehow provoked by them. " I'm overstepping my usual bounds a bit, posting what's sort of an AskSlashdot, but given the constant coverage, here in the US of the Colorado Massacre, and the fact that the murderers are being styled as geeks and hardcore Internet people, I'm wondering what everyone thinks. Is the perception of this prevasive? Or, more honestly, does the Internet make things like this easier for people? What about socialization of people? Let 'er rip folks-because geeks are getting blasted out there right now.

A Possible DOOM angle

I spent 11 years as a professional military officer, and while I was so employed I was constantly researching and studying my trade.

One of the books I picked up was called "On Killing", written by a Army Colonel with a PHd in Phsch, an absolutely facinating study into what it meant, on a personal level, to kill someone.

One of the subjects in the book was on the training of soldiers to kill. Humans have a powerful, innate aversion to killing people and getting people to overcome this aversion is very difficult. It's also the prime purpose of any Army training cadre.

In WWII, a study showed that a very small percentage of soldiers in a given battle actually fired their weapons, and an even smaller percentage of those soldiers fired aimed shots.

One of the changes made was to replace the standard Army "bullseye" rifle practice target with a man-shaped target. Thus conditioned to shoot at man -shapes (rifle engagements take place between 400 and 100 metres, so you can't make out faces etc.) the percentage of men who shot went up dramatically - by Vietnam, most men were actually firing aimed shots.

An interesting side note is that cases of post-tramatic stress syndrome increased at the same rate - those who would not normally have killed were now killing - and suffering the consequences after the fact.

Now I certainly don't think that DOOM or Quake turned these kids into monsters, but it is entirely possible that the game helped to desensitise and condition them to be able to overcome the natural aversion to killing. DOOM didn't get them to bring all those guns and ammo to school, but once the shooting started DOOM _may_ have helped keep it going.

Incidently, on the gun control issue, there's no issue that tears me (as a retired military professional) harder in two directions. On the one hand, I have lived around high-power firearms for most of my life, I have been in possible-live-shoot situations before, and I know when to shoot, and when not to. I trust myself with a firearm, because I'm highly trained, and I know that I won't use one except in the direst of situations. I would like to be able to carry a gun. Not some monster cannon, just a standard frame 9mm loaded with a "safty round" like a Glaser that does not shoot through people and is frangible (so no ricohets). Ammo capacity is not an issue - if I need more than 3 rounds, there's bigger trouble afoot than I should be involved in.

However, I DON'T trust Joe Public. I have no assurances that anyone holding a gun really understands what it is he's holding. Cops do, soldiers do, but I don't think guys like ESR do - and that scares me.

I'm not sure which is worse - people like me without a gun, or people not like me with one.

DG

Wow... Let's see... Duh!

You've got two kids... Who are in what boils down to a gang.

You've got a society with no moral standards -- that has, in essence, told these kids to find themselves as the ultimate morality.

You've got parents who are absent enough not to notice that their kids are making dozens of pipe bombs. ("Wow johnny... We're so glad to see your interest in gardening! Could you put some of that fertilizer on the petunias? And plumbing too!")

You've got a total demise of common courtesy, to the point that these kids are mercilessly harassed without anyone in authority making any attempt to protect them.

Finally, they are presented, daily, in every media, with graphic violence, sexual depravity, and moral degeneracy.

And we blame the Internet? Or guns?

The problem is that:

1) Parents are pursuing self-fulfillment instead of raising their kids. I know it makes people happy to have a job -- great. Have one. But don't neglect your kids. If you can't have self esteem without a job, then don't have kids!
2) Society has trashed all moral standards in favor of a bunch of feel-good psycho-babble.
3) Children are taught that truth is relative.
4) The schools neither teach nor discipline.
5) Moral degeneracy has taken over everything people see and here. We are continually being assaulted with sex and violence -- in the bassest possible form.

Get a clue people. And don't do this to /your/ kids.

This is only the start people -- our schools are going to be war-zones until we turn around. And all the gun control or warning labels in the world won't change that.

An unpopular opinion... (continued, oops)

Sorry, I accidentally hit submit prematurely.

To continue with my rant, I think that violence in media is something that needs to be looked at, but not in isolation. In combination with other factors, children are being left to their own devices, with very little guidance from responsible adults. When they are faced with messages like the one I mentioned above, well, I don't think it causes them to become killers, but I don't think it's healthy, either. Certainly it's easy to just claim that portrayed violence is the sole cause, which isn't fair, but isn't it slightly ludicrous to claim that it has no effect whatsoever?

Regarding the `Goth' scene -- I'll be the first to admit that I know relatively little of what is actually entailed in being a Goth. However, from what I have seen, it seems to focus or dwell on death, depression, pain ... I'm struggling for a point here. While I don't think it's fair to claim that this is bad out of hand, I do think that parents should be worried if their children are growing up in an environment like this. In combination with other factors, I think that this can certainly be detrimental to their well being.

Hmm. It's early, and I didn't sleep last night, so this is coming out a lot more ranty than I'd like. I guess my main point is this -- yes, the media is being narrow minded to try to blame this tragedy on one cause, but we would be equally narrow minded not to consider the effects of portrayed violence on our youth.

--
Ian Peters

An unpopular opinion...

I realize this probably won't be the most popular opinion you'll read attached to this article, but I'm going to step out on a limb. There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction going on here, on two counts. First, the media, for seizing on violent computer games and the internet as a possible `cause' of this tragic event, but also, the slashdot community for dismissing this possibility out of hand.

Several of the (few) posts at this point make the following argument -- "I play violent video games, and I've never killed anyone, so that theory must be wrong!" This is a fundamental logical flaw. If the statement were "violent video games turn everyone into killers", then a simple counter example would be sufficient. However, merely stating that violent video games have no effect on you doesn't disprove a relationship. I'm not necessarily claiming that there is one; just that this argument is flawed.

Now, to claim that there is a relationship. Several people have pointed out that violence predates the internet and computer games by a large margin. This is certainly true. I could sit here and make the argument that violence has never been this realistic, but I don't think that's the point. I do think that mindless violence, which is being portrayed more and more, in many different forums, is problematic. I was recently playing Quake Team Fortress the other day. As I entered the game, I was greeted with the message "Kill, Kill, Kill!"

--
Ian Peters

It's actually very simple.

Society sees a couple of its members doing something really, really, REALLY bad.

Society doesn't like this. It gives Society a bad name.

Society tries to do whatever possible to convince itself that these Bad People(tm) were never a part of Society to begin with.

The first step is to find "obvious differences" between Society and the Bad People. Well, violent computer games and the goth subculture are in the limelight these days...let's use that!

(cue all those media shots of the items with the Doom logo in evidence bags)

An unpopular opinion...

I think that in some ways you make a descent argument here but I don't think you really go far enough with it. The fundamental flaw here was not that these kids played Doom, or listened to Marilyn Manson, or dressed in black trenchcoats. The fundamental issue was that these kids were left alone with these things and never really connected to anything outside of that. The parents probly did the best they knew how but were they really there from the tiem their kids were born with the love and support that they needed? Or did they go about their daily business and ignore the various signs that were there saying that their kid was screaming out for help? I seriously doubt that these parents were attachemnt oriented and thought their kids love and connection on a daily basis. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming it all on the parents, because there were definately more factors that that.

Lets through in the video games and the internet and Marilyn Manson though and look at the role they could have played. Violent Music, while a definate form of expression (and one that even I connect with, being a fan of MM) does not in and ov itself motivate one to kill. Nor does violent thought in and of itself. The videogames could very well have been active in breaking down the barriers between reality and fantasy, but why would that be possible. If all a person has to connect with is a violent video game, then perhaps that's all they will know. If all a person knows is a violent fantasy of killing before being killed, you can see that there is a potential problem without me pointing it out. And the internet... As we know the internet is a tool for communicating and gathering ideas and spreading them. But it is a tool moer than a media. It is what we make of it. I can go on the internet and for months at a tiem never have contact with another human being on it, it is my decision about how I use the tool that allows me to communicate with other people or shut them out completely. In my case I choose to share my thoughts but that does not mean that most of the flames I will recieve from posting this will have any bearing on my life. Because I choose to ingnore the input and seek my own agenda which is to not bother reading or writing to people who don't like my ideas or my input. Who's to say these kids were part of an internet propigated "gang," I'm not saying they weren't, but I think that the impact was way less than is being emphasised. In the end, I believe that it is too difficult to pidgeon hole someone into a course of behavior that is dictated by music and video games and the internet by themselves. No, there was more to it... I think that these kids were let down by their families first off, probly because the parents didn't know how to effectivly divy up thie time between work and family and still make ends meet without feeling very drained themselves. This is a feeling that is growing in America and will probly continue. Secondly I believe that the school let these kids down, because they had no outlet for these intelligent children that they wanted to take part in, and because they failed to make them feel comfortable in any social type setting. The community and other kids let these kids down for not breaking through and not connecting with these boys early on and giving them status in the social ranking of the community. It is important for children to feel a part of something even if it is something small. Other kids and other parents should have reached out to include these kids in something other than what they could devise on their own. Alienation doesn't go aware just because you ignore it, often times it comes back to bite you.

This is what is happening today, more and more parents are having children that they can't devote the time to because they are too worried about the lives they want to lead than the ones they do lead. They don't take the time on a daily basis from the childs earliest years to make them feel loved, to bring them in and make them a part of the family unit. They send them to school where the only thing that they can find to connect to are drugs, music, and games. The other kids make fun of them, only driving them farther away. Teachers and priciples look at them as troubled children and pidgeon hole them that way, driving them further into a hole. They go home and play quake and have fun, and listen to loud crunchy music and have fun, and escape their depression for a while, breaking down what's real for a while. And we're suprised when they start fantasizing about all those monsters in doom being the monsters that are keeping them in that hole. Go figure that we've created a ticking time bomb, look at how many times these kids have been labeled and criticised and let down before they ever got to that point. And when they fell so low and have they're boundaries torn down to such a point, and still people ridicule or even worse, ignore them. It makes perfect sense that as an eighteen year old with hormones pumping and real life closer than ever, they just wanted to explode.

Unfortunately I believe that this is only the beginning. It's not going to go away until on the most fundamental family layer, we start to deal with our children as what they are, human. Full of all the good that we are, and the bad. We need a social structure that allows us to spend time with our kids, a work environment that is more focused on family, and healthy workers than profit. And more schools that have less children, more teachers, and lots of active learning rather than lectures that bore and build discontent. And most importantly room for all children to learn to grow and connect with eachother, not to learn to create outcasts. This is the only way we can start to change this in a healthy and constructive manner.
Taking into account for human behavior, it's not possible to have a hippy dippy land that everyone is going to be idealic parents and we're going to have idealic schools where all the kids are nice to eachother and all the teachers are great at motivating their students to do something other than fantasize about something other than today's lecture. But it is definately time that we as a community (as all communitys that make up the US, and the world) start taking a real hard introspective look at what we do to perpetuate the current behaviors and start working on real ways to move closer to that ideal that we seek. Until then, acts like this will continue.

Competing models of social interaction.

What drove HAL crazy? Being programmed to tell
the truth and being told to lie.

Society on the Internet is *in general* a meritocracy. You're judged by your ability to communicate, by your intelligence. But then when you go to school, those attributes become irrelevant, or worse, are turned against you. You're ostracised for the very same things that are an advantage on the Internet. This does not lead to a stable mentality.

I didn't have too much trouble in my school, mostly because I was a sarcastic little bastard who'd verbally rip anyone to shreds who tried to mess with me - and I had biker friends :) (and a high threshold for pain :(). But I accepted quite a bit of the grief that came my way because that was the way things were. If it had been pointed out to me that there were other ways for things to be, I wouldn't have been so quick to accept the hassle.

K.
-

--
To the extent that I wear skirts and cheap nylon slips, I've gone native.

Whole different topic...

You've touched upon a whole different topic. The school system in the US is degrading. And I'm of the opinion that nothing will stop it although I do have several opinions on the reasons.

First, children today often don't have any sort of support system. Mom and dad both work if they are even both still around. They don't have much time to be a part of their child's life. Some try really hard, even fewer actually succeed. The unfortunate part is that even a little bit of listening can avert a tragedy like this one.

Second, school is a privilege. This may sound good on the surface but what this means is that each successive generation takes this a little more for granted. Even worse, kids that genuinely want to be in school are stuck in classes full of kids that don't want to be there. That statement contains so many problems that need to be fixed that it is a topic for another entire dicussion.

Third, society tends to view money as the answer. When confronted with this opinion I often hold up a dollar bill and ask if it's teaching anyone. When everyone says that it isn't, I then hold up two then three, etc.. The point is that money may be required to implement a solution, but it is not a solution in and of itself. In fact, in more densely populated areas an equal allotment of money is almost insignificant.

Add these three together and what you get is a downward spiral. Each successive generation of kids will be required to be and learn to be more independent. Schools will get more money and not know what to do with it. Each generation of kids will be more likely to take school for granted and not understand the future benefits. Schools will spend the increase in money on making sure that the students can't sneak away. As the reaction becomes more militant the gulf between the few students that really want to be there and the students that don't want to be there will widen.

Because the kids are more independent, they know the basics about how to function in society earlier. This means that they know how to find or purchase guns, explosives, knives, etc.. The internet and violent games only give them the extra experience needed to make the task easier.

The last nail in the coffin that is my downward spiral theory is that all of this adds up to mean that parents need to become even more involved than they already are. Parents that are barely able to tackle the problem now will become overwhelmed.

I fully expect to send my future children to a school where they aren't required to spell correctly until the 6th grade. I only hope that I'm in a position where I can keep my son or daughter out of public schools. I'd hate to have to send them somewhere they are expected to be medianly stupid just because classes are tailored around keeping a disgruntled group a little more interested.

Grrr! Few topics are as frustrating as this one.
-Paul ([e-mail])

Media folks are awesomely stupid

I agree with this. Here in Atlanta, one of our local radio idiots was talking about the influence of Marilyn Manson on these devil worshippers, and how we would hear a lot more about the music and how it was to blame before this was all over. Keep in mind, he was saying this at a time when the exact identity of the shooters was not known. The police had not even secured the building. When I got home that night, CNN was showing the cover art to Rammstein and playing up the fact that these two spoke German to each other.

Then came the video of Doom. I noticed the player in Doom had the shotgun (may favorite weopon in Doom) and had not yet got the chain gun.

Of the 1800 students at Calumbine (sp?) High School, how many do you think have played Doom? How many have listened to Rammstein?

Certainly any male old enough to hold a joystick has played Doom. No mention is made of the total prevalence of Doom on personal computers. It's an immensely popular game.

The media looks for some trait in the personality of these kids that will help mark them as members of a counter culture, but the traits they come up with are mainstream.

Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Doom. Not all teenagers listen to these bands or play first person shoot-em-up video games, but they are not counter culture.

The fascination with Hitler is disturbing, but not uncommon in confused teenagers. Most grow out of it. The strange posts to AOL (if true) are disturbing, but AOL is a very mainstream outlet for kids to express their uninhibited thoughts in anonymous chat rooms. There is nothing unusual about doing this.

These two were disturbed, they needed help, but the media looks at normal, everyday trappings of teenage culture and places them on a stage as oddities. They are not oddities.

Questions that should be asked: How did these guys manufacture pipe bombs in their garage without their parents noticing? What legitimate warning signs were missed? (e.g. did they threaten someone verbally, had they tortured animals in the past, was there a history of non-lethal violence leading up to this.) But the media plays clips from "Du Hast" and shows 640x400 screens of monsters getting blown away with a shotgun.

There's no easy answer to this one, but it's difficult for me to believe that these kids were instilled with any morality or belief system.

School shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon and in a uniquely American way, pop culture will blame pop culture for the evils of our pop culture.

I am also in the middle of this.. its just surreal

I am a senior at Arapahoe High School, in Littleton just 5 miles east of Columbine. They aren't our main rival, but I've watched two back-to-back state championship soccer games from the Arapahoe side of the field when it was down to us and the Columbine Rebels. As a result, there's been some real animosity between our two schools. Needless to say, that has been thankfully tossed aside as many of us went down there to offer help and support.

Also, I am a varsity wrestler (hence the handle i use) and i just recently competed in the regional championship which was held in the Columbine gym.

And as soon as I heard about the shootings, the first thing that came to mind was the time I was sitting in a bathroom stall in the Columbine boy's bathroom during the tournament. All 3 walls were covered with hate messages, swastikas, references to satan, and especially things to the effect of "All jocks must die!" And, like all those Columbine students, I thought that was kind of strange and then promptly dismissed it as I left the stall.

I don't personally know any of the victims, but it's been a hard last couple of days when I didn't know that fact. The coordinator of the gifted/talented program at Arapahoe (a good friend of mine) is the next door neighbor of a fatally wounded victim and has also known Dylan, one of the killers, since preschool. A fellow member of my track team is a friend of that kid everyone saw hanging out the window on the news. So its been a surreal week, and I don't think it's quite hit me yet.

When I first found out about the incident, it had only just started 15 minutes earlier, and for the next several hours I was under the impression that it was a minor shooting, with perhaps a few injuries. Then, I got home after practice and got the updated story, and couldn't believe it.

You've all probably seen on the news what they've been saying about Littleton, CO. Well its true. Practically every school here is a blue ribbon school, no gang activity, long honor roll lists with the bumper stickers to proove it, and plenty of soccer moms. Oh, and despite the name, its not little - thats just the name of the founder. It's a suburb of Denver, and nothing separates the two except a thin invisible line.

So I believe them when they say "If it can happen in Littleton, it can happen anywhere." -cross community upbringing off the list. And the more you read about the kids' parents, the more you will realize they were not "brought up wrong" or "mistreated". No, they both come from 2 parent households, and the neighbors feel strongly enough that the parents were good caring people (one mom works as a counselor for disabled people) that they wrote a note, signed by 19(?) of them expressing their support for the parents (although i admit that them not knowing about all that bomb building has me stumped) so I don't thing is parental upbringing. These two guys did little league sports and cub scouts, and the like, and Dylan attended a youth group with a friend of mine only last year. By his account, Dylan was normal.

Oh, and this "trenchcoat mafia" thing has also been blown out of proportion. This group (which was not a gang at all, and had no affiliates outside the school) was a geek type group that dressed different but had fun in their own way, and didn't harbout much more resentment than your average high schooler. They did, however, have a facination with guns. This is a description of that group as it stood last year, and they even took out a yearbook ad that show the group of geeks all smiles.

Things turned sour with the group late last year, from what I heard, when the jocks started picking on them. Then the hate started. They resented how the jocks seemed to run the school, and they were always picked on. A fight was arranged at a local baseball field after a big confrontation at the school. The trenchcoats showed up with brass knuckles and swords, so the jocks left.

I don't know for sure, but I believe that Eric and Dylan were drawn into the group through their interest in computers and weapons, and turned sour with the rest of the group from the run-ins with jocks. Their real flaw, I believe, was a combination of not knowing how to play the high school game and no effective method of dealing with hate. They channeled it into a long range plan, set in motion near the begining of this school year, to get revenge on the jocks and have the final say, so to speak.

In every way, they thought of the whole matter as a war. They developed a fascination for war (WWII and in particular) and Hitler, and went around annoying people by marching around the school with precise 90 degree turns like soldiers.

Here is where the part about DOOM comes in. They were so consumed by their big plan, that they played DOOM head to head over their modems for hours upon hours. This was not for fun or relaxation or to try to beat each other or any of the normal reasons a person would play DOOM. They took it seriously and considered it training. They also played paintball a lot, and for the same reason. The important thing to stress here is, that while those 1st person shooters may or may not contribute to this kind of thing, in this case the plan came first and the "training" second.

All of this is kind of overwhelming when you are so close to it. Its kind of funny that, even after I knew that it had made world news and forced "Littleton, CO" into the same breath as the likes of "Jonesburo, AK", the thing that really drove it home for me was logging onto /. and user friendly for a bit of escape, and then seeing Iliad's message there and then later this (huge) thread on slashdot.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading my thoughts and impressions on the matter, and I wish only the best of health and peace to all of you.

Role Models

I was cynical at first. I read the stories in the paper, on the web, and watched on TV. I wondered aloud if the parents were a factor. Then I remember a link from Slashdot: an article about kids in Idaho written for Rolling Stone. I realized that people of all ages make decisions on their own. Sometimes these decisions are well reasoned and sometimes not, as evidenced by this week's tragedy.

I talked to a friend of mine at lunch yesterday about Colorado and the killings. He and I agreed that the problem was communication. The kids (the shooters) had something to say and, they thought, no one to listen. How many times have you been hurt emotionally and felt "too whipped" to say anything to anyone. A friend or loved one says, "Hey, how are you doin'?"; is your standard reply "Fine" or are you willing to open up when you need to.

The shooters expressed themselves in a way which they believed everyone would (finally) understand. Don't blame the internet or parents. Let's let them take some of the blame themselves. Ozzy Ozbourne, DOOM, computers, and Bill Clinton aren't to blame for your behavior. You are.

I gotta get this out

I guess I'm kinda at the epicenter of all of this. Last year I graduated from Chatfield, a school thats about ten miles away from Columbine- we were the school that was built after Columbine got too crowded back in '85. I go to church locally there. There were forty people in the youth group that went to Columbine. Today, we're short one. The girl that was praying in the library was my friend- they came in, held up a gun to her head and asked her if she believed in God. She said yes, and was shot. Murdered for her beliefs. One of the nicest people I've ever met.

So people are throwing fingers in every which way, trying to find out what caused this. I don't know exactly what it was caused by, but I know that many of the things they point at are simply symptoms, not the problem itself. So the kids liked to dress darkly and write death poetry. Was this the cause? I doubt it. And to pointing at the jocks as the reason? Heh. I got teased as much as anyone while I was in school. That may have been a contributing factor, something that pushed them over the edge, but again I don't think it was the overlying cause.

There are many factors to this. Everyone seems to be trying to find something to point the finger at. That ain't the way. This is much too complex to have just one single cause. I wish people would stop trying to classify people by group and start looking at them as people. Listen to 'Unity' by Op Ivy sometime. Thats what I'm talkin about. We are all different, but we are all the same.

Agenda- Blame everyone but the killers

Once again something bad has happened and the press is trying to blame everyone/everything except the killers themselves.

At first I heard the attack was racially motivated. Give me a break, only one of their victims was a minority. That is unless you think student atheletes are a minority?

Then they want to blame the internet, guns, porn, gothic clothing. It sounds to me like they are grasping at straws and attacking all the standard media scapegoats. Why can't they just report the kids where crazy. It was the kids fault. Maybe it was the parents fault. The police found bomb making supplies at the house of one of the kids. Either the kids were doing a good job of hiding this, or the parents where turning a blind eye to what was going on.

I say it is finally time for us to accept there are bad apples out there. And when we find them we should punish/eraticate them. Sure, some (but by all means not most) of them may have turned bad because of the internet, or porn, or Doom, or something. However, these are activities that 99.999 percent of the people in the country can enjoy without going crazy so why punish the majority of the public for fear of "saving" one?

The only good thing about this attack was the killers killed themselves. Sure, now we will never know why they did this. Who cares. We don't have to "protect" them for the next 20 years while we "enslave" them. We don't have to hear the arguments in 20 years that they have reformed and should be let go. We don't have to follow their media-frenzied trial for the next year. We don't have to pay for all this. Its over. The bad apples are gone. We can all go back to our glutenious lives of playing on the internet, watching porn, playing Doom, and cleaning our guns.

quack1701

Circling the Wagons

While I don't doubt the ability of mass media to oversimplify any bad situation, I have noticed that many groups who feel they have been mentioned -- at least in passing -- after this tragedy are taking it as if they're the targets of some kind of blamefest.

Example: Just last night I was mystified by someone very wound up about this subject. It turned out that, to my amazement, he felt that as a gay man who wears a trenchcoat a lot (bear with me here, this is a real example), the world was accusing him and his social group of this crime.

Frankly, I haven't noticed any particular pattern to media descriptions except that they're flailing about trying to get a handle on these guys. Matt Drudge, of all people, had an article where he pointed out some dozen or so different attempts to categorize them (Marilyn Manson fans, Hitler enthusiasts, vampire game players, fingernail polish wearers, the works) and made a little light of the actual journalistic depth of these attempts. If internet chatheads (and I'm one, believe me) are one of these categorizations, I guess it's natural for us to jump a little when our turn comes up on the big random attempt-to-explain-it-all wheel, but my point is that being loudly offended and raising a new stink isn't going to help, and I hope we think twice before going down that road.

In short (too late), no, I don't think that the Internet made these guys do this. Neither do you, I expect. Anyone who sits and thinks about it will realize that the major players here are someone who didn't bother or didn't succeed to instill a sense of morality -- or at least respect for life -- in these guys, and ultimately, beyond even that, responsibility falls on the shooters themselves. We all know it. I hope we all realize it. I suspect strongly that, like usual, after a couple of weeks we'll all get past the attempts to find some element of their lifestyles onto which to shift the blame.

Possible motives, possible solutions

Apology in advance: This is a) long, b) I can't spell worht a damn, so forgive me, and c) I am basing some items on being in the USA, so forgive me if I make certain assumptions on laws and customs that you might not be familiar with. Thanks!

Well, now that we've debated up one end over the other about media, games, parents, cheerleaders who lead them on, teasing, and everything else, I'm going to make a try to see if I can figure out why, and what the solution is.

You see, this is very important to me. My daughter was born April 1. I want to see her graduate from High School, go to college, and be happy and successful some day. I want to sit down at the table each night and hear about her day when she's going to school.

I don't want to hear about how little Bobby shot up little Stevie because they didn't like each other.

So, here's my own opinion:

Why they did it:

1. No emotional connection to other students
I watched the news the morning after on the Today show, as they interviewed different teenagers about the killings. Almost all of them said "No, I really didn't know them. Well, I knew their name and face, but that was it." Only one student said "I was friends with one guy- and he told me to leave that morning. I left."

These two teenagers had no reference to the other students. Forget the Neo-Nazi stuff or whatever- it wouldn't have mattered. They had no emotional connection to these kids.

2. Parents didn't get a clue
The day after, their was a web page viewed on the news that was suppose to have been made by one of the students. Now, maybe that's been debunked by now- if it has, let me know. But the web page was basically "We hate them all, we wish they would die."

How the hell didn't the parents notice this? Or the pipe bombs in the basement, or at least the supplies to make them, or all of the ammo?

3. Not just disconnected, but disliked
An interview with a local student who had just moved from that area talked about how these two teenagers were into computers and, while he never used the word "geek", let's face it, they probably were. They lived in a culture that society rewards with money later in life, but punishes because they dare to be different in high school. Day after day, they probably heard the comments from other people, or perhaps just ignored.

4. Faulty wiring.
Something inside their heads just didn't connect right, and they decided that killing people was OK.

All right. Now, the solutions. Again, these are just my opinions, so work with me here. If you have a better idea, let me know- I've got to find out before my daughter get's too old.

1. Parental involvement.
Above all else, I believe in my heart that this is the most important thing. I know, people say "Teenagers hide stuff, they don't tell parents anything". I know this- I was a teen, I certainly didn't tell my parents everything I did. But my mother at least made the effort. There always had to be a parent or adult at someplace I was going to- and let me tell you, it's hard to try and put the moves on a girl when Dad's in the other room. I had a curfew- perhaps too strict of one, but it was there. I plan on having one for my daughter, but I'll give her slack as long as she calls to tell me first.

My father used to read my journal and my mail- jerk action for sure. I've sworn that I'll never do this to my child, and I mean it. But I will know what's she's doing. Who she hangs out with. If this means that I have to give up some of my time to come home some afternoon, make cookies or bring in video games for them to play (yes, those evil video games.) Check out where they go on the Internet, or their web page. Sure, they can make up something on geocities where you'll never find it. But make some sort of effort- odds are, you'll find out something before it gets to be a problem.

2. Some gun control for teens.
Before you get your panties in a not, just finish reading. Personally, I don't like guns. Too loud. But I have no problem with people who own them- I have a former co-worker who had a concealed weapons permit, and kept one in her purse. Great- I'm happy for her.

But there's no need for teenagers to have a gun except for the a) firing range and b) hunting range. A fellow at my last job was taught by his father when he turned 11 how to handle a gun. The number one lesson? How to put it away, lock it up, and never ever use it except for where it is supposed to be used. He was told over and over again, no guns on people. Don't shoot the birds. Respect this- or else your privilage to use the gun will be taken away for a long time. He was taught to respect the power and responsibility that comes with it- and when to use it, and when not too.

A law out in my place in the world came up about restricting concealed weapons in schools and churches, and was shot down. Seems that would infringe on little Johnny's rights to carry a rifle into school.

Teens don't needs guns- if you can't drink alcohol until you're 21, smoke until you're 19, and drive until you're 16, there's no way I want to give you the power to kill somebody just because you're big enough to wrap your finger around the trigger.

3. Death penalty for teens.
Yes, I'm saying death penalty- or at least hard laws. I don't give a flying leap if you're just 16, 14, or even 11. You kill somebody, I want it plain and simple that you are going to the chair, and nobody can save you. I admit, this won't stop some kids, especially these two who committed suicide after their rampage. But you know what- I bet that if every teen knew that if they shot somebody and killed them, they would be guarenteed a trip down death row, shootings would slow down. If they knew that Amy would be in jail until she was 70 for shooting Carla, she might think twice about it. As it is, some laws have them until they turn 21, or even 18, clear their record, and send them back out. I'll be honest- kill them. First felony, some jail time and therapy. Second felony, some more jail time, better therapy, job training, and then move them far away from where they commit crimes so they don't keep going back to the "bad crowd". Third felony- kill them. They obviously can't learn, and are therefore genetically defective, and must be culled from the herd. And those who think that I would spare my own child- think twice. Looking into my heart, and honestly feel that if my daughter did these things, I would cry, I would wonder what I did wrong- and then I would tell the DA to send her to the chair, and then spend the rest of my life feeling terrible about it. But I'd do it for the rest of society.

So, there's my rant, my opinions, and my views. Help me out- let's find a solution, write to our congresspeople, and fix these students. I figure I've got about 11 years to have this fixed before my daughter is old enough to worry about it, and want to get started now.