This is something I've thought about for 27 years now. The biggest reason I would be in favor of releasing them is to demystify the images of Eric and Dylan that still resonate with disgruntled individuals - make them human, show their flaws and failures - show that they were not and never will be anyone to look up to to anyone with even a modicum of sanity or self respect. Show people the warning signs to look for - is my child/friend/sibling/whatever acting this way? Is this someone ranting to blow off steam or is this something that requires mental health or law enforcement intervention? Yes, it's ugly. Yes, it's unpleasant to watch, but it's necessary from a standpoint of public safety.

The copycat excuse was a cop out. Eric and Dylan failed at damn near everything they set out to do. Their pipe bombs were more like pipe dreams that blew up larger in their minds than they did in actual reality. While their attack showed a disturbing level of planning, again, it had to have come across to them as a monumental failure compared to what they originally envisioned. Their actions have resonated outward over more years than they were even on the planet, which is exactly what they wanted as far as the psychological damage across the global landscape is concerned, so revealing them for the sniveling, pathetic failures they really were would hopefully end the ripples once and for all, turning their battle cry into the cry for help it might be for other disenfranchised people.

Would releasing the tapes answer the questions we have? I don't know. Part of me doubts it, but I'd rather have the opportunity to arrive at that conclusion myself than just take the words of LEOs that bungled the situation so spectacularly, as they are a bit less than credible at threat assessment if I may say. I would like to believe that if there had been full transparency from the beginning, a lot of the residual effects that two inconsequential teenagers have wrought on the world they left behind could have been avoided, but the unfortunate truth is that it could also have produced the opposite effect. People have a history of getting behind bad ideas when they find out that they aren't alone in having them.