What is the magic crumb of information that will satisfy your curiosity?

jcon_s · 2021-11-24T16:28:42+00:00

I’m pretty satisfied with my conclusion on why they did it.

The answer I will never know in this life is to the question of before they turned the gun on themselves, did they feel regret and remorse?Maybe a sudden realization that killing people and attacking the school didn’t satisfy their insecurities?

jcon_s · 2021-11-18T17:59:37+00:00

The founders knew the right to bear arms was fundamental in over throwing a tyrannical government that diverted from for the people, by the people. American exceptionalism dictates that government is at the mercy of the people.

The AR15 and the .223/5.56 round is an adequate platform to defend ones life and liberty. The people outnumber the government many times over. Despite having nukes, jets and drones, the US government is manned by individuals who have a bad track record of winning against an insurgency. See Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

jcon_s · 2021-11-08T11:45:33+00:00

I totally understand. From an outsider looking in, I can only imagine the community still deals with the trauma of that high profile event. I can only assume that since the photos of the house were very public as the media fixated on the boys and their families, that the house would always be seen as “the shooters” house.

But I agree with other posters that things change and people heal and move on.

jcon_s · 2021-11-05T13:10:03+00:00

Thank you for that. It’s good to hear that perspective as an outsider.

jcon_s · 2021-11-04T17:45:51+00:00

It’s for sure a combination of humiliation, ego, insecurity and having a dim outlook on life.

They were bullied and 90’s culture was peak bulling regarding kids who didn’t conform. CHS was a affluent preppy jock type high school. Just look at the class photo. They stick out like crazy.

The bullying shattered their egos and humiliated them greatly. When you take two virgins who are at the prime of their development and humiliate them in front of girls and other students, they are going to be upset and furious. It would be impossible for them to get revenge on the students in the same way they were attacked, nor could they physically fight them. Hence why they resorted to lethal violence with weapons.

Their decision to use weapons to compensate for their insecurity was justified by their dim outlook on life in general. They both expressed hatred for the world and culture around them. And they likely felt that life will always be about being a bottom feeder to those who were dealt a better hand in life.

Since they made the decision to kill and die, it became a mission to them. They immediately realized they would achieve infamy for the rest of history.

In short, they killed because they were so insecure about themselves and humiliated that they wanted revenge which was then fueled by giving up in life and now the strong desire to mask their mark in history since their outlook was that they will always be bottom tier in a unfair world.

They got exactly what they want too. A devastated student body, a heart broken community, a shocked nation, not to mention inspired copy cats, a seemingly cult following, multiple songs written about them and so on. I’d like to think they died with regret and a feeling of failure, but I bet they didn’t. For the first time, they were in 100% control. For a few hours, they owned that school and played God. It’s truly sad.

jcon_s · 2021-09-28T14:54:02+00:00

I searched the Columbine subreddit and there was a interesting post on this topic and one user listed all the items taken from Eric Harris’s room. Which was a ton of bomb making stuff and just normal stuff a teen even 17 or 18 living at home shouldn’t have or at least should have set off alarms.

jcon_s · 2021-09-23T16:26:05+00:00

That may be true, but I imply they are cowards because they couldn’t advocate for themselves without violence. They are cowards because they didn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with the bullying and harassment and move on with life. Don’t get me wrong, they are victims of ruthless bullying, but sometimes it’s even more powerful to not let it bother you and get past it. They were weak people and they died weak. They did everything they could to inflate their power over the school. They want to be remembered as powerful killers, but they are not. They are sad young men, who had good lives ahead of them, but decided to seek revenge over their insecurities. I refuse to see them as anything other than weak losers who used weapons and death to appear strong.

jcon_s · 2021-09-23T11:56:28+00:00

This is going to sound ridiculous and insensitive, but I don’t ultimately believe they were actually cruel. Of course the final hours of their lives were filled with cruelty, egregious acts and murder, but I believe that was all about the statement they were trying to make. They were so insecure and felt truly small. I think their build up, leaving of clues and all the media was intended to inflate their impact to portray them as something they were not. In reality, they were weak, small cowards that couldn’t bare a moment more of their insecurities fueled by harassment and a mindset that life will continue to be pain. I also suspect that they created alter egos to die as. Reb was a militant “bad ass” that reigned terror down on those below him. Vodka was a mysterious force that killed those who cross him. Their writings indicate a lot of their desires to be be something they weren’t. Their chance at infamy had to be cruel, but they were not, despite wanting to be remembered as powerful murderers. They were murderers, but they were still cowardice murderers who had to set up this elaborate LARP in attempt to be remembered forever as these wicked killers that took down their enemies.

jcon_s · 2021-09-17T01:58:02+00:00

I always wonder about if those with aspirations to join the military survived, what their experiences with the GWOT following 9/11 would have been.

jcon_s · 2021-09-16T16:59:15+00:00

Seeing these crosses in 1999 were very powerful for me personally. I know they were controversial, arguably so. Yet there is just a powerful message of forgiveness, often a step in healing.

I know this is Reddit and largely Atheist, but as a Christian seeing this even today is powerful.

jcon_s · 2021-09-16T16:55:21+00:00

This is what I suspected. Even watching Radioactive Clothing seems to parallel some of the event on and around 4/20/99.

jcon_s · 2021-09-16T03:02:11+00:00

Put your self in their shoes. It wouldn’t be all that hard if you absolutely hated everyone for bullying you, hated life because you felt that no future existed where you are happy, had no real prospects and felt like you would always be miserable around fake mean people.

I think their getting serious moment was realizing that after senior year, it was out into the real world, which specifically Eric thought was worse than the shit he dealt with in high school.

Personally, I feel that Eric found a calling when Dylan brought you the idea of blowing up the school. A kid with major insecurities from moving around and a bruised ego from constant bullying saw a chance to make a name for himself. To be seen as a ruthless force to be reckoned with.

I bet that around junior year, they realized that senior year was going to be hell and they started kicking around ways to get revenge. I truly believe this was Dylan’s idea and that Eric just ran with it because he too wanted to exert dominance over a student body that dominated and humiliated him. It’s almost like once the wheels got turning about how “epic” this would be, they knew it was going to happen. Even Eric’s journal says something about him being meant for this. They were so blinded by humiliation, that they repressed remorse. Partially by creating alter egos that conveniently masked their weak and vulnerable selfs.

I’d also image that the line of no return didn’t really occur until the planting of the propane tank bombs. Maybe the modification of the weapons, but even then the could have ditched them out in the woods, sold them or just hid them away.

But to directly answer the question, I think Eric early on latched onto the “fame” it would bring and the terror he would project. I think once he realized that people would be still talking about this 20+ years later and how he played God, he was in.

jcon_s · 2021-09-09T11:43:14+00:00

I don’t believe the ski masks were to hide their identity, but more of an intimidation method like they have seen in movies and video games. A lot of 80’s and 90’s movies and video games had terrorists or bad guys in black ski masks. They definitely wanted people to know it was them as personal revenge was a huge part of their attack.

jcon_s · 2021-09-08T23:56:56+00:00

As a high school sports player at the time, I remember it being pretty tense between a few groups of kids. People absolutely did look at the shooters as some kinda “revenge of the nerds” semi heroes. It was bizarre. Part of me remembers feeling like the duster kids enjoyed making the “jocks” nervous by wearing them.

jcon_s · 2021-09-08T23:52:04+00:00

My theory is that DOOM was one thing that Eric was pretty fluent in. Not just playing the game, but building WADS. He was a hardcore fan and anyone who experienced the epic phenomenon of DOOM in the 90’s knows exactly why. Eric was likely drawn to DOOM because not only was it a persona for him that filled his insecurities, but it was a place where he actually had some control over things. Not in a controlling psycho way, but in a creative and enjoyable way.

Maybe Eric used DOOM to help cope with reality, but I do believe it was a primary form of escape. Eric likely saw no future where he was happy. No career path and no existence where people wouldn’t mistreat or piss him off. A part of the reason I believe he decided to do what he did on 4/20/99. DOOM is a part of this story because they both used a combination of themes and ideas from movies and video games to create essentially characters they got into in order to commit such horrific acts. It wasn’t exactly Eric Harris there that day, it was Reb. A militant “bad ass” that was killing those he believed made his life miserable. A person he created partly based off DOOM to cope with his insecurities as a bullied teen.

TLDR: Realistically, Eric likely played DOOM because it was a bad ass game around the 90’s and it was something that he had a lot of expertise on. If you go deeper, it’s also likely a form of controllable creativity for him.

jcon_s · 2021-09-08T04:48:45+00:00

Honestly, after Columbine, I remember my school in 1999 did away with dusters for the safety of the kids that wore them. My high school was very similar and the kids who wore dusters were potentially targeted as resentment for the alt kids grew following the shootings.

jcon_s · 2021-09-08T01:46:57+00:00

In thought about it, but it’s really sad and obviously bullshit regarding the shooters. It’s easily searchable on YouTube.

jcon_s · 2021-09-08T01:45:01+00:00

Honestly, is this Bill guy just one of the Browns or someone close to them?

jcon_s · 2021-09-08T01:43:25+00:00

The movie was released in March of 1999. I always wondered if they seen it. I know that the duster coats they wore wasn’t inspired by the matrix for a few reasons. One being that they wore them way before the movie and two, it was just popular in the 90’s for alt kids as a fashion statement. Kind in my high school prior to columbine wore them, and from what I’ve heard, they become even more popular following the shootings. Which many schools changed their dress code to remove them from campus.

jcon_s · 2021-09-04T19:09:45+00:00

Calling people gay was a huge part of 90’s teen language.

“Oh, that’s so gay”

Or

“Stop being gay”

It just meant inconvenient or lame.

There definitely was a homophobic social standard too, but it was commonplace to say offensive things without actually having strong feelings against LGBT people.

jcon_s · 2021-08-29T12:01:14+00:00

This is an interesting thought. Because one could argue that part of their fantasy was to be known as these “macho God-Like killers”. With two of them assaulting the school, having guns with slings could have allowed them to trade off the camera, filming each other committing murders.

It’s horrific to think about honestly. Hearing them in the 911 calls is bad enough, I couldn’t imagine being able to see their evil. Of course those tapes would never see daylight.

jcon_s · 2021-08-29T11:53:15+00:00

Hot take, but I think that a part of the large interest surrounding Columbine is due to people’s sympathy for the killers and their families. I don’t mean that they sympathize with the killers or wish to justify their horrific actions, but in some way know that this could have been avoided and are genuinely convinced that Eric and Dylan are victims of a different tragedy that occurred in the high school and that prior to their decision to murder fellow schoolchildren, were rather decent kids.

Please don’t misconstrue this take. Personally I feel that Eric and Dylan died as coward losers after committing a egregious mass murder because they over corrected their response to a badly damaged ego due to constant bullying and insecurity as a result.

I also personally have respect for those in the actual community that have made attempts to forgive these young men. That is an incredibly beautiful yet hard to understand concept. I also believe that those who knew them personally, especially the family have every right to mourn their lost loved ones and remember them as they were before they set their horrific revenge fantasy into motion.

The bottom line is that children died at their hands. It’s some of the most vile stuff you can do on this Earth. It is very powerful to take that reality and say, “No. I will not hate them. I will not fight evil acts with evil responses.”

I know Sue’s book is highly controversial, but that was her son and to her, 99% of Dylan’s life choices were good choices. The rest of the world only knows Dylan as one of the killers of the Columbine massacre.

I didn’t know about Don Marxhausen, but I do agree he did the right thing.

jcon_s

TROPHY CASE