Thread: bowling for columbine

A video game can not tell a kid to go out and shoot his classmates. It really bugs me when people won't face the facts and place the blame anywhere but where it should be--on the kids themselves (and in most cases, the parents as well).

I did a little bit of reading on the Columbine shootings (forensics and criminology are hobbies of mine) and--lo and behold--there are two sides to the story. Yes, the kids were evil little bastards. But did anyone stop and wonder why they were evil little bastards? From what I've read (and I can only make a judgement based on what I've learned), those two boys were severely picked on. It's easy to dismiss something like that--especially if you've never been in that situation. It's rough being a kid, and kids can be downright nasty. When you're a teenager, everything is the end of the world. I was there, I remember. I can't say that I would ever go on a shooting spree to avenge myself on my abusers, but I will admit to beating up one of the boys that teased me mercilessly in high school. I'm not proud of it, but I'm also human.

I'm not saying it's ok to shoot up a school. It's not. It's never ok to so needlessly take lives. What I'm saying is that there was something much, much deeper going on there than a stupid video game. I wish people (parents especially) would wake up and realize that they need to place responsibility where it belongs; on their kids and (sometimes) on themselves. Not on a silly, inanimate video game.

Did I ramble or what?

nah, made sense to me . i think for the most of the time, parents are trying to help you and are doing the right thing, but sometimes they to can get out of hand. and when i say doing the right thing, i mean grounding them when they find 10 pounds of heroine in their bedroom, and not letting them go out wandering the streets with a bunch of druggies at 2 am in the morning.

i play games and watch violent movies every single day, do i ever seriously contemplate going on a shooting spree? absolutely not! my school doesnt have a bullying problem, in fact i rarely see it here... but the only people who have ever ridiculed me or made me feel insugnificant were the teachers themselves.

i remember in 8th grade there was a kid who lit a trash can on fire in the bathroom, and for the rest of the year they wouldnt let us go to the bathroom, they claimed it was because something would happen and we'd get in trouble for it. but of course all the teachers has keys so they could go whenever they wanted to... is that not the most arrogant you've ever heard?

Wow. In my case, it was the other students that did the bullying. Although I had two teachers who told me that my art and writing sucked and that I should quit now and not waste my time. Click on my sig to see just how much I proved them wrong. Jerks.

I play violent games, too. And like you, I don't have any desire whatsoever to mimic my in-game actions in the real world. That's the beauty of games--you can do whatever you want with no more consequence than a few pixels and polygons blowing to bits. That in itself can be very stress-relieving sometimes.

Wow, I don't mean to get preachy here! I must be getting tired. I'd like to hear other people's views on this. Good topic, by the way.

ya thx . and i think some people cant really speak from experience cause if they ever wanted to kill somebody, they could go lucid and nuke em

*edit* i forgot to post this link, check out this sick SOB: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/stor...artnersite=espn

if you're going to shoot up a school because the gym teacher picks on you... YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. kids who shoot up anything in response to ANYTHING presented to them in a school atmosphere are weak minded individuals that can't cope with everyday life. my advice to these select few who feel that society and the media are forcing them to kill other people is this: if you're going to shoot that gun, point it in the right direction, preferably at yourself.

it pisses me off how people want to push the blame onto everyone but the stupid kid who let video games and rammstein tell them how to problem solve.

ohhh and michael moore is a blatant propagandist and so far left it sickens me.

It think too many things factor into what causes a person to pick up a gun and shoot up his/her school. I mean, look at the war, it shows that violence is a way to solve problems. I strongly believe peer pressure has a great deal in it too.

I can't believe disney is trying to block distribution of Michael Moore's (Bowling for Columbine's creator) next film "Farenheit 9/11".

Hmmm, something I've read was that the press got it wrong that the two guys from columbine got heavily picked on, they themselves where big bastards, it wasnt an act of revenge. Trying to find the link.

Bowling for Columbine was a joke
My freinds, and myself included own and have the use of "assault weapons", and none of us are going to shoot anybody. Those Kids from Columbine would have found a way for revenge regardless of the means.
I watched the documentary so to be unbiased but all it did was prove my point on how the author took things out of context.
Other countries have schools that our more strict than our own. It is called not paying enough attention to your kids behavior. It is mostly the parents fault.

well i also heard another theory that they were on some kind of mood suppressant drugs, which gave them suicidal tendencies. i saw it on msn somewhere though

Columbine was an unfortunate event, and it gave the media a field day for hearsay stories of why it happened. Blaming video games, music, and TV. is irresponsible. Eminem states in one of his songs, "Music can speak to you and alter moods, but can it load a gun and cock it, too?"

The thing is, where were the parents or other role models these kids needed? Why did it ever get that far? I was picked on horribly in school. I was smaller than most kids, smarter, had glass, and was a Jehovah's Witness. A myriad of other things, but I never thought about going that far for revenge. I've had a teacher call my stories shit in front of the class and verbally bash me, but I was able to approach my mother and talk about things. Maybe these kids never had that out let.

As far as drugs, yes, I know how Ritalin can affect a person's mind. My little brother was on it, and to see it literally destroy his metal stability is disturbing. Doctor see this as an all too easy way to control a child, ADD and ADHD, bah, often its just youthful energy.

I am not condoning what these kids did. Taking of innocent life is never the answer to one's problem, nor taking your own.

You know, another thing is. If this had happened in say Harlem, Chicago, or LA. You’d never hear about it unless you where living in said cities. It happened in one of those picture perfect areas. You know, rich, pampered people that never really pay attention to anything, but there perfect exterior that everyone else sees.

The post about drugs is true... My mom was on the same stuff, and she got really nuts one time and tried to kill herself, and told us she wanted the car my dad was driving at the time to crash and kill the whole family. This is my loving mother, who doesn't have an evil stich in her soul. I couldn't believe it when it was happening, and even later when she told me it was the drugs she was on, I didn't believe her. When depressed people kill themselves, it's blamed on the depression and not on the drugs, so it hasn't been investigated until now. It wasn't until after I started reading about these cases of mental hallucination that I believed her.

I think they had a lot of problems to begin with, and the drugs on top of that just put them over the edge.

Best topic ever.

I watched two chapters on DVD of bowling for columbine.. Very interesting. I found it interesting as in neat, not cultural-shock/"scary".

In my own personal views, if someone kills himself/herself because he/she is depressed, and he/she goes out crying and sad, then they're suiciding themselves for all the wrong reasons. I'm most interested in the non-depressed suicides myself actually. The ones where normal, happy people kill themselves. To cry over worldly affairs and then kill yourself over it is .. maddening. As I'm an atheist, this lucid dreaming stuff has really gotten to shape my opinion about life. . It's completely and utterly meaningless. Any day now these thoughts will take me over and I may walk off the edge. Trying not to however. There's lots of stuff in life to experience. Even if it is pointless and redundant to live 100 years and then die. The nothingness of death is peciliar to say the least...

i used to be a firm atheist, but i think the entire concept of lucidity is also changing my views of life + religion to more a positive one, so right now id say my opinion on religion is that i dont know and there might be something else out there.

i think violence is not inherintly evil, as it is natural in the animal kingdom, and we are animals to. most likely violence is *pre-programmed* into our heads. look at spiders for instance, they can form those complex spider webs very soon after death, so this concept is very well founded. but i think that some violence is evil though, like just killing for the fun of it, no other animal does that. but why does that happen? we are the most intelligent species on the planet, yet we do the most untelligent things. and also, why is it that we are the only species that can have such non-born mental disorders like skytzophrenia (spelling?!). so is there a major downside to having intelligence + culture?

I guess the kids are to blame. I was the same way = when I was 15 I wanted to kill/cripple people who hurt me.
I played multiplayer shooting games. I killed thousands of game characters, and the concept of killing became easy for me.

I had numerous bloody dreams that time. Basically me shooting/beating those bullies to bloody pulp.

But I never blamed my teachers. I have the best gym teacher ever, he's really cool...

I think aviablity of guns, violent video games, bullies and "unvented hatred" all play a big role in those shootings....

Originally posted by Death-Wuad
i think violence is not inherintly evil, as it is natural in the animal kingdom, and we are animals to. most likely violence is *pre-programmed* into our heads. look at spiders for instance, they can form those complex spider webs very soon after death, so this concept is very well founded. but i think that some violence is evil though, like just killing for the fun of it, no other animal does that. but why does that happen? we are the most intelligent species on the planet, yet we do the most untelligent things. and also, why is it that we are the only species that can have such non-born mental disorders like skytzophrenia (spelling?!). so is there a major downside to having intelligence + culture?

Well, that thing about animals and killing is NOT entirely true. Certain kinds of animals just kill for nothing.
For example my cat: he's killing birds, squirrels and even bugs, but he has lots of food. He doesnt eat the bird. it's an instinct. He's hunting just for the fun of it.

I doubt we are the *most* intelligent species yet. We have lots to learn.
So far we've somewhat mastered control over physical plane.

LDing offers some access to higher planes and better understanding of "reality". As you said it's already changing you.

Wait till you'll get LDs almost every day. Then you will really reach the knowledge that may mark you "insane" in the eyes of "lesser mortals"

how is it that violent video games make somebody violent? they have video games in all the other countries, and some countries even play more than us, but for some reason our country has the most gun related deaths out there.

"Bowling for Columbine" didn't really provide the reason why we (the USA) have so many gun deaths, and that wasn't the point. The point of the documentary was to show all sides. I mean, isn't it strange that Canada has more guns, yet less gun deaths?

Originally posted by Ev

Well, that thing about animals and killing is NOT entirely true. Certain kinds of animals just kill for nothing.
For example my cat: he's killing birds, squirrels and even bugs, but he has lots of food. He doesnt eat the bird. it's an instinct. He's hunting just for the fun of it.

Not to sound like an ass, hon, but your cat really isn't killing just for the fun of it. Felines are of a pack mentality. They kill an animal and present it to the biggest and strongest as an offering of respect and acknowledgment of leadership. In the case of domestic felines, when your cat kills a bird and leaves it on your steps (or in some cases, like my idiot cat, on the kitchen floor!), that is their way of saying \"You are the pack leader and I respect you.\" Cats get really offended if you chastise them or throw away their offering in front of them.

Anyway, that's my Discovery Channel lesson for the day. And I think my little brother hit it right on the head by quoting Eminem. I hadn't even thought of that, but it says a lot doesn't it?

Originally posted by Daeraug
\"Music can speak to you and alter moods, but can it load a gun and cock it, too?\"

We may never know what set these kids off. Surely there is another side to the story that we aren't hearing. The media likes to play that game. I also agree with my brother that, had this happened in L.A., Harlem, or another big city where murder is pretty much the norm, we may have never known about this. Think about that sad fact.

Originally posted by Death-Wuad
a lot of people blame it on video games, music, and t.v. but thats a bunch of garbage, they have that in all the other countries to! but no other country has problems like we do

Yes, but their society and cultures and completely different. Do Afghanistan, Japan, Columbia, Peru have MTV? Are sex, violence, and drugs as popularized in these countries (via movies, music, culture)? No... Many countries don't have an idea of recreation (well, not as we would perceive at least). In America, a typical fun day would be to go shopping. No so in many other countries. Often this "education" I receive is pretty counter-productive to me. I don't know what more to say...

Heh.. I sound ignorant. I'm sorry, but I'm sure some of you can understand what I'm trying to say.

Have you ever seen a pictures from third world countries such as Afganistan? a 7 year old running around with Kalashnikov assault rifle is somewhat scary.... Thing is - there are killings and shootings as well. Only nobody gives a $hit about it. there's no media coverage.

Another example - some guys in russian or chineese or some third world country's army desert and kill 5-6 guys who treated them like badly. Do you think anybody in US gives a $hit about it? No.

It's all about media coverage. A shooting in US will be on teh news on 100 channels for a few days.... Cause news companies make money off it...



And movies/video games do change your attitude towards killing people. Most movies/games make it easy. They dont show you gore and suffering. And it sinks in your mind.

Why do you think many people dont like the level of violence, as it is show in such movies as "Saving private ryan"?
They dont want their kids being exposed to true nature of violence. As a result, we are being fed with "fake" movie like violence.... Which is much worse then the real thing...


to make it closer to dreams - have you ever killed a person in your dreams? I did. And there were no gore and death groans. They just fell dead, like in the movies....



lol, enough ranting

a little bit off topic, but did anyone see that video of that guy getting beheaded in Iraq? Freaky shit, man.

before i begin, let it be known, you can skip all the middle stuff and just read the last paragraph to get the gist of everything im about to say...

I play violent videogames, watch violent movies etc. i've even, more than once, gone browsing sites like www.ogrish.com for the sole intent of seeing pictures/videos of dead/dieing people...pretty messed up, no? also i often have dreams of killing other people, generally people i know and like, and the thing is, in my dreams, i am often enjoying myself...

..as i've said before, im a very short person, but i used to be much worse...in 8th grade i was 4'4" in comparison to everyone else, where average height was 5'3" in my class...in 6th grade it was the worst, i was about 4' even, but this is when everyone started getting their growth spurts, so many people were suddenly much much taller than me...this may not sound like a big deal, but it is...i was always very scrawny, and nerdy looking...i had glasses, a buzz cut that was always a lil too long to be a buzz cut, and my nose was constantly running...i had asthma, and regularly had to take my inhaler or defibulator throughout the day...in 6th grade i went to a very very snooty school in Vegas called The Meadows (which just so happens to be what Las Vegas means in english)...Meadows is the school all the casino owners send their sons and daughters...most the cars in the high school parking lot are BMWs or Mustangs...even a few Roles Royces and antique classic cars...my family was poor, especially by comparison...they saved up alot of their money to send me and my brother there, lucky for them, we both got a 1/2 scholarship due to our high testing, so they only had to pay for one of us...i also had a bad habit for licking my lips, which would result in a 1 inch ring of chapedness around my mouth...this spurred the other kids to coind the name 'herpes-boy' saying that i had managed to get genital herpes around my mouth from 'sucking so much dick' ...at the time, i wasn't very sexual yet, leading the other boys to decide i must be, in fact, gay...i had no friends, and couldn't stand being around the other students to the point that i never ate in the cafeteria, i always ate in a small side hall outside the gym...eventually this drew other nerdy kids to come there, which brought on magic tournaments (magic the gathering, a card game)...the teachers at meadows are terrible depraved human beings...this never helps things...much like how Death-Waud described his teachers, they would do similar things, bashing those kids who couldn't do sports (see also: me), bashing those kids who didnt have straight A's (again, me) etc.


now, for any who took the time to read all that crap about my backstory, deos that not totally sound like i am exactly the type of person who would go on a school shooting spree? i mean, everything is the same...im desensitised to violence, was bullied often and severely (i didnt feel like going into the physical bullying), i enjoy killing people in my dreams (and thats always someone like, my brother, or one of my current friends)...i even had access to guns, and knew how to make bombs! apparently, i do have ADD (bs), but i never did take my ritalin...now, why didn't i go shoot up my school, and they did? well i think a couple reason might explain this:
1) it was never an option for me...i thought about hurting them and stuff, but never did it really occur to me that it was even really possible (i dont know why it didnt occur to me, it just didnt) that i could do something like that, until later, when i heard the news talk about stuff like that
2) i had an outlet, maybe they didnt? playing videogames, for me, calmed me, alloud me to forget them, relieved my stress...breaking things also helped
3) i was intelligent enough to comprehend religion, and was actively part of one (not: 'my parents baptised my Catholic, so im Catholic bs')
4) my parents always emphasized and re-emphasized appearence...so long as i appeared healthy and intelligent etc. they would not bother me, would not punish me...if i were to do something like harm one of them and they found out, i could comprehend that punishment from them (as opposed to something so vague and far off as prison and the government)...this kept me from ever getting into fights with them, or crying in public, or anything else like that...

...i always felt like they were building a column...everytime they would make fun of me or trashcan me, i'd get annoyed/pissed, and i could see some internal column that they were adding another layer to...this column would grow taller and taller until eventually, i could no longer support it, and i'd need to vent...usually this involved breaking things like trees with things like swords...and then i'd have a good cry about it, and by the next day the column would feel shorter, and lighter again...and i'd be able to take more punishment...

...only twice did i actually end up in a fight, as i always felt inferior to them...once, towards the end of my 6th grade year, i had a friend finally, and they were picking on him like they usually did me...so i broke the leader kid's nose...the end of that year i couldnt stand it anymore, and got myself kicked out of Meadows...i decided in whatever school i went to, i would not allow myself to become this again...so the next year, the first kid to pick on me ended up with a broken nose and lost a tooth, after that they accepted me, although not as a friend...

personally i think it is the parent's responsibility to watch their kids...true, they are to blame for their actions, but teenagers are stupid and make stupid decisions all the time... http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/Medi...18_teenage.html ...this article explains alot...really, teenagers cannot make choices entirely rationally...the judgemental portion of their brain is...off...during those years. If parents are there to help and be supportive, yet set rules and consequences, children tend to grow up much healthier and happier...i got the second half of that...the rules and stuff...though my parents were never around...i always thought that they thought of me as a sort of doll they would take out my storage in my room whenever they needed to parade me around in the public for appearence's sake (which i now see was not true, but i was a teenager)



basically put, the media is evil, and should really be more careful as to how they report things, and in what light...also, while im not saying the columbine kids arent in blame in part, i think it is really their parent's fault...parents in America in general need to stop blaming video-games, TV, movies, and other things like them for their own failures...if they think a certain video-game causes violence in teens DO NOT LET THEM PLAY IT if you think a movie will desensitize them to violence DO NOT LET THEM WATCH IT it is YOUR responsibility to regulate them, and if you think you're being too strict, you'll know, cause they'll reach a breaking point and let you know, in one fashion or another, that you need to give them a little more room...teenagers, while they do make these such decisions, arent really ready to handle such decisions...also, if you find you are over stressed etc. you need to find a HEALTHY outlet...like sports, reading, or videogames...and lastly, bullies only pick on you cause you let them...

Wait, are you a girl or a guy?

good question...