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First, let me say that I believe that there are only a few circumstances that warrant the death of another human being. In a life-or-death situation, I feel a person should use whatever means they have to in order to survive. Defending one's family from a home invader, for example, is an example of a moment where lethal force would be acceptable.
Murder that's spawned as an act of revenge against society born out of "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore" is not okay. Taking one's frustrations out with a loaded gun or bombs on a crowd is never a solution, or even revenge. It's just spreading victimization to people who, in most cases, had nothing to do with whatever upset their assailant. There is very little difference between a school shooter and a club shooter and one of the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center. They all have the same general reasons why they justify hurting and killing a bunch of people they don't personally know.
While I maintain this position, I also feel that by and large the public school system is badly flawed, particularly in the United States. Our education system started with a lone school marm or master teaching a single classroom of a handful of students of various ages. Every child had individual attention and lessons specific to their level and ability. Parents were much more involved in the process. Over the years, schooling has grown into a massive institute with little to no personal involvement unless a student is troubled and actively seeks assistance. Arts and culture have been pushed out, stripped from the budget in favor of emphasizing programs that net the schools more money, such as sports. Tests have been skewed to pass more students along, classes have been genercized into pass-fail with teachers who are given more students than they could possibly handle for a payscale that does not match the amount of stress they are put through.
I have long felt things should be changed in the school systems, as far back as when I was a child in school myself. Many schools are a lot like being in prison, an environment filled with gang-like cliques, unsympathetic wardens, and fear in students and staff alike. It is a trial to live through for many. No one should fear or hate the place they have to spend most of their waking hours. However, "kickstarting a revolution" by murdering a bunch of people and then committing suicide did not fix anything, for anyone.
Dylan and Eric had their reasons for being so off the deep end that they could bring themselves to gun down other people; people they knew and ones they didn't. So do other mass murderers. Those complex reasons are woven into the tapestry that is their history, and will largely be overlooked or ignored because most don't care to pick apart the facts of tragic tales such as this one. It's much easier to label the shooters monsters and get on with grieving for the victims than it is to face what our society has belched up onto itself through improper medication, under-regulated media, overstimulation, mixed social messages, and neglect.
In my opinion, the heart of this matter is school. It's a common ground that the majority of educated people have with the next person, an experience that is surprisingly similar the world over regardless of location. Almost everyone who has attended school has had negative experiences there at some time. They felt alone, bullied, left out, humiliated, misunderstood, or scared. Most have witnessed violence between other students or have been a direct part of it. We have all known kids just like Dylan and Eric - and their victims - or were somewhat like them when in school. Most of us can picture all too clearly what it might've been like to be there either as a victim, a survivor, or a shooter.
I've been asked often what I think about the shooters themselves. That's a complex answer that I'll try to sum up as best as I can. Essentially, I think they were fairly typical of smart, middle-class boys in their late teens. I grew up in an area similar to Littleton and knew guys just like them when I was a teen. Judging from what they wrote about in their private journals, Dylan struggled with low self-esteem and depression over common matters that plague most teens: Crushes, loss of friends, not having a romantic partner, being accepted, not feeling like they're living up to expectations. Eric had major issues with anger and resented the world at large for creating and then rejecting him. He had health problems when he was younger that likely affected his self-image, leading him to develop a God complex to compensate. Both, I believe, felt ignored by their parents who felt safe to coast on supervision because they trusted their "good sons".
Theirs was a toxic friendship that allowed them to make into reality what most disaffected anarchy-bent teens used to just joke about when they were pissed off at the establishment. They spent too much time playacting their fantasies in video games and in person, dressing the part and playing with real guns and explosives like they were toys. Their antisocial behavior drove off the friends they had who weren't into those things, furthering the echo chamber they had built.
But that's just it: Other people have felt just like the shooters. Heck, from grade school many of us used to sing songs like:
Glory, glory! Hallelujah! Teacher hit me with the ruler. I met her at the door with a loaded .44 now she don't teach no more.
I've heard people in their 70s sing worse anti-school songs. I'm sure kids today know horrible jump-rope rhymes or have songs of their own that they sing when the teacher isn't listening. The thoughts that Klebold and Harris expressed were not at all unique. Even shooting people at school wasn't unprecedented (research "I don't like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats for just one retro example). What set the Columbine shooters apart was the manner they carried out their assault, and how far in advance they had planned it. The detail and practice they put into forging their dream of revenge has put a bright, ugly spotlight on just how long some kids deal with being truly unhappy at school for reasons that have nothing to do with their grades.
When I rewatched the film Falling Down (starring Michael Douglas), I realized I was watching Eric and Dylan. I'd seen the movie before the Columbine shootings and hadn't thought about it much until I watched it again with a friend. In the movie, the main character is named is Bill but is listed in the credits as D-FENS, the same name as what appears on the character's license plate in the film (side note: Brooks Brown's internet handle was D-FENS for the longest time). The movie starts with D-FENS stuck in traffic in his overheating car. It's the middle of summer and his air conditioner isn't working. It's a situation many of us can relate to. Pressure builds as he sits there. He finally abandons his car in the traffic jam and just walks away.
From there the man, who looks like any 40-something Average Joe, begins a cross-town trek during which he faces armed gang members, homeless grifters, discrimination, immigration issues, corporate red tape, and more. In every instance we can see facets of our own lives and the things that annoy us most about living with other people. In the film, D-FENS reacts in ways that normal Joes won't or can't, but often fantasize about: He beats up the gang members. He terrorizes a Nazi-worshipping bigot. He tells off a an aggressive, lying panhandler before giving him a free meal. He rages at a fast food worker who won't serve him the food he wants. He is power to the common man. He's standing up for himself against problems that, realistically, most people would just put up with. He's mad as hell, and he's not going to take it any more!
That was Dylan and Eric's mentality. Even more interesting to me was noting that as D-FENS acquires weapons, two of the guns he uses are a sawed-off shotgun and an TEC-DC9 - two of the weapons the shooters used during their assault at Columbine High.
I suppose at the heart of my thoughts is the belief that it's important to remember what happened at Columbine, to try and prevent something like it from happening again. Until we understand what drove these two teens to commit mass murder and suicide, we'll never be able to say that we're prepared for the eventuality that something like it - or worse - could happen again.