Columbine High School

Introduction

We are going to tell you something about the shootings at the Columbine High School in the United States of America. We have chosen this subject because we want you to know what happened there and what the motives of the shooters were. We also want to tell you about the impact the shootings have had and still have.

The shooting

On Tuesday the 20th of April in 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris injured 24 kids and killed twelve schoolmates, one teacher and eventually themselves. Dylan and Eric went to school heavily armed that day. With them they carried loaded guns and self-made bombs.
They started the shooting just before noon. Everybody inside the school panicked and tried to get out of the school. It didn’t take long for the police to find out about the shootings going on at Columbine High. When the police understood that they couldn’t stop it themselves, they sent out for special police squads to find the perpetrators. It took the squads very long to get into the school. Before they got the chance Eric and Dylan started shooting at them and the squads began shooting back. In the end the boys killed themselves by putting a gun to their head.

According to journals, notes, and videos that Klebold and Harris left to be discovered, Klebold had been thinking of committing suicide as early as 1997 and they both had begun thinking about a large massacre in April 1998 - a full year before the actual event. By then, the two had already run into some trouble. On January 30, 1998, Klebold and Harris were arrested for breaking into a van. As part of their plea agreement, the two began a juvenile diversion program in April 1998. Since they were first-time offenders, this program allowed them to purge the event from their record if they could successfully complete the program. So, for eleven months, the two attended workshops, spoke to counselors, worked on volunteer projects, and convinced everyone that they were sincerely sorry about the break-in. However, during the entire time, Klebold and Harris were making plans for a large-scale massacre at their high school. Klebold and Harris were angry teenagers. They were not only angry at athletes that made fun of them, or Christians, or blacks, as some people have reported; they basically hated everyone except for a handful of people. On the front page of Harris's journal, he wrote: "I hate the fucking world." Harris also wrote that he hates racists, martial arts experts, and people who brag about their cars. Klebold and Harris used the Internet to find recipes for pipe bombs and other explosives. They amassed an arsenal, which eventually included guns, knives, and 99 explosive devices. Klebold and Harris wanted to kill as many people as possible, so they studied the influx of students in the cafeteria, noting that there would be over 500 students after 11:15 a.m. when the first lunch period began. They planned to plant propane bombs in the cafeteria timed to explode at 11:17 and then shoot any survivors as they came running out. There is some discrepancy whether the original date planned for the massacre was to be April 19 or 20. April 19 was the anniversary for the Oklahoma City Bombing and April 20 was the 110th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday. For whatever reason, April 20 was the date finally chosen. Though some claimed they were part of the Trench Coat Mafia, in truth, they were only friends with some of the group's members. The boys didn't usually wear trench coats to school; they did so only on April 20 to hide the weapons they were carrying as they walked across the parking lot.

Four months after the shooting Columbine High School opened her doors again. It’s very different from how it used to be. All the bullet holes made by Eric and Dylan are filled. The library entrance has moved to another place, because at the original entrance ten students were killed during the shooting. The school changed the alarm sound because it could give students horrible flashbacks to that frightening day. Every student has to wear an identity card on him and there are sixteen new cameras placed on different spots in the school.

Who’s to blame?

Many people started to blame the music Eric and Dylan listened to. They mostly listened to Marilyn Manson, and people started to think the boys’ ideas came from Manson’s lyrics. The film ‘The Matrix’ was also under attack, because of the long trench coats and the weapons in the movie. Even cartoons like ‘Southpark’ were being blamed for the massacre at Columbine High School. In the very end you can only blame the American weapon policy, America allows people to have weapons. The NRA even pleads for Americans to have weapons, the day after the shooting at Columbine High they went to the school to tell all the positive sides of having a firearm. Some people blame the bullying, they think that if Eric and Dylan had never were outsiders nothing like this would have happened. Bullying is horrible, but is it a reason to kill?

Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore made a documentary called ‘Bowling for Columbine’. The film's purpose is to explore what Moore thinks are the reasons for the Columbine High School massacre, and other acts of violence with guns. Moore focuses on the background where the massacre took place. The film takes an informal and up-close-and-personal look into the nature of violence in the United States, focusing on guns symbol of both American freedom and its self-destruction.
‘Bowling for Columbine’ is titled this way because Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went bowling the morning before they started the shooting at Columbine High. Very short after the shooting people started to have ridiculous ideas about that bowling had something to do with the shootings. Moore shows in his documentary that it’s ridiculous to assume that bowling had something to do with the massacre, just like Southpark, Marilyn Manson and The Matrix.

Eminem presents his reasoning of why the shooting occurred in his song ‘The way I am’. He raps: When a dude's gettin bullied and shoots up your school and they blame it on Marilyn and the heroin. Where were the parents at? And look at where it's at, middle America. Now it's a tragedy. Now it's so sad to see.
Limp Bizkit made a reference at the shooting in their song ‘Head for the barricade’. Many other artists referred to the massacre in their songs, because it’s a horrible thing that happened.

What do we think of the massacre?

We both think the massacre was a terrible thing to happen. We can’t imagine someone can be able to do the things Klebold and Harris did. We agree with Micheal Moore, the shooting had nothing to do with the fact that the boys went bowling or to what music they listened. It had to do with the weapon policy in America. We hope something like this never will occur again.

Thank you for listening to our speech.

Bronnenlijst

• http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorden_op_de_Columbine_High_School (info over wanneer en hoe de moorden plaatsvonden)
• http://fixedreference.org/en/20040424/wikipedia/Columbine_High_School_massacre (info over wanneer en hoe de moorden plaatsvonden)
• http://www.tegenwicht.org/03_littleton/opinie_3.htm (de motieven)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre (wie is de schuldige)
• http://www.scholieren.com/werkstukken/9451 (bowling for columbine)
• http://www.scholieren.com/werkstukken/19508 (bowling for columbine)
• http://www.songteksten.nl/songteksten/12318/Eminem/The-Way-I-Am.htm (de quote uit Eminems tekst over de schietpartij).

• http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/1078/columbine_alook_ahead.html (afbeelding op titelpagina)
• www.google.nl