Columbine Shooting Case Study

Columbine: Whose Fault Is It? PAS

Purpose: Marilyn Manson’s purpose for writing the article was to defend himself from charges regarding the Columbine shooting and to criticize the people who not only accused him, but others against violence. In the midst of his cynical comments and criticisms, Manson delivers the message of violence being more publicized paves the way for more problems in the future. He points out several actions of people to of which for the average person, should have been unacceptable. He roots out the media as a source of the spread of violence across the world. Manson first addresses the hypocrisy of the largest religion in the world: Christianity. He mentions the story of Cain and Abel to of which “Cain bashed his brother

Manson criticizes the media’s actions and comments about how bullied children could turn these two criminals into their new idols. He wants the reader to see that publicizing violence has only made matters worse and not to “expect the end of the world to come out of the blue- it’s been happening every day for a long time” (Manson 421). For Manson, he see understands that incidence of violence has not increased, it’s the spread of the knowledge that has

In the article, after he addressed that blaming his music was no excuse, Manson begins asking questions like “what did Timothy McVeigh like to watch?” or “what inspires Bill Clinton to blow up people in Kosovo?” (Manson 420). These were all cases of murder that were reported by the media, but Manson questions why the media did not look for inspiration for these murders in contrast to the Columbine shooting. He recognizes that the media is using him as a scapegoat for their own benefit instead of reporting the real information at the time. What’s worse, the media heavily emphasizes the information that it gives out. For Manson, blaming something as trivial as music is unjustifiable and an insult to those who died that