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School shootings cause and effect essay
School shootings cause and effect essay
School shooting columbine essay
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The Columbine High School shooting in April of 1999 was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Many students that were present at Columbine on that tragic day, can still hear the screams of their classmates and some can even remember coming face to face with the killers. Some people blame the boys’ parents, but others believe that they were just troubled kids. Although it has been seventeen years since the massacre, people still do not know what led Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to their horrific actions. Dylan Klebold was a normal seventeen year old who was a senior at Columbine High School. Although he did not apply himself in school, he made average grades. He was thought to be a smart, young man, but was not, in fact, he was a very troubled kid. “Thinking of suicide gives me hope that I’ll be in my place wherever I go after this life”(Cullen, pg. 174). Dylan struggled with fitting in at school and thought he was not being accepted by other students. Dylan was ready to end his life, and he wanted to take revenge on the students who did not “accept” him before doing so. …show more content…
He was the oldest of the two and was a little less troubled than Dylan. As a child, his father was in the military, which meant that he was never in the same house for long. After his dad retired from the military, him and his family settled down in Littleton, Colorado. Not long after the move, Eric met Dylan is middle school and they clicked right away. They became foundly interested in explosives and sometimes went too far with them. “If you havent made a CO2 bomb today, I suggest you do so, me and voDKa detonated one yesterday and it was like a fucking dynamite stick. Just watch out for the shrapnel”(Cullen, pg 184). Eric was not a depressive like Dylan, but always seemed angry as if he was going to blow up on someone. Eric often referred to himself as a “nobody.” Lack of attention at school was getting to his
Columbine is a non-fiction story written and spoken by author Dave Cullen based on the true events of the horrifying Columbine shooting that occurred on April 20th, 1999. Two boys by the names of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into Columbine High School around 11:19 A.M. with 99 home-made explosives, a 9mm carbine, a pump shotgun, and a double barrel shotgun. As well as being accompanied by four knives. Both managed to murder thirteen innocent people in total, twelve students and one teacher.
"Columbine High School Shootings." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2015. Eighteen year old Eric Harris and seventeen year old Dylan Klebold were two boys with a fascination of violent video games and music. These young men were known to be “goth” and were bullied all throughout their high school careers because of their different interest. In 1999, on April 20th these boys went into their high school with mixed emotions and a devious plan to get revenge. The two teens went into the high school with handguns and killed both students and faculty members, before they turned the guns around on themselves. This is a reliable source because it informed us of both previous emotion, and the aftermath of the tragedy with detail about the boys, the school and the lives affected. This source was relevant for me because of how thoroughly it described the shooting, and gave me background information as to why and how it happened.
Juxtaposing Dylan’s and Eric’s personality traits defies the readers’ expectations. Cullen first uses opposing language to focus on the boys’ conflicting views on the attack. Dylan, Cullen argues, visualized the attack as an escape from reality: he didn’t plan to follow through with it, simply fantasizing about a single attack. Eric, however, truly wanted to destroy everyone. Later, this contrast becomes more prevalent when Cullen remarks, “Eric launched a new charm offensive… he worked his ass off to excel. Dylan didn’t even try to impress Andrea” (258-259). The decision to place the sentences consecutively helps the readers gain insight into the killers’ minds before the attack. By starkly contrasting the murderers’ thoughts, it corrects the misconception that they targeted specific groups of people because they were bullied outcasts. Instead, the readers realize, Eric was quite charming. There was no specific “hit list”, as the media hypothesized, rather the killers planned to murder
April 20th, 1999, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, experienced a mass shooting. Thirteen people were injured and more than twenty were injured. Twelve were students and one was a teacher. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their high school for forty one minutes before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. School shootings are notorious for making headline news but in 1999, school shooting were not as prevalent as they are in the present day. The media blew up on the catastrophe that was Columbine and many questions were raised, who were these kids and why did they do this? Speculation arose about why they did it. Maybe they were bullied for being goth and social outcasts or maybe they
On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Davis Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold went into the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and went on a rampage killing spree leaving 12 students and 1 teacher dead and over 20 people injured before killing themselves. This crime is known as one of the most deadliest school massacres in the United States history (Pittaro).
At 11:19 in the morning of April 19, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stood at the west entrance of Columbine High School preparing for the deadliest shooting in American school history. One of them yelled, "Go! Go!," and then the two pulled out their shotguns and began firing, killing two students almost immediately (Jefferson County 3). Harris and Klebold began moving through the school randomly shooting students, detonating pipe bombs, and yelling about how much fun they were having. While this was happening, Coach Dave Sanders and other heroes were frantically trying to get students out of harm's way. At 11:26, while running past the library warning students of the killers, Sanders was shot by one of the shooters. He made it into a science room where first aid was administered by students. He died several hours later in that same room. The worst killing took place in the library during a span of about eight minutes starting at 11:29. Ten students were killed and twelve others were wounded. After leaving the library, Harris and Klebold wandered around the school in movements that appeared to be "extremely random" (Jefferson County 18). They eventually returned to the library at about 12:08 and killed themselves. In 49 minutes, 14 students were left dead, one teacher was left dying, 23 people were injured, and an entire community's sense of safety and security was shattered.
and Dylan Klebold were two teenagers that walked into their high school and killed students while the students were in school. In all, thirteen people were killed by the murderers. The two boys were part of the Trench Coat Mafia that killed a dozen students and a teacher before turning the guns on themselves. Cassie Bernall and other students hid in the library of Co...
The columbine massacre the day where no one is safe in school or out of school. The columbine massacre is about two students named Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris both seniors 17 years old both two weeks before graduating they killed 12 students, one teacher, and 21 injured to their shooting on April 20, 1999. Both Dylan and Eric were some believe they were bullied by the sport teams in their school so they planned to kill the people who bullied them and other mostly anyone who gets in their way but that wasn’t really why the FBI he said that there target was everyone no one in pacify we will not get in to more details now. Dylan and Eric were both intelligent boys with solid parents and a good home and both had brothers younger than them. They played soccer, baseball, and both enjoyed to work on computers. Both boys were thinking on commit suicide on 1997 but instead started to plan a massacre in 1998 a year before it happened. Then the two boys had got into some trouble for breaking into a van on January 30, 1998 trying to steal some fuses and wires for bombs for them to make, but they got caught in trouble. So the court put them in a program called the juvenile diversion program, but even if they were there they were still planning the massacre and the court also put Eric in some angry management classes and people believe it worked but it didn’t he just did it to look like it work and both boys made it look like they were really sorry but they weren’t. Dylan and Eric both really hated everyone in their school and the court as well after they got caught breaking in to that van that’s when they really started to plan the massacre more and that’s when Harris started he’s journals no one really knows way but they didn’t hate a hand...
On December 14th 2012, just 11 days before Christmas, an awful tragedy happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This awful event left a lot of unanswered questions and rumors about that day. The reason for that is because the shooter killed himself after shooting twenty young children and six adults. This tragedy open the eyes of everyone; made you want to hug your loves one just a little tighter, appreciate what you still have and never take a day for granted. Even our president Barack Obama felt the pain of all those who lost their loved ones in this event. He insured everyone that he will do everything in his power to make sure a tragedy like this will not happen again. However, did you know that there have been over 44 school shootings since the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting? I know as a future teacher and mother I want to make sure my children are safe in this world and even at school. I want to be able to make a difference in this issue and have some knowledge to have I can do that. The society should understand what really happen during the Sandy Hook event, the reasons behind why school shootings/violence are rapidly increasing each year, and have some knowledge about what we, as a society, can do to help in order for us to start seeing a decrease of these events.
There is no single factor that caused the outburst of violence on 20th April 1999, in Littleton, Colorado. Blaming a single factor as the cause of the Columbine High School massacre is as ludicrous as a nation blaming an economic crisis on one person alone. There were many contributing factors that led to this massacre, and with that, an array of warning signs, all of which were ignored by most people.
This book had me on the edge of my seat considering I did not hear about anything about this Columbine incident until a class talk and as I started to read this book. I could not understand how the police, Eric’s dad, the friends and family could not have suspected anything from Eric and Dylan. First there was the the police report about Eric's website that was filled with information about Klebold and Harris’s missions and pipe bombs was taken by police but nothing happened. “ This Web page refers to ‘missions’ where possible criminal mischiefs have occurred.Curiously, Burgess made no mention of the pipe bombs, which seems far more serious,” (185). The web site of Eric’s that demonstrated the powerfulness of the bombs, yet Officer Burgess never wrote about the pipe bombs which Eric could then have gotten interviewed or questioned about his pipe bombs and missions. Then there was the one of how the boys friends knew about their guns and pipe bombs but had no idea of the plan of “Judgement Day.” They knew that they were armed with guns and pipe bombs but thought nothing of this. This seems oddly suspicious to me along with many others how they knew this information but the friends of Eric and Dylan thought it was okay.This made others come to the
On April 20 1999, in a small town of Littleton, Colorado, two high-school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris dressed in trench coats began shooting outside of columbine high school. The two boys then moved inside the school and gunned down many students in the library. Upon investigation it was found that the two boys arrived in two separate cars. At first they went into the school with two duffle bags filled with bombs set to the time 11:17, placed these bags in the cafeteria aiming to kill hundreds of students and faculty. They set these bags in the cafeteria without anyone noticing and came out to their cars to watch. When the bombs failed to detonate Dylan and Harris went on a shooting spree.
Eric and Dylan’s plan was not original. They had inspiration from the Waco and the Oklahoma City shootings. They wanted to be bigger and better than both of those, not caring how many people they killed. Their plan was called “Judgment Day” that would have the school excited with explosions (Cullen 33). Eric had made homemade bombs using, “standard propane tanks, the fat, white ones, eighteen inches tall, a foot in diameter, packing some twenty pounds of highly explosive gas” (Cullen 33). These bombs were going to kill many people, and Eric was excited. Next, they came up with a bomb tha...
“People are so unaware...well, Ignorance is bliss I guess… that would explain my depression.” (Klebold, Dylan). With that sentence, I divulged myself into the most horrendous, sad journal I have ever read, hoping to gain some insight into a disturbed young man’s mind. On April 20th, 1999, Dylan Klebold accompanied his friend, Eric Harris, in one of the most publicized and shocking school shootings of the modern day--The Columbine Massacre. With their sawed-off shotguns and godlike dispositions, the boys exacted their revenge not only on their peers, but on themselves. As the nightmare collapsed, and thirteen people lay dead, the questions began. How could two boys so young commit this crime? What forced them to be this way? For the Klebold family, one question remained: How had Dylan become involved in one of the crimes of the century?
From my perspective I think that Dylan was the most depressed out of him and Eric, or perhaps Dylan was just depressed. Possible reasons why Dylan was depressed was that he did not think that he was handsome, he hated how tall he was, and he was also bullied. People that are bullied are usually easy to become lonely, unconfident, and hopeless. There are many state of minds that come from depression, one is low self-esteem. Low self-esteem leaves people in a state where they believe they can’t do anything that means something in life. Low self- esteem makes people sluggish and feel like they have no purpose in the world. I believe that Dylan was searching for that purpose in his life through his depression and he found his purpose in