Further Reading For Columbine
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There had been school shootings prior to the Columbine High School massacre, but this was the one that put the phenomenon on the map. It was a tragedy for the internet age
On the morning of April 20, 1999, two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, took the world by surprise when they enacted a plan to enter their high school armed to the teeth. Their plan, which they had worked on for a year, involved detonating a number of bombs in the school, which had they gone off as planned, could have killed as many as 600 students and faculty. But when this didn’t happen, they were left to attack anyone that had the misfortune of ending up in front of their crosshairs. When the smoke cleared, 12 students lay dead with an additional 21 injured. Harris and Klebold, cornered, took their own lives.
Their motives for the massacre are still unclear. Speculation that the pair were acting out of revenge for being bullied outcasts has since been challenged. Fears that they were influenced by violent video games and heavy metal music were immediately thrown out and their own documents seem to suggest that they merely wanted to be remembered for being the perpetrators of a mass killing worse than The Oklahoma City Bombing. Thanks to these two chodes, angry alienated boys in every town in America suddenly had a plan to kill everyone in their school.
Episodes: 178 & 179
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