Going Beyond Columbine

There are often a numerous amount of arguments that an author would try making about a nonfiction novel. I argue against this statement. I feel like there was no argument that Dave Cullen was trying to make in Columbine. I believe he wrote this book as a prevention for future mass shootings. People often write about historical massacres to keep them from happening again; it's like learning about the Holocaust. Why? To make sure that people in the generations ahead don't have to go through it. It's needless to say that the Columbine shooting was a huge atrocity all over America, but we can't go back in time and take it back. What we can do is have educational sources to show people signals of depression, anger, etc., like Eric and Dylan suffered from. We can also develop school plans. Today, we have a lock down drill we practice for these cases in particular. Books like Columbine help prepare for tragic shootings so we know what to expect and how to protect students/teachers from being injured/killed again.

I also feel like Cullen wrote the book to show the different signs that people might give off that signals some sort of distorted thinking within a person. Eric and Dylan, the murders of the Columbine shooting, started out with criminal records. They had broke into cars, vandalized houses, and set off/made bombs. All these events were soon put on their records, but were thought of as minor. The boys also kept journals that clearly stated that they would rather die, or they wanted to kill people. Eric kept a blog for a long time, which was updated frequently with threats and new adventures him and Dylan went on. Generally, Eric supplied viewers with new concoctions to make dangerous bombs and with new people added on his "to kill" list.  

http://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/april-20-1999-columbine-shooting-9541833

This link is a news piece from ABC news showing clips of many rescued kids and distraught teens as they were interviewed. Many of the kids thought they had a good idea of who Eric and Dylan were, but the two boys weren't part of the "Trench coat Mafia" like one boy said in the video. Regardless, this video supplies legit information and good clips to give readers a better idea of how the shooting actually went.

http://acolumbinesite.com/quotes2.html#420

This script was from the last video Eric and Dylan shot in their basement. It was roughly 30 minutes before the two boys took their positions in front of Columbine High School to begin the mass shooting.

http://acolumbinesite.com/profiles2.html

This is Eric Harris' screen shots of his blog. He made multiple threats to people on here and often told very vulgar information about himself and other people.