The Columbine shooting of 1999 left children and adults alike, in awe. It brought media attention to a conflict between schools and created debate on whether schools are still safe or not. The nonfiction book, Columbine, by Dave Cullen, expresses detailed events leading up to the murders and the effects it brought to schools. The articles, “A Revised Portrait of a Psychopath” (by Peter Reuell), “Columbine Killers' Basement Tapes Destroyed” (by Alan Prendergast), and “A Memorial at Last for Columbine Killings” (by Kirk Johnson and Katie Kelley), and “Psychology of Virginia Tech, Columbine Killers Still Baffles Experts” (by Susan Donaldson James) have cleared up the Columbine story. There are comparisons between the book and articles, including, …show more content…
Doctors have determined that Eric and Dylan are psychopaths. Cullen describes what a psychopath is the words of professionals. He does this by proving, “’Psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling ‘wrote Dr. Robert Hare, the leading authority on psychopaths. ‘They can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner” (Cullen 239). Dr. Hare proves that a mentally ill person has little to no emotion through crimes or thoughts they commit. Almost as a computer may act. This makes the person able to commit unbelieve crimes. This compares to the article, “A Revised Portrait of a Psychopath” by Peter Reuell. The article articulates the mindset of the mentally ill and does a case study on it. The article points out, “A recent study, though, suggests that psychopaths are not incapable of feeling emotions like regret and disappointment. What they cannot do, it seems, is make accurate predictions about the outcomes of their choices.” (Ruelle Portrait). Both pieces of evidence prove that these individuals do not feel any sort of emotion while persuading an action of disappointment. This can relate back to Eric and Dylan, as both boys seemed to have no remorse for what they did, in planning the event and in their final hours. In essence, both the novel and article convey that a psychopathic …show more content…
These tapes were filmed days before the shootings occurred and focused on what they were going to do. The nonfiction book had an interesting way of explaining it by detailing, “They ranted for more than an hour. Dylan was wild and animated and angry, obsessively hurling his fingers through his long, ratty hair. Eric was mostly calm and controlled.” (Cullen 326). This is a blunt explanation of what the tapes were. They explained the planning of the attack, who the victims were going to be, and how they got everything. They were left there to be found. They were meant to be seen. The boys made these to have a “starring role on-camera”. The article, ), “Columbine Killers' Basement Tapes Destroyed” (by Alan Prendergast) also explains the tapes, and what they were about by communicating, “…roughly four hours of home videos made by two teenage killers-to-be, shot in the last weeks of their lives and offering glimpses into the methods and motives behind the 1999 attack on Columbine High School that killed thirteen people and seriously injured two dozen more.” (Prendergast Basement). This is another detailed explanation and even showcases the time it took for the boys to make the tapes. They boys had thought through and planned everything for over a year and a half, and they showcased what they had planned to do in the tapes. The tapes were not released, and there is speculation that they were even
In the documentary “Bowling for Columbine”, which is directed by Michael Moore, there is an abundance of fallacious arguments. From the most obvious Post Hoc fallacies demonstrated to strengthen the director’s argument, to the numerous fallacies committed by Moore himself, there is no shortage from which to choose. The fallacies that I have chosen to focus on are the Post Hoc used by Moore’s “opponents” and his own hasty generalizations and composition fallacies. The title of the film “Bowling for Columbine” is and ode to the fallacious reasoning of the gun proponents that Moore encounters throughout the film. Many of these figures cite the music of alternative rock singer Marilyn Manson as a driving force behind the Columbine school shooting,
However, it was a different story when it came to Eric Harris. Eric was the leader of the heist including when Eric, Dylan, and their friend Zach got together and ran “operations”. One other thing about Eric is that he had made it seem as if he was turning his life around after his acts of crime. His parents were fazed by his apologies and this gave Eric the chance to start planning out the attack on Columbine, during this time he was on prescription anti-depressants. The Columbine killers were two psychopath teenagers filled with rage and anger toward the
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out an attack on Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. They fired guns towards students, killing thirteen people and injuring more than twenty. Afterwards, they turned the firearms on themselves. In his book ‘Columbine’, Dave Cullen analyses how and why Eric and Dylan massacred the victims at the school. When viewed in hindsight, events such as this are inspected to every minute detail; there are always ways in which the outcome could be changed.
Labeling Dylan and Eric as psychopaths may have given some closure to those within Columbine, but it also highlighted the possibilities of the next killers planning the next
believe a possible theme would be to always be prepared. Throughout the book, we can see that Columbine was completely unprepared. They did not have a set plan of what to do so students and teachers were running around panicking. This is one of the reasons that there were so many casualties.
The book “Rampage The Social Roots Of School Shootings” written by Newman et al, offers many different views and theories behind the issues of Rampage school shootings. In this paper I will give the reader an in depth overview and evaluation of the aforementioned book. Offering researched based reasons to why these school shootings actually happen. They explore the communities of Heath and Westside, the grounds of two horrific acts of rampage shootings by Michael Carnell, Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson. They explain various angles of there research such as identifying an issue, how signals given by children can be misinterpreted, the effects of social capital and how mental factors play a role in the acts of the shooters.
They use the tragedy of “Columbine” as a reminder to remind people the disastrous casualties and the miserable situation after the massacre. At the same time, their hype make people feel anxious and over exaggerate the threat of a school shooting incident in their community, this scare is not only affecting the society but also causes parents to fear the safety of their children in
Journalist and author, Dave Cullen, in his book, Columbine, redefines how his readers understand the Columbine tragedy. His purpose is to illustrate the misconceptions Americans have of the shooting by explaining how these misconceptions came about and became rooted in Americans’ minds, although they were so unbelievably wrong. Cullen creates a blunt tone in order to get straight to the facts to show who Eric really was. Through his use of rhetorical devices in this passage, Cullen unravels that Eric was not a bullied outcast like so many believe, but a psychopath.
School Shootings: How We All Miss the Point... The aftermath of a school shooting is tragic, depressing, and causes hatred for the lives lost and the person who took them. Everyone, especially the media, tries to interpret why the shooter killed their victims, or why they felt the need to end others’ lives and their own. How We All Miss the Point on School Shootings, by Mark Manson, explains what and why these mass shootings happen. He starts by using examples of shootings and the murderer’s past.
Eric Harris was a classic psychopath, Gladwell mentioned. He was charming and manipulative but was habitual lawbreaker, he had stolen, vandalized, bought guns illegally. Harris had wrote in german, “I am God” in his agenda. He quoted, “ I want to tear a throat out with my own teeth like a pop can, I want to get someone with my hand, to tear a head off and rip out the heart and lungs from the neck, to stab someone in the gut, shove it up to their heart” (Gladwell
In this paper I will be applying the psychological theories to serial killer Ed Gein. Ed Gein was a prolific serial killer in the 1950’s. He murdered and robbed graves for body parts to make furniture and clothing. He was apprehended in 1957, where he stood trial and was institutionalized. Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein was born August 27th, 1906 to George and Augusta Gein.
Columbine, by Dave Cullen is a non-fiction book documenting the horrific massacre which took place in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. Not only does the writer give great detail about the shooting itself, he also gives and in depth look into the lives of the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their victims. The focus of this book is for the author to attempt to bring to light what really happened and hopefully gain better understanding as to why it all took place. Cullen, a journalist, begins an extensive nine year research in order to achieve awareness of the happenings before, during and after this tragic event. Entries from the perpetrators personal journals, stories from the ones who witnessed the shootings first hand, countless interviews from the victim’s families, as well as multiple other pieces of information give the reader an extremely up close and personal surrounding Columbine.
The entire school shooting lasted for 45 minutes until the shooters commited suicide. The Columbine was one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The two shooters were students at Columbine High School. Columbine High School Shooting was a tragic event that could have been stopped even though the outcome of the shooting could have been much worse, the event that happened in the Columbine were horrific, and missed warning signs could have stopped the attack from ever happening.
On April 20, 1999, two disturbed teenage boys Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris began a killing rampage at Columbine High School in the suburban town of Littleton, Colorado. This was considered one of the worst school shootings to occur at that time. In the morning of April 20, before noon, the two juveniles had killed 13 people to include 12 students and 1 teacher; they also wounded another 23 people before turning the guns on themselves. This event would change the theories as to why school shootings would occur. (History)
Prins introduces the book by crediting Phillipe Pinel as the “first physician to describe psychopathic disorder” (Prins, 24). Pinel’s name for psychopathy was “manie sans délire,” which means “a state of disordered affect” (Prins, 25). He characterized manie sans délire by impulsive behavior, agitation and aggression. In present-day personality psychology, Pinel’s definition still functions as part of psychopathic disorder. However, the definition has since expanded beyond Pinel’s through the DSM IV.