Yeah, Columbine happened back in a time when events like that still had shock factor.
Two high schoolers dress as Columbine shooters for Halloween, get suspended
- Thread starter ElectricBlanketFire
- Start date
Yeah, Columbine happened back in a time when events like that still had shock factor.
Gonna have to ask how old you are. I'm 23 and it genuinely took me a while to think of people I know who are younger than me and haven't made school shooting jokes before. It's too common, it was normalized by the time I was in high school, and I can only imagine it's much worse now.
They are currently suspended while they are "investigating" which means they may yet face further action.
That's code for "We are looking into how we can expel you dumbasses."
I didn't realise they went into the school and re-enacted the shooting in public. I thought they posed for photos on social media.
Add it to the list. What do we have so far?
-School Shooters-
-Blackface
-Hitler
Directly from the short article linked in the OP:
Yeah, I'm gunna go with expulsion is justified.
OP
OP
I read the article. Three additional ones, infact.
I know they went to school in the costumes:
But this part does not indicate - to me - that the 'reenactment' took place in school/public:
This does though, so thanks for posting.
I was only 6 when it happened so I shouldn't really be that familiar with it but I know about it pretty intimately from the Bowling for Columbine movie. I'm thinking a lot of people much younger than me might be in the same boat.
The documentary was pretty huge and I think people still watch it.
That's kind of a good point. To them it's probably like dressing up as Bonnie and Clyde or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. To them, they're just historical figures. Not excusing it, just saying that to these kids they probably don't understand that their teachers and parents probably have vivid memories of watching Columbine on TV.
And yet we've mostly only loosened gun laws over the years especially with the trump administration.Yes, no one in America is outraged over school shootings.
I'm just saying, imagine being so safe, so incredibly confident about your place and stance in the world, where you think you can go to a place of one of the worst national tragedies in recent history dressed as the people who committed said atrocity and think that not only would no one have a problem with it, but that you'd be rewarded for it.
It's personally bewildering to me.
Question
To everybody trying to normalize this as "well this is just the way HS students think about shootings, as a big joke"..
Do any of you work in education (or at least have statistics/evidence to back this claim)? I've worked in high schools for more than a decade.. and with a variety of different students. I can say from personal experience that this is absolutely not the case and that most students take shootings and especially school shootings.. very seriously. Sure, you have the occasional student or two who makes light of it or says something inappropriate.. the the kind of behavior we see in the OP is not common behavior and I find it incredibly damaging and disturbing that some are treating it as such.
Dressing up as school shooters and reenacting their actions is absolutely not the norm.
To everybody trying to normalize this as "well this is just the way HS students think about shootings, as a big joke"..
Do any of you work in education (or at least have statistics/evidence to back this claim)? I've worked in high schools for more than a decade.. and with a variety of different students. I can say from personal experience that this is absolutely not the case and that most students take shootings and especially school shootings.. very seriously. Sure, you have the occasional student or two who makes light of it or says something inappropriate.. the the kind of behavior we see in the OP is not common behavior and I find it incredibly damaging and disturbing that some are treating it as such.
Dressing up as school shooters and reenacting their actions is absolutely not the norm.
But there's a difference between showing up at school as a historical shooter (like John Wilkes Booth) and an actual school shooter of the modern era.
HS kids can be stupid but there's little chance they were that far removed from context. They just wanted be dummies and shock people and they succeeded.
That's...honestly not a bad point. I know this isn't remotely 1-to-1, but people my age and younger (including a lot of people here) make Zodiac Killer jokes pretty often. People were scared as fuck about the Zodiac Killer not all that long before I was born.
These girls should still be severely punished, though. Pretending to be a school shooter while at your school is a different ballpark than ZK jokes.
It's not really white privilege since school shooting can affect anyone of any ethnic background. They're just dumbass kids.
I think that people think back to the stupid things they did as teenagers (because we all did stupid thing) and try to rationalize the behavior of these two against their own experiences.
But yes, this is not normal behavior. It's sociopathy on a high level.
They didn't go to Columbine high school. They're not even in the same state.
Not defending it, but let's be clear.
My bad, I read this part wrong.
Still though, my point stands.
Explain
Basically.
Bruh, it's two dumb kids doing something incredibly stupid. People from all races do dumb things every day.
I have not looked through the thread but this post tells me I might not want to
Envision how this might have played out differently of two young black people dressed up as gunmen and went into a school... or anywhere really. A suspension from school probably isn't the worst thing that would have happened in that case.
Show me one post where someone defended it.
That poster either assumed some shit or can't read. Nobody has even remotely defended what these kids did.
I was going to say ...."probably cause the black teens have more common sense and the white teens...."
Then it makes since from that side of the argument.
Pretty much. These kids weren't even born when Columbine happened and it's likely they feel detached from that event and are just being edgy teens.
No one defended it. Calm down.
Black kids have enough to deal with. Especially not to participate in heiniously tone deaf trash like this.
Haven't seen any stories about PoCs dressing up as anything dangerous or offensive. Correct me if wrong
Anywho a suspension? Hmm we'll need more than that.
They re-enacted the shooting in public.
Minorities would likely have had the police called on them, and would likely have been shot. Where have you been?
Edit: Unless they didn't have guns (toys or otherwise) on them.
But what if I dress up as a guy carrying Hitler in a headlock and occaisonally punching him. I think this would be art.
Well now I know what my next Halloween costume will be (original content do not steal)
As someone who lived through Columbine and its aftermath, I would encourage both these scumbags to get fucked and then eat a bag of salted dicks.
Except they played dead on the ground and took pictures (which were posted on social media) of the actual events of Columbine, simulating the suicide of the shooters. This whole "they just dressed up like people they recognized" narrative is bullshit.
*shrugs* I'm not defending them, they have incredibly bad judgment and are complete idiots and deserve the suspension (and probably an expulsion). But it doesn't mean they are actual sociopaths or murderers in the making. I'd let psychiatrists make that diagnosis.
I never argued that and as far I can see nobody else did. But their actions are far beyond being "edgy teens"; they took actual pictures from the shooting and had clear knowledge of what transpired in an attempt to reenact violent events.
This shit ain't normal and frankly people need to stop normalizing it in this thread.
Whew! I made it.
You didn't, but others did in this thread (called them sociopaths, people - including a student's mom in the article - said they should be arrested/charged, etc.). On the other hand, I saw no one that called this "normal". Fortunately.