Natural Selection: the Story of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

In today’s society, one cannot help but be afraid because of what’s going on around us: you can’t walk alone at night in fear of getting mugged, knowing that half of the world wants to blow us up, and the countless ‘doomsday prophecies’ that plague our televisions. But the question remains, should we feel this way in our schools? Evidently, after the Columbine shootings rocked the country, we have to feel endangered in our school systems. As the tenth anniversary of the slayings approaches, we have to wonder why these two kids would want to do this, and how this ultimately changed our country. April 20th, 2009 will officially be the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings carried out by eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and seventeen year old Dylan Klebold in Littleton, Colorado. Their original intention was to set off their bombs in the cafeteria, and when everybody ran out of the buildings, they would shoot them from a distance. When the bombs failed to detonate, they changed their plans and just started running through the school and shooting at anybody. This effectively killed thirteen people (fifteen including Harris and Klebold), and wounding twenty-three others. But what could cause two seemingly harmless kids to go on a killing spree? Evidence from Harris’ journals has shown that he showed signs of malignant narcissism, paranoid features, and antisocial traits. Klebold, however, also showed signs of narcissism, explaining that he and Harris were god-like figures. Klebold also explains, “life was no fun without a little death, and that he would like to spend the last moments of his life in nerve-wracking twists of murder and bloodshed”, which is solid evidence that Klebold had sadist intentions. Harris was prescribed to an anti-depressant, Luvox, after a court order due to control his aggression. This sparked the debate whether teens should be able to take anti-depressants. Before the shootings, Harris and Klebold were avid players of the

Cited: "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold." Wikipedia. 24 Oct. 2008. 27 Oct. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eric_harris_and_dylan_klebold>. "School Shootings." Wikipedia. 27 Oct. 2008. 27 Oct. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/school_shootings>.