Columbine - Reflection on Violence

Columbine - Reflection on Violence

While watching a commentary, on a popular television program, I felt nauseous1 after learning of torture students and teachers endured at Columbine High School in Little Town, Colorado. It began as a typical school day in April; it ended with an afternoon of horror, which showed a child's extreme behaviour. Teachers and students encountered hours of torture as two fellow students walked their campus halls on a shooting spree. To avoid being hit by a flying bullet, victims hid in closets and storage compartments. Patiently, police officers camped out around school grounds waiting for a right moment to enter. Many parents waited frantically, not knowing their children's fate.

Two teenage boys, belonging to a group called "The Trench Coat Mafia," targeted minority groups and athletes. After ending their rage, both gunmen and over a dozen students and teachers lay dead. A few days after, police officers found several explosives all around the school campus, indicating the boys intended to blow their school to pieces.

After an event of this nature we as people immediately seek to point our fingers, in efforts to find a solution for such a serious problem. All mass media seems to be first on everyone's list to get hammered. Are we just washing our hands and taking an easy way out? Are parents not monitoring what their children watch on Television?

What has happened to family values in America? Parents have set other priorities in front of their children. No longer is family relationship of importance in this nation. Time, after time we hear politicians preach, pro-family, and the importance of spending quality time with your children, yet not enough is done. Now again, we find ourselves in an awful situation where we have wasted lives.

I really do not think we have lost this warm loving support a family brings to each of us, nevertheless I feel it has been sidetracked. Instead of allowing this family concept to fade away, we must act on it. Seeking an alternative solution outside of our home, counselling, is a beginning effort to save our families.