April 20: Littleton

            In the last few years America saw many tragic events, from a deranged sniper spreading panic and taking lives in D.C. to a gun crazed idiot blowing many innocent people to bits in an Oklahoma federal building. None of these events were nearly as shocking or macabre as the events that went down on April 20, 1999. On that date two young students stormed their school weeks before graduation, killing many of their classmates and a teacher before committing suicide. Twenty three students were wounded that day; and every student in America was affected. In the midst of the murder and chaos, concerned citizens went completely blame crazy. Some folks blamed television, some videogames or music; very rarely did anyone actually blame the two boys who committed the crimes. School violence is a serious and frightening thing students have to deal with, and something should be done about it; but, American citizens have taken the wrong precautions.The Columbine high school massacre took place at 11:21 a.m. The news programs that covered it began at noon and already had stocked up on plenty of media propaganda to spark up plenty of stories for years to come. The media pointed their fingers mostly at video games and music. Since the two boys who had committed the crimes were fans of not-so positive hero's this was easy.Marilyn Manson, a Goth-metal "freak" took the blunt of the criticism, people actually blamed him for the events that took place on that fateful day. (Moore) Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the two responsible for the massacre) were fans of Manson, and members of the trench-coat mafia were known to have used Manson's lyrics as insults toward jocks and other classmates. To the media this means that Marilyn Manson indirectly controlled the boys because they are too young to know any better. This is obviously ridiculous considering the two boys were seventeen and eighteen years of age, legal adults.