Profile of a School Shooter: Ingredient 6 - Video Games, Movies, and Violent Media

When the line between fantasy and reality blurs

One of the first issues to get resurrected shortly after a new shooting is the topic of violence in the media. We can't deny that movies and video games have grown increasingly violent, it is becoming more and more difficult to locate a true family movie. Yet hundreds of thousands of people play the same games, watch the same movies, and read the same books and none of them committed such horrific acts.

Mass shooters were all attracted to violent media in some form. Early on they cited Richard Bachman's short story "Rage" as an influence. "Rage" was the story of a frustrated by taking his classroom hostage, and emerging the hero among his classmates. After it copies of his book were found in the possession of several of the first school shooters, not only highlighted copies but very well worn. Bachman's creator Stephen King pulled the book from print, stating "The ------- incident was enough for me. I asked my publisher to take the damned thing out of print. They concurred."

Later shooters claimed influences in movies such as "The Basketball Diaries" and "Natural Born Killers."

"The Basketball Diaries" contains a fantasy scene in which the hero walks through the hallway and opens fire on unsuspecting innocents. It is very eerie to watch it now knowing how many boys watched that scene over and over until they had in memorized, and eventually acted it out.

"Natural Born Killer's" was a favorite of the Columbine shooters. They code named their fantasy NBK, and referenced it often, along with the video game Doom. "Natural Born Killer's" was meant to be a commentary on the media's obsession with violence, it is over the top, very surrealistic violence.

While Marilyn Manson received a lot of media attention after Columbine, the perpetrators of Columbine did not care for him, instead they favored the hard core German band Rammstein. Taking great inspiration from their song Weisses Fleissch, a song about a school yard killing. They also took German classes, and showed a strong fascination with Nazi culture and guns in general.

Other works cited later on were movies that were strangely enough made after Columbine, "Zero Day" and "Elephant." Zero Day was a fairly close portrayal of events at told through "home video" as the attack on the characters school was being planned. While "Elephant" took a different spin and showed a similar story line, only everyone involved including teachers and students showed no emotion whatsoever, it was meant to illustrate the apathy that our society seems to have towards such events.

I read all of these books, listened to all of the music, studied all of the video games. I tried to see what these boys saw, and tried to understand what the other people who experienced this same violent media did not see. While some of the movies were disturbing, they really didn't mesmerize me in the way that they did these boys.

These kids weren't just drawn to it, they were obsessed with it. They did not just read the books, watch the movies, or play the games. They totally immersed themselves in them. They memorized lines, they acted out scenes in their heads, they became obsessed with the imagery.

They continually placed themselves inside of these fantasy worlds, until the lines between fantasy and reality blurred. Combine an unstable mind with violent imagery, and you have a dangerous mix. These same movies when watched by emotionally stable people did not have the same effect, and never will.

Nowhere was this more evident than studying the events at Columbine. When I read the walk through of events, I saw that progression that happens in reverse. There were two boys acting out a fantasy that they had believed would go exactly like it did in the movies and video games.

They were detached from the reality of the situation so deeply that I don't think they really saw their victims as people at all... not at first. Towards the end of the massacre they began to show a marked difference in their personalities. Several survivors noted that they could have continued with their plan but it seems they just gave up. Witnesses described them as aimless, almost lost just before they committed suicide.

When reality once again came into focus, they were lost.

Fantasies all to often fall short of our expectations. All of us have looked forward to an event with so much anticipation that we saw every moment of it play out in our heads. Then when the event finally came we were left disappointed with the reality. I honestly do not believe that these boys really understood the reality of the situation until it all caved in on them.

Even if these violent images were removed, these boys would have found another place to feed that anger. Even the Bible contains imagery that has lead some to believe they were doing Gods work by killing others. Classic literature is ripe with violence. If someone wants to find violence, they don't have to look at today's media to provide it.

Rather these boys were drawn to violent media, so they sought it out. The media did not create them, it just nourished what was already there. They were looking for something to feed that anger, and they found it.

Many people have placed the blame with the violence in the media, but a seed needs fertile ground before it can grow. We can try to eliminate all first person shooter games, restrict violent movies, and ban books from our libraries but those efforts all too often have the opposite effect than intended. The more we try to keep these things away from certain people, the more they are drawn to them.

Instead of putting blinders on our children, perhaps it would be better to take our own off. To listen to our children's music, to watch their favorite movies, to keep ourselves informed of what they are drawn to. To try to understand why they are seeking it out in the first place. For many of them, the attraction is just the sheer fact that they are doing something they aren't supposed to do.

We also need to be aware of our children's obsessions. If they are spending a great deal of time focusing on a certain type of media they are telling us something about themselves. We need to figure out what that is. If it is particularly violent, or dangerous then we need to seek professional help for ourselves and our children.

The media is not creating these violent children any more than the moth is creating the flame. I do not believe the media deserves all of the blame in this regard, but I do think they bear the brunt of the responsibility in another way.