I am against first person shooting games (doom) for those under legal age.
I think it was a large influence on the minds of the killers.
We do not allow alcohol and tobacco to be consumed by children, neither should we allow seriously violent video games.
Remember learning to ride a bike? I don't, but it took some time I'm sure.
Do you play a musical instrument? I am sure it took some time to learn.
The FPS games train children to think of shooting the same way.
The FPS is a new thing "under the sun" and I don't think we (humanity) recognize what it is.

If you ask a Heroin addict if they got a problem, they would usually tell you no. If you ask an Alcoholic if they got a problem, they would usually tell you no. The same would happen when you ask the children who play FPS who enjoy the violence and excitement (and virtual power).

Philip,
You said "How these ticking time bombs managed to slip through the cracks as they did remains a question that'll never be answered with the kind of precision you'd like."

As a former teacher I can tell you part of the answer: good luck trying to contain, help, discipline, etc. most kids. The parents will fight you tooth and nail. Everyone wants "school discipline"--except for *their* kids. The minute anyone takes any meaningful steps the threats of lawsuits come pouring in. School administrators as a group have always been pretty spineless, but no one should have to put up with the kind of threats that parents routinely dish out on behalf of acting out students these days.

There've always been people who have chosen to do cruel and horrible things. Young boys doing such things at public schools seems new, and should lead us as a society, and perhaps, considering that I think these things have happened in other nations too, as a species, to look into what our society is creating with it's rigidly structured educational system and then of course with doping kids either with speed (Adderall doesn't really have speed in it, does it? A friend of mine who doesn't buy the anti psych stuff asked me last week:0) or with SSRI's or with speed, ssri's and anticonvulsants and god knows what else all at the same time while tightening the rigidly controlled environment. What is scariest about this sort of incident is that we are shocked by it. Our school system seems designed to cause it.

Some kids are perfectly cut out for rigid learning. I was to a large extent, others need more of a Summerhill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._S._Neill) approach. With all of our "progress" why can't we tell the difference and create a more balanced less punitive approach for all children?

"...,maybe anti-depressants uncork psychological force that I cannot even guess at."
Philip Dawdy

I can! During Sffexor withdrawal I experienced drug-induced suicidal ideation and I KNOW that it exists and it's something very powerful.
i have said it many times and have wrote a post on one of my suicides attempts.
I was also violent but in a low level. The worse I did was hit a wildshield with my fist.
Never did it or got into so many disputes my entire life.
Never had urges to burn my skin with cigarettes.

Thank you for remembering Philip.
Children and adolescents should never be treated the way they are.
I'm appalled by the fact that those who are developing and need help are not being taken into consideration and are not being considered as individuals like adults.
Making money, making money... it what guide those who are on power.
There is too much money, plenty of money in the world. Economic crisis?
For the people.
Still... there is no opposition. blah blah blah...
I miss the seventies and the sixties. I wish I was not a baby at the sixties.
I'm sorry if it's too long but I'm angry.

I view Columbine as a perfect storm of a number of things coming together to make this a school shooting that is forever etched in our minds. Millions of school age kids take antidepressants and don't shoot up their schools -- only a handful have ever done that. Still there is no doubt (in my mind at least) that this is a deadly part of the mix. Which is not to say events like this aren't the culmination of many troubling influences and events over the lifetimes of the perpetrators. This is not an either/or proposition, as in either antidepressants caused it or they didn't. Multiple factors were at play including the things Philip and previous commenters raise. But there is a good chance that psych drugs provide the tipping point.

Philip, I'll point you towards Dave Cullen's work on Columbine. He's a blogger/journalist, like you... If you are interested... His book on the tragedy was just released, and he has spent the last ten years studying these kids. I have not yet read the book, but plan to. I guess I'll let you know if he mentions psych meds at all.

Philip,

Strange that you should say "antidepressants forever linked to Columbine".

Actually, probably only about one in fifty people know that Eric Harris was on Luvox, an SSRI antidepressant.

USA Today wrote a story on Columbine last week and said that the police reported that there were no antidepressants involved.

This is called "deconstructionism". It is where history is rewritten.

Probably only about one in one hundred people will realize after todays news media coverage of Columbine that Eric Harris was on an SSRI antidepressant.

C'est la vie.

Sherry,

I think the problem is that the kids were getting discipline and "mental health treatment."

I believe you that parents blame the teachers and don't want their kids punished in some situations, but these were kids who were identified by the school and the parents as problems. Perhaps this identification and the subsequent "treatment" and discipline as well as the readily available automatic weapons and lack of p.e. and shoot em up games that ensued contributed to this incident. Still there will always be evil people.

"...that I think these things have happened in other nations too, as a species, to look into what..."

Sally,

Some decades ago I heard someone saying: "You know that kind of person that starts shooting at people in US..."
Last week I was searching violence in adolescence and I saw a Brazilian blogger saying: "Jeremy story is just like many that happens in US."
Jeremy is the 16-years-old who killed himself at his classroom.

As far as Brazil is concerned not at single case of school shooting.

We have many violent behavior but not this.
I don't know.
I'm trying to understand like all of you.

Sally,
Lots of good comments on this thread, many of which I agree with or hadn't thought much about before people brought them up.

What I was talking about earlier wasn't the "special treatment" stuff, actually. I'm just talking garden-variety "you've been late six days out of the past eight, I warned you last time this would cost you a detention" and then... all hell breaks loose from the parents when you try to back up your promise/threat/whatever you want to call it. Not every parent, of course. But there are enough parents who consider their children so very special, so above the common herd that you are not allowed to enforce even the most basic rules in any consistent manner. At the same time all you hear about is the "lack of discipline in the schools".

It gets old, I assure you. There's lots of things wrong with the public schools. But the inability to maintain any form of consistent discipline, while at the same time having to listen to yourself being scapegoated for it... gee, I'm only human.

And no longer a teacher.

I'm not sure why that one little sore spot came up for me today.
Sherry

Since just about everyone writing about Columbine today believes that Eric Harris was either a psychopath or a sociopath, it would be a good idea to turn to the Physicians Desk Reference and see what it has to say about the SSRI antidepressants drugs - since Harris was taking one.

Notice in this list that "antisocial behavior" is listed as a side effect. True, it is listed as a rare side effect but people can have a rare side effect happen to them, othewise it wouldn't be listed as an adverse reaction.

The problem with the authors of all these books on Columbine is that they are not familiar with these SSRI antidepressants. There is something about these drugs, when a person is going "bad" on them, that is totally different - a new and strange illness. Even someone trying to study this new SSRI illness can never get a feel for it, though, unless they have talked to hundreds of people who have gone "bad" on them or have read hundreds of the 3,000+ media cases now posted on www.SSRIstories.com

Here is the list from the PDR for Prozac: [1998]

Nervous System---Frequent: agitation, amnesia, confusion, emotional
lability, sleep disorder; Infrequent: abnormal gait; acute brain syndrome,
akathisia, apathy, ataxia, buccoglossal syndrome, CNS depression, CNS
stimulation, depersonalization, euphoria, hallucinations, hostility,
hyperkinesia, hypertonia, hypesthesia, incoordination, libido increased,
myoclonus, neuralgia, neuropathy, neurosis, paranoid reaction, personality
disorder*, psychosis, vertigo; Rare: abnormal electroencephalogram,
antisocial reaction, circumoral paresthesia, coma, delusion, dysarthria,
dystonia, extrapyramidal syndrome, foot drop, hyperesthesia, neuritis,
paralysis, reflexes decreased, reflexes increased, stupor.

*Personality disorder is the COSTART term for designating non-aggressive
objectional behavior

It is amazing! I went through Google News and almost every newspaper is quoting from USA Today that there were no antidepressants involved in Columbine.

I bet Solvay wished they had known this before they made their secret settlements with the survivors of Columbine. Poor Solvay.

I actually do not think Columbine is going to be forever linked with antidepressants. I might wish for that because if it were maybe it would make a difference but I think most people brush off the connection, dismiss it, or don't even know about it. It didn't help that USA Today printed on the front page that the boys weren't on meds when at least one of them surely was and the other one we just don't know definitively. I agree with Rosie that it takes a lot of "stories" under your belt before you really understand just how significant and bizarre the effect on behavior can be. And it's something qualitatively different frankly from mental illness that evolves on its own. That's what I believe anyway. It would be great if someone could prove it once and for all.

"It would be great if someone could prove it once and for all."

Sara,

Those who have the power to prove and validate it are the same that are brushing off the connections.
Isn't it amazing?