I'm writing my term paper for my Contemporary World class on school shootings, described as a plague. Of course, my main focus will be Cho and the Virginia Tech tragedy. But I'm also focusing on the Columbine Massacre that happened 8 years ago. I was reading about Columbine all over again and couldn't read more than a couple of pages before I had to stop and think about something else.

What I have been reading about Columbine in the past few days is far more in detail and far more twisted than I had remembered. I actually found a site that had some of Harris and Klebold's journal entries posted, it made me sick just reading what they were saying and then thinking about what they had done. I don't understand why people would do things like this. One of my main points in the paper is that it's so hard to distinguish a true danger from a semi-normal teenage kid.

I remember writing less than cheery poetry in high school, and so do most people, I'm sure. Before the massacres, what made Harris, Klebold, and Cho any different than nearly a quarter of young men their age? Their parents all made statements that they never could have dreamed that their sons would do such a thing. Well, what parent would? If I were to find that my son (or daughter) has been writing similar journal entries (or blogs, or whatever else) I'm not sure what I'd do. Talk to him? Have him committed? Have my husband deal with it? Do nothing?

Of course my heart goes out to the victims and their families, that goes without saying. But, I'm not sure anything like this can be detected early enough to prevent something from happening...