Columbiners

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Halifax Shooting Plot: Who Are The 'Columbiners'?

Last week 3 people were foiled in their plan to shoot up a Halifax shopping mall. They were armed and one committed suicide to evade capture. They identified themselves as Columbiners.

So what is with this subculture?

I think it's a natural reaction (hostility) to an unnatural environment (school.) Public education, the way it is now, creates a prison atmosphere. I don't find it at all surprising that some kids react this way.
I'll admit I thought about shooting up the school I attended in grade 5. I used to get through the day with fantasies of blowing people's heads off. There were no guns around, and frankly, I wouldn't have done it even if there were. But obviously some take this further.

So what do you think. Is it the fault of the school system, guns, or solely the responsibility of the killers?

I guess it had to happen: an internet subculture of Columbine emulaters.

Back in the 20th Century if you were say...sexually attracted to children in wheelchairs you had to go through life believing that you were the only one in Creation with that weird drive. But now you can go on line and find a whole community of others like yourself who share that obsession. And having violent fantasies about school is common. although only a rare few go so far as to seriously contemplate it.

I think that you're right that the school system is an unnatural setting. In traditional societies (like the modern Bedouin) teens are employed within the clan to babysit, and to herd sheep. Our own ancestors lived and worked on the family farm, or worked as apprentices to tradesmen in the cities. In all of the above teenagers rarely ever even encountered other teenagers. Most of the people they were around were younger children, or elders. But in the 20th Centurey they started to warehouse teenagers together by the thousands in big box middleschools/jr. Highschools, and Highschools. And by the 21st centurey the "prison" feel of the institutions probably became even worse with more fortified architecture (to guard against vandalism), and cameras, and metal detectors.

We have to be aware of how unnatural it is for teens to be around hundreds of other teens all of the time.Much of the social competition, and bullying, that results from that didnt exist in the nomadic, or agragarian, societies of our ancestors.

And now the economy is such that both parents often have to work to survive. The need to warehouse children is expanding to earlier ages too. In Ontario we now have full day kindergarten as well as junior kindergarten. Not to mention daycare. Children spend more time in these environments then with their families. So by default they are being raised by peers and teachers and pop culture.