School shootings are rare, but highly publicized. When they occur, panels of "experts" spend hours of airtime debating the causes of these shootings. None of which are able to give a sure answer as to why. Everyone has thought of commiting murder in the back of their mind but what pushes someone over the edge to actually act on it? Perhaps the question isn't what makes people kill but what makes most people not. Everyone, at one time or another, has felt a violent urge at the pit of their stomach in the fit of rage, a hate so momentarily strong that you feel as if you couldn't predict what you would do next. What keeps people from acting on these emotions is just good old fashion logic, mind over matter. We systematically think of the consequences within a matter of seconds, perhaps not thinking of specific consequences we'd face if we act but in the most basic sense we know something bad will happen if we follow through. This is just something every human being learns early on in life. Its like when man first discovered fire which I would imagine went something like this; "fire hot, fire hurt, no touch fire". Well, not ex
actly like that but you get the idea. So what causes anger to manifest into something like the incident that happened at Columbine High School? The massacre there was well-planned and obviously not something done in the heat of rage. The police reports on the incident read that Harris and Klebold ,the shooters at the Columbine massacre, had been planning the attack since as early as April 1998 -- a full year earlier then the actual shootings. Both shooters were avid fans of violent video games and violent movies, so in other words they were just like every other teenager in modern America. Speaking as a teenager who occasionally spends his Saturday nights playing games like Doom, Blood, Counter-Strike, Half-life, or anything else that makes a loud splattering sound when I click the mouse, I have never felt the urge to hurt anyone because of these games. The only time I feel remotely violent while playing these titles is when my computer freezes and I'm overcome with an urge to drop kick it into a busy highway but thats about it. However, I do agree that there are side-effects. After many years of being exposed to as much v
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