OK, so what I am about to discuss in this post might offend some people, and I am sorry if I do so. However, I was watching a documentary on the Columbine incident that just kinda rubbed me the wrong way, and in light of the latest "massacre," I thought it was only fitting to weigh in on my thoughts.

If you are unfamiliar with the Columbine incident, two students named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went into their high school and brutally murdered 12 students and one teacher while injuring 24 other students. Even though I was only 10 years old when this happened, I remember that day, just as I remember 9/11 two years later. It was really the first news story that actually resonated with me.

There was a lot of speculation as to what drove these two kids (who were expected to graduate in one more month) to commit such a heinous act against their peers. The media and the extreme religious far-rights immediately tried to target the media that was in Eric and Dylan’s lives. Video games, music, and other outside media factors were painted as the reason that set these kids up to kill.

The fact is, in MY OPINION, it had nothing to do with that whatsoever.

If we examine the background of these kids, it is easy to see that none of these “scapegoats” had any relevance whatsoever. These kids were bullied and ostracized by the other students, the school faculty, and maybe more importantly, culture and society as a whole.

They felt as if they were "outcasts," much like most of the others who commit these devastating acts.

The one set of people in their lives that might have had a chance to stop it (the parents) were so caught up in their own lives and careers that they just turned a blind eye to what was going on in their kids’ lives. We aren’t looking at a school district and a prototype of what statistics say will be the "future felons" in a city like Brooklyn, New York or Compton. We are looking at the kids who live next door. Columbine was not Compton. It's a small town where the median household income is close to $90,000 and the average home value is $372,000.

Granted, these kids were far from “rich,” but they were also far from poverty and a “hard way of life,” which is what most people think of when they think of violence and murders. The fact of the matter is, in a society such as the one in Columbine, over 80% of families have both parents in the home working, and almost 50% of the residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

So, what can we assume from this? We can assume that these kids most likely had parents who were not involved in their lives as much as they might have been had they grown up in the 1950s, where only 16% of families had both parents in the home working.

Now, I am not saying that only one parent in the home should work and families where both parents work are destined to fail. I am merely saying that there is a huge association between the mentality in 1950 compared to the 1990s and onward.

Why didn’t these parents know that Dylan and Eric had purchased assault weapons and were making homemade bombs? I’m sure if my mom came home and came into my room when I was 17 and saw five or six different assault rifles laid out on the bed, ESPECIALLY if I yelled at her and pushed her out of my room, secluding myself in a room with these assault rifles, that she would have definitely suspected something or suspected that I had some mental issues.

Sad thing is, I doubt the parents were even involved enough to know that Dylan and Eric had assault rifles and were making homemade bombs.

I do believe that it is our right to protect our home and it is our right to bear arms. However, I do not see it as a right to have the ability and permission to build homemade bombs, especially at an age like 17, where our minds haven’t even completely matured yet. These individuals aren’t mature enough to handle and truly grasp how final death really is and how our actions dictate our lives (which is why so many risk-taking teens die in automobile accidents every year).

These kids were bullied throughout their entire school careers, and instead of the school faculty witnessing this and taking action, they instead turned a blind eye and just viewed it as “kids being kids.”

I am not stupid. I understand that bullying had been happening for years and years before 1999, and has continued to happen since '99, and will continue to happen after 2018. I understand that.

However, these kids were not the normal Chip getting made fun of by Biff, so Chip goes home and confesses it to Mommy. These kids were emotionally disturbed because of feeling helpless and ostracized by every single adult that they were supposed to be able to lean on (parents, faculty, etc). And speaking of the Chip example, Dylan and Eric didn’t have “Mommy” to walk them through it and make them feel better. Dylan and Eric’s parents were too busy at work trying to live high above their means.

The “stature” or “upper-middle-class image” was everything to them, which is why I don’t even completely blame the school faculty because really, it is the parents' job to raise their kids. The parents are supposed to be the ones who see their kids and notice when something is “just not right” with them. It is the parents’ duty to do this, not the school faculty (who have to be in control of 2,000 kids a day). Even after the shootings, Dylan Klebold's mother had no idea that the notorious "Basement Tapes" revealing what the boys were planning to do were even recorded in HER basement, or even that the boys had weapons in the home.

This is why the parents, the school, and other fringe censor groups wanted to step in and try to pass the buck to media.

“Oh, it was Marilyn Manson who made our kids become serial killers! Oh them pesky video games! It fuels violence!”

Granted, I am not really a big fan of Marilyn Manson or the groups that were scapegoated. However, I know for a fact that Dylan and Eric listening to Marilyn Manson was NOT the reason they decided to walk into school and kill a dozen of their classmates on a sunny April day a month before they were supposed to graduate. It was the fact that they felt they had no other alternative to get rid of the pain that was brought on by their fellow classmates, the pain that was only exacerbated by the betrayal and incompetency of their mentors and adults.

They wanted those kids to feel the pain that they had felt their whole lives and the pain that wasn’t addressed but still encouraged by their enablers.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that these kids were not the stereotypical bad seed felons that grow up in poverty and steal for the first time when they are 4 years old. These are the kids who might be your next-door neighbors. These are the kids that might be walking in your grocery aisle with a pack of Kit Kats or down at the baseball field playing Little League with your kids. These are kids who, because of the upper middle class and materialistic vision set forth by this society, have come back with an outcry to be noticed, but most of all, an outcry to be helped.

This materialistic vision and dire need to live this upper-middle-class life has fueled violence and pain for both parents and children. During the 1950s, the norm for a middle-class family was maybe one TV in the house. Living in a small house with one television, no cable or satellite service, one car, no air conditioning, and so on is seen as a low standard of living in 2018, whereas in the 1950s it was the norm for a middle-class family. This is a happy family that still has its problems, but it certainly isn’t producing a couple of 17-year-old kids who rampage their schools, killing over a dozen people.

What happened to this ideology? When did it turn to being all about this “image"? 2018 and 1950 are completely different times with different values, beliefs, and standards of living. It’s just a different time. People in 2018 are always constantly looking to buy more and more to fuel this hole they have in their hearts and this pain that they go through every day. This is why, in a society based on this consumerism, it is necessary for both parents in the household to work and work hard, long hours, just to keep up with this vision.

According to Sandbox Networks Inc., the homicide rate in 1950 was at 4.6 per 100,000 compared to 5.7 per 100,000 in 1999. In regards to "mass shootings," the entire decade of 1950 had just one mass shooting compared to 42 in the 1990s and 14 just between the years of 2010 and 2013.

But why? Were people in 1950 really all that much more unhappy? Actually, contrary to that statement, fewer people during that time were actually unhappy and there was less crime, violence, and rampage. It would have been unheard of to think of a school shooting happening back in the 1950s. Now, it’s not even a shock anymore to hear something like that. It’s just the norm, just as watching "Modern Family" or the baseball game after the news is. Is it that we have entered into a time where this is thought of to be “normal,” or is it just human nature?

I’m going to go with the first one, and honestly, that’s a scary thought.