[silverleaf]

violent video games, violent music, violent movies, violent TV, kids isolated from human contact by distracted or bad parents, “social media” that enhances bullying and allows bullied kids to build fantasy worlds to replace the real world, untreated mental illness that leads to kids like this being shunned and thus, "bullied"

It's not a Colorado thing, it's a cultural thing and it crosses cultures ..... change the genre to islam, the video games and TV to violent mosque rants, change the social media, and again you have teen (and older, mostly male but increasingly females too) sickos planning murder to avenge perceived wrongs

at least in CO this one was preempted
Now will some slick lawyer get these kids off because they were only fantasizing, had not yet gotten weapons, and sick fantasies are not a crime?

stay tuned

[Smokin' Joe]

Now will some slick lawyer get these kids off because they were only fantasizing, had not yet gotten weapons, and sick fantasies are not a crime?

I think every kid who has been ganged up on has dreamed of redeeming their self-respect by violent and public means, just that those means used to be limited by social constraints which would make them less lethal.

Media, from film to video games, have cheapened human life, and we have been progressively desensitized toward violence since the '60s.

So you end up with kids who fantasize about getting even with those who attack their self-esteem and then act out on the fantasy because the moral constraints which used to be fairly widespread have been systematically destroyed. Once the sanctity of human life is unrecognized at any particular level, the rest is a slippery slope.

[3Fingas]

Yes, all of those items mentioned contributed to Colombine and other mass shootings. One thing, actually the biggest reason for Colombine and other shootings, I suspect, is the worship of celebrity and the desire to be famous. In the case of the Colombine shooters, they fantasized about how notorious they would be after they killed all those other students. Their main plan was to blow up the cafeteria killing hundreds of students. The shooting spree was supposed to happen outside the school when survivors from the cafeteria were trying to escape a burning and collapsed building. Thankfully, their bomb failed. Anyhow, this desire to be famous and idolized by some for criminal deeds, has been around since Jesse James and Billy the Kid. Bonnie Parker is a perfect example of this. It took the psycho Colombine pair to make school shootings a path to instant fame/infamy.