Do you think that the recent tragedy in Broken Arrow Oklahoma involving the Bever family might finally give us some insight into the Columbine shootings?

“They also said 3,000 rounds of ammunition were delivered to the home after the murders and the boys planned to use it to kill so many people they would become more famous than the Columbine shooters.”

You would think ordering that amount would at least make somebody wonder.

What sort of insight is necessary? Kids in a country with more guns than sense, yet the argument persists that we’ll be better off when everyone’s packin. The sheer idiocy of our gun obsessed culture is just another indicator of how obtuse and blindingly stupid we are collectively. I can remember when as a boy the consensus was that the civilizing of the country involved restricting and even eliminating firearms from public access. It was an age when jurisdictions strove mightily to eliminate weapons in order to lure folks in to settle. Half the westerns made involved some stalwart marshal “cleaning up the town” by confiscating the guns from all who entered. And just as in real life, IT WORKED. I’m trying to figure out at what point the exact opposite approach actually gained credence in the country and just what it says about the mental acuity of those who endorse it.

Nothing new, no insight that hasn’t been there since Columbine first took place.

Too many guns, too easy to get guns and ammo. But this is so different from Columbine, because it was against their family. I wonder what the hell dysfunction this family of five kids from 18 to 2 was going through.

I hadn’t heard of this…until now. Gee thanks bunches. Just another sign of the times, people looking for infamy and notoriety.
How freaking sad..these little imbeciles killed their siblings and parents…I say gas the little sociopaths,

@ zenvelo There were 7 kids including themselves. A 13 yr. old sister that survived the attack and and a 2 yr. old sister that they didn’t harm for whatever reason.

@stanleybmanly Probably when the government started having more power than the people. That has to at least be part of it.

I don’t see that as related to Columbine at all. It takes a special kind of warped mind to kill not only your own parents but younger siblings as well. That’s just beyond the pale.

The Secret Service did a long term series of interviews with school shooters and one of the noteworthy observations they made were this. In over ⅔ of these cases they had been the target of bullying at school which WAS IGNORED by the teachers and administration. Their festering resentment finally culminated in school shootings.

There are some who have disagreed with this but this is the Secret Service after all. (Plus, Harris said to one of the Jocks “You used to call me a fag Well whose the fag now?) How much clearer can they be

A huge part of the daily job of Secret Service Agents is assessing potential threats to the President and other govt. officials.

They interview hundreds of people every day all year long who’ve either sent threatening letters or verbally made threatening remarks which have been reported to them by others.

We typically don’t hear about all of these. It’s all behind the scenes. But the members of the Secret Service are trained to be keen observers of human nature and behavior.

So, combined with my own classroom experience, I tend to take their assessments seriously. Schools can no longer be passive and turn a blind eye to kids being bullied. It’s just inhumane.

But anyhow, other than the use of guns, I really don’t see much of a parallel between these two boys killing members of their own family and the Columbine guys.

They are definitely not the same at all. Lots of things have happened since Columbine which were much more similar. It was a definite case of bullying left to fester there. More similar than a family execution, actually, is the numerous suicides taking place with middle school and high school children. Some kids take their own lives to escape the bullying, some take out others first, and then their own, sometimes suicide by cop.
After all these years one would think the schools’ staffing would be better at dealing with those issues, yet hoards of kids complain about the stifling treatment they face at school without any action. Parents complain, ask to transfer their students, usually being denied that as an option. Still it goes on, kids killing themselves, and others too, because they can’t face their school environment.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/mom-takes-son-9-out-of-school-because-of-bullies-1.2458499
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/restraining-order-9-year-old_n_5009027.html
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/18/us/illinois-suicide-sophomore/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/21/justice/nevada-middle-school-shooting/index.html
This one was abused by family, but lived to tell the story, thanks to a brave teacher who approached him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Middle_School_shooting
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0110/Taft-high-school-shooting-Shooter-targeted-bullies-video

As I understood it, the kids had made some sort of assertion that they intended to ‘outdo Columbine’. I have read most of the articles published, and I don’t believe that was just my impression, although I admit to reading both the Daily News and Faux News.

“They also said 3,000 rounds of ammunition were delivered to the home after the murders and the boys planned to use it to kill so many people they would become more famous than the Columbine shooters.”

The impression is that fame was the goal, and that the family was just seen as an impediment that had to be dealt with first.

@ibstubro

I hear what you’re saying but I think there’s a lot more to this than meets the eye.

Let me put it this way. Something in that family )or parents) had to be majorly effed up for those boys to coldheartedly see their family members as nothing more than mere objects standing in the way of their quest for fame.

That may be what they said but with teenagers, what they say on the surface and what’s really going on are two separate things.

Kids who kill their parents are usually doing it as a response to some type of abuse whether it’s mental/emotional or physical/sexual or perhaps drug addictiob. BUT SOMETHING has short-circuited the normal emotions of love and concern that exist between family members.

Admittedly, I have no idea what that “something” is in this particular case. Time may reveal it more.

But normal kids being raised in a loving family don’t just chuck it all out the window so they can pursue “fame”. Why do I say that? Because normal kids raised in a loving family have a CONSCIENCE (which appears to have been sorely lacking in these two.) There has to be a reason for that stunning lack of conscience which enabled them to so coldheartedly slay not just their parents but their siblings as well. If anyone is truly innocent in this scenario, it’s those children.

I’m just not buying that their thirst for fame could totally eclipse their conscience (or as Lincoln phrased it “The better angels of our nature” )

There is something missing here. Children who are loved by parents who let them know how much they are loved don’t just up and murder them on a lark because they want “fame”.

That’s far too facile an explanation for something as deep and dark as this. It isn’t just that they murdered them but, apparently relished the process.

If all you needed to do in ypur quest for fame was to eliminate your parents and family (even tho you loved them) poison would get the job done more efficiently and bloodlessly.

No, they relished the killing. That’s a lot of pent up hatred. Why?

We don’t know at this point but a lifetime of professionally dealing with kids from all types of families tells me that it’s a lot more than a desire for fame. There are missing pieces to this puzzle.

Normal kids don’t act like psychopaths out of a clear blue sky one bright and shiny day. There’s more to this story.

The Columbine situation is understandable in a perverse kind of way. Two kids from a white wealthy conservative town believe that their social position entitles them to a certain amount of honor, but instead they are bullied and they end up going over the edge.

What is not clear in the Broken Arrow case is why these kids felt they needed the recognition. It would not surprise me if there is a similarity to Columbine in the social dynamics, but I need more information.

The boys said they wanted to be more famous than the Columbine shooters. That doesn’t make them similar. It is just who the boys knew about is all. There is psychosis in them is all there is to that.
To find a resemblance you would have to look into cases like John Lennon’s murder.
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/john_lennons_murderer_reveals_motive_behind_fatal_shooting.html
Or the attempt on President Reagan’s life.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/reagan-hinckley/

@Buttonstc I used to make the same assumption that you do; that the parents of these children that go on a rampage and murder either their parents, families or others come from some sort of abusive situation.

In some cases, it is true. Ted Bundy is a prime example. He had a hideous childhood and turned out to be a serial killer. Others that grew up in a similar environment never went down this path. Most come out with physical and/or emotional scars, but they are survivors. We have a few here on Fluther.

Columbine shooters Harris and Klebold fall into a different category. Based upon research, one is considered to be a psychopath and the other depressive. Their issues were supposedly based upon bullying that was unaddressed by teachers who witnessed it. Nothing crops up about their upbringing being a factor. The boys hid their emotional status from their parents, or if any insight was shared, it was glossed over due to the inability to fathom how disturbed someone they love and think that they know can become.

I think the common thread is “Prominent Public Self Destruction”. You won’t live through it, but you’ll never be forgotten.

Martyrdom, in religion.

I’d love to listen to the questioning of these kids.
What were they sacrificing themselves to??

@Pied

I agree with you that not all kids who do school shootings or serial killers had abusive parents.

There is absolutely no indication that either Klebold or Harris did (perhaps a bit oblivious to their everyday lives or a tad emotionally distant but definitely not rising to the level of abuse.)

And that’s why I see no linkage to the Broken Arrow case. Neither Harris or Klebold ever had the thought to harm their own families.

But these other boys did. It takes a particular kind of coldheartedness to consider killing one’s own parents.

There is something special about your own flesh and blood with whom you grew up and usually loved you. To go against that indicates something horribly wrong.

I also did mention the outside possibility of drug addiction. For we also know that that is one of the few things with the power to short circuit even a Mothers normal maternal instinct. Addicted Mothers can be stunningly neglectful toward their children which would never happen if drugs were not involved, so strong is that maternal protectiveness. It takes something with incredible power to interfere with it.

The problem with this right now is that we just don’t have enough information. But I still maintain that when someone resorts to violently killing their own parents (and siblings) when they don’t have to resort to that there is something seriously out of whack.

Doing it for fame is just not an adequate explanation for that level of heinous.

@Buttonstc Okay, I understand what you are saying. I still think that it’s a blanket statement for children who murder their parents. Some do. Some have ulterior motives.

The case of Sarah Johnson is one. Jasmine Richardson is another.

@Buttonstc & @Pied_Pfeffer and all others, here’s a case where there was never a motive aside from financial gain.

If there was any abuse, the defense would have been all over that, and you know they had to have asked enough times he knew he should invent it.

Don’t miss the final witness testimony:
On Friday, the defense put Shawn Bentler on the stand as its final witness. Speaking softly and showing little emotion, Bentler reminisced about holding each of his sisters at their births and described a bond with his mother that only grew deeper when he became a parent.
“She was happy to be a grandma,” Bentler said.
He also spoke proudly of his father. “First and foremost he was a provider for everybody. He put everybody else’s needs first. No matter what he did, he was the best at it,” Bentler said, adding that his father often gave him money or paid for needed items.