RedHanded - Bonus: The Columbine High School Massacre

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Earlier this year we promised that if we won gold in the BPA Listeners' Choice category, we would deliver two bonus episodes chosen by the Spooky Bitches. This is the first of those episodes - The Columbine High School Massacre. The months leading up to the 20th of April 1999 - and the mindsets of both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold - have been very well documented. And yet the story of The Columbine High School Massacre is still full of misreporting, misunderstanding, and miscommunication. In this episode of RedHanded, we aim to dispel some myths and get into the facts behind America's most infamous high-school shooting.  UK TOUR 2021 - new dates added! Get your tickets here: https://linktr.ee/RedHandedthepod MERCH: redhandedshop.com Subscribe to our new YouTube Channel: YouTube - Subscribe Pre-order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Signed copies - US & Canada Pre-order on Wellesley Books Pre-order on Amazon.com Pre-order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Signed copies - UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus Pre-order on Amazon.co.uk Pre-order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Facebook Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to a very special episode of Red Handed. Next week or this week, later this week, we'll return to regular scheduling. But this is a little bonus to say thank you to all of the people who voted for us in the Listener's Choice at the British Podcast Awards 2021. And if you haven't heard, your votes meant we got gold. Gold, the best colour of all. The shiniest colour. Gold. The shiniest colour. Gold.

The shiniest of the colour. And the Listener's Choice, we bang on about it every year. And every year you help us out. This year more than most because we won. And it does mean something. It isn't just sort of like a Mickey Mouse award that doesn't really matter. It does really matter because it means people take it seriously. And this time, it also means that we're going to be on a billboard in Leicester Square for a week.

We just found out. We literally just found out. We just got an email from our agent. Hi, Alex. I feel really bad that I didn't say thank you to Alex in the acceptance speech. And he was there and he sat there all day. I know, but we're just so like, I mean, you were under a lot of pressure. I wasn't there.

You were doing it solo. It was the first time we'd ever fucking won anything. We'll get better. We'll get more expert at doing thank yous. I had a whole speech written on my phone and then as soon as I got up there, it all went out the fucking window and I just talked. You did so well. Do not.

I mean, like, no, you did so well. And we're thanking Alex now. Thank you to Alex and everyone at the WME team who supports us so much. And thank you to you guys again, because if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be getting a billboard in Leicester Square for a week with our faces on it.

So it's up this whole week. If you are in London, go. I know Leicester Square is bad, but just would be just go and take a picture of it. Send it to us on Instagram. Send it to your mum. Send it to my old boss. That would be extremely satisfying for me. Just look at it.

Look at the fruits of your labour, people. It is thanks to you. This is why we bang on about it every year. It really does open doors. There is no other way that they would have given us this billboard. No other way. And I cannot believe it. It's fucking amazing, amazing news.

So thank you so much. And therefore, enjoy even harder this bonus episode that you earned. If you don't know what we're talking about, maybe you're a new listener. Hello. Welcome. Come on in. Maybe you just weren't paying attention to all of the rewards we were banging on about. But we, of course, promised you guys, if we we got gold that you would get two whole bonus episodes of

your choice so if anyone's got any issues with the two that have been chosen i'm sorry you'll have to take it up with each other but also please don't because that creates a very toxic environment that we don't like looking at but you guys voted for this so this month you are going to be getting columbine that is what we're doing that's what what was voted for. It's what you asked for. So on your own heads be it. Exactly. So let's do it. The next bonus episode,

because obviously we promised you two, will be out next month. So stay tuned for that. So Columbine, let's do it. On the morning of the 20th of April, 1999, Columbine High School student Brooks Brown was in class finishing off a test on Chinese philosophy. What high schools teach Chinese philosophy?

Mate, mate, mate, mate. As I was reading through this, I was like, maybe my concept of American high schools is completely wrong because they're doing creative writing and Chinese philosophy. That's nuts. I wasn't allowed to do chemistry. I suppose we are in Colorado. Isn't Colorado quite swinging? Yes, I suppose it's quite affluent, isn't it, possibly?

But yeah, there you go. Brooks Brown was doing a test on Chinese philosophy, as one did apparently in 1999. Is there a national curriculum in America? Or is it state by state? Yes. I would assume there is some sort of national system, but then obviously they have a lot of states' rights there. And I know that they do because

there was this whole recent thing about how certain states that I can't remember, and I don't want to incorrectly name them, but you can probably guess which ones when I tell you what they've stopped teaching, have decided to stop teaching critical race theory. And I was like, okay, that's fine. I won't go on about it here. I'll talk about it on this week's Under the Duvet because I have actually made some notes on it. So I'll save it for them. So while Brooks Brown was doing his test on Chinese philosophy, his friend, Eric Harris, was nowhere to be seen, which surprised Brooks because Eric was a good student. He would never miss an important test or assignment.

So once his class was over, Brooks headed to his creative writing lesson, where he was surprised again to find his other friend, Dylan Klebold, was also absent. It wasn't like them at all to skip classes. And so Brooks got worried that something bad had happened to them. Obviously, this is also, again, please take your minds back to 1999. He doesn't probably have a cell phone. Well, not probably. He definitely doesn't have a cell phone. He could just be like, hey, guys. Hey, buddies. Where are you? Why aren't you in school? He's just like, they're not here. Maybe something terrible has happened. Yeah, 1999. What a time. I think I got a mobile phone secondary school. So what, 2000? I finished in 2009. I can't work it out.

Someone else do the maths for me. No, I don't know. Early 2000s. I think I got my mid-2000s, I think. I don't think I got one till I was 15. But yeah, like, also, I wouldn't have had anyone to text because none of my friends had it. So what difference would it make?

So anyway, he's worried that something terrible has happened to his friends, Eric and Dylan. So when the lunch bell rang, Brooks went out for a smoke break and a wander around campus. He walked through the crowds of students towards the west entrance of the school, pushing his way through large glass doors and into the parking lot. But as he lit his cigarette, Brooks saw Eric pull into a parking space nearby. He asked Eric why he'd missed two lessons, but he got no answer. Instead, Eric just playfully called him names, and the pair exchanged some friendly banter. Brooks joked that Eric looked ridiculous, wearing a long black trench coat in such nice weather. In response, Eric's jovial tone apparently shifted.

Looking Brooks dead in the eye, he said, Brooks, I like you. Now get out of here. Get out of here. I was like, I can't say it like that. Get out of here. Go home. Understandably confused by Eric's strange yet stern order to go home, Brooks didn't think too much of it and he just wandered off campus to finish his smoke. Five minutes later there was a loud bang, shortly followed by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Not only had Brooks narrowly

avoided one of the worst mass shootings in American history, He'd just spoken to one of the gunmen. We all know the story of Columbine, two social outcasts with no friends who were consistently bullied throughout school, who wanted to get their revenge on the jocks that had picked on them. Except that's not actually true. Actually, none of what I just said is true at all. While we were researching this case and putting this script together, we saw just how many myths and misconceptions there are still surrounding the Columbine High School massacre. And in this bonus episode, which is all your fault, we take a deep dive into the second most reported on event of the 90s, surpassed only by the trial of OJ Simpson. That is a good fact. Apparently there's some sort of fact, and I wish I'd looked this up properly,

that like the most pizzas ever were ordered and delivered during the O.J. Simpson chase. Whoa, that is a good fact if that's true. If it's true. Disclaimer. Journalism. So as billboard journalists, let's start at the beginning. Dylan Bennett Klebold was born on September the 11th 1981 so before September the 11th was anything but just a normal day in Lakewood Colorado and he had loving parents Thomas and Sue Klebold

Dylan's mum said that shortly after her son's birth she felt like and this is a quote a shadow had been cast over her warning her that this child would bring her great sorrow. But that uneasy feeling quickly disappeared, and Dylan had a distinctly average start to his life. His family were upper middle class, and Dylan grew up never wanting for anything. According to reports, he was an exceptionally bright kid, and he went on to be well-liked by his peers. He was also a keen sportsman and was involved in baseball, soccer and t-ball teams in his community. What is t-ball? I was gonna say is t-ball like that game we used to play when we were a kid and like there was a little fad for it for a while which was like swing ball where you had a pole in the middle and a ball tied to it? Oh my god it is because I know this because it was

in Recess the cartoon tetherball. That's what I was thinking. Is T-ball, T stand for tether? I think it does. And then you just sort of punch it rather than with the swing ball, with the like very heavy plastic bat that you would inevitably drop on your foot. Got it. I think, I mean, might be wrong. It's happened before. Dylan Klebold, as you can see and hear with your ear holes,

was just your average small town white boy. Eric David Harris, on the other hand, was born on April 9th, 1981, in Wichita, Kansas. His parents were both born and raised in Colorado, very near to Columbine. His mother, Catherine Ann Poole, was a homemaker, which is such a, like, funny word for, like, stay-at-home mum, right? Like, homemaker? I don't know. Do people like being called that? Which is such a like funny word for like stay at home mum, right? Like homemaker. I don't know. Do people like being called that?

I don't know what the politics around what people like to be called in this area is. I think it's the preferred term to housewife. Oh, yes. I hate housewife. I also assume you can be a homemaker without being a mum. So stay at home mum, I guess, doesn't cover everybody who's in that situation. No, I think like, I don't know, for me, it just feels a little bit patronising. But like, if you own it yourself and like being called a homemaker, more power to you. Absolutely. And I assume that Catherine did. So that's what she did. And Eric's father,

Wayne Harris, was a transport pilot in the United States Air Force. This obviously forced the family to move around sporadically across the country. Like most children would, Eric absolutely hated being uprooted so regularly and blamed his father for forcing him to, quote, start out at the bottom of the ladder wherever they went. And I can absolutely sympathise with this. By the time I was 11, I had been to 13 different schools. Doesn't create a totally stable environment, I'll say. It's because she was so terrible, she kept getting kicked out, and she finally found a school that would let her be head girl

and decided that she should stay there. That is, I was going to say blasphemous. That is libelous. That is libelous. I was an outstandingly weird and awkward child. No, my dad moved around a lot and so did I. And so I can empathise to a point with Eric at this moment. Yeah, Eric felt very much that he should be at the top of the ladder because that's why he feels a grief that he isn't at the bottom. I can't empathise with that. I was just like, just somewhere on the ladder

would have been fine, you know, but whatever. But in 1993, the Harris family moved to the Littleton area of Columbine, settling in a house just south of Columbine High School. And it was here that Eric Harris would meet Dylan Klebold. Klebold and Harris met at Ken Carroll Middle School during their seventh grade year. Over time, they became increasingly close, often going bowling, taking road trips, and playing their favourite video game, Doom. By their junior year in Columbine High School, the boys were described as inseparable,

often choosing to sit alone together at lunch and keeping to themselves. That said, Harris and Klebold were by no means loners. They were active in school plays, they operated video productions, they went on dates, they attended school proms, and were considered good students by teachers. So that idea of them being loners, which you will always see reported, and I do understand that by this point a lot of debunking around that fact has been done, but yeah, just to like drive that point home they were not loners they were not outcasts. The pair also held steady jobs at a local pizzeria. Klebold was a cook and Harris was a shift manager and here both had good relationships with their

colleagues but behind the facade of normalcy Harris and Klebold had dark tendencies that would go completely unnoticed for years. How normal is it for a literal child to be managing a restaurant? Like that seems odd to me. I just feel like in America, kids can do a lot more a lot earlier on. Like they're going on road trips. I'm like, what? I think because here the Brits are bigger boozers than the Americans. So I think like any sort of hospitality environment here, there is going to be booze,

which has to be served by someone who's 18 or over. Whereas America has more alcohol-free environments, I think. It's just not something that exists in this country. No, no, not at all. We're not that kind of folk. No, no, we are not. In 1996, 15-year-old Eric Harris created a private website on America Online. It was initially used to host levels for video games. However, in a blog section of the website, Harris would regularly post about his hatred of society. But these angry adolescent blog posts escalated pretty quickly. And by the start of the following

year, the site contained detailed instructions on how to make explosives, specifically pipe bombs. And he would boast of successful trials of these devices carried out by him and Klebold. Making your own website in 1999, I don't think I would have, no, I can't, no, in 96 even. No, I mean, God, the first time we got, so dad was always very techie, so we had a computer like quite early on, thankfully. But like all I would do on it was play this video game called Hocus Pocus. That was it. And Planetary Taxi. Planetary Taxi came a bit later. My first one was Hocus Pocus. That was it. And Planetary Taxi. Planetary Taxi came a bit later. My first one was Hocus Pocus. And if anyone has ever played Hocus Pocus,

post it somewhere because I want to talk to you. It was the funniest game because the graphics were so like, it was just like this blurry, like just such like low quality, low pixel images of like a little wizard man that you were. It was jokes. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't have fucking known how to start my own website. My dad started my dino blog. My dad always worked for like American companies, so had to have the internet. And I remember them coming to dig up the road to put internet in our road so my dad could have it because no one else had it at all. The internet at my mum's house is still fucking shit.

So we did have a computer. I wasn't allowed video games though as a rule, but I was allowed to play hours and hours and hours of Encarta. Oh my God. Encarta. What a time. What a time. For those of you who don't know, I would imagine most people under 30 don't. Encarta was a CD-ROM situation For those of you who don't know, I would imagine most people under 30 don't.

Encarta was a CD-ROM situation that there was like eight discs and it was Wikipedia, but not on the internet. It was Encarta Encyclopedia, volumes one to six. And you would put it in and then you would be like, uh, snakes. And then there'd be like a little section on snakes that you could read about. And you'd be like a little section on snakes that you could read about and you'd be like oh yeah yeah there was also a general knowledge game where you walked around as a person and you could only open doors if you got the answer right yeah and it was like sort of dressed up like you were inside a museum right exactly excellent times anyway before we continue to age ourselves horribly and bore everyone to death let us continue with these two maniacs. Harris's site attracted a few visitors of its own and caused no concern until August 97. No concern seems questionable. I'm sorry to immediately cut us off the story again,

but I'm like, there's a lot of red flags here. Angry men on the internet talking about explosives. No concern? I mean, I guess maybe no one could find it. Well, this is it. I'm like, I barely knew what Google was in 97. Was there even a Google? Who knows? I definitely would have been able to find, like, a blog spot. Wasn't everyone just asking Jeeves back then?

Like, I don't know, like... This is true. I don't know. Some concern did peek over the wall when Harris ended a blog post detailing murderous fantasies with this quote. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people like Brooks Brown. Brooks Brown, of course, this classmate that we met at the top of the show.

It appears that at this particular time, 1997, Brooks and Harris had fallen out after Harris had accidentally smashed the windscreen of Brown's car with a block of ice. I would also fall out with you. Even if it was an accident, I probably would be a bit off with you for a while. When another student tipped off Brooks about the disturbing blog, he told his parents, and his parents contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. When investigator Michael Guerrera accessed the website, he discovered numerous violent threats directed against tens of students and teachers at Columbine High School.

Guerrera wrote a draft affidavit requesting a search warrant of the Harris household. The affidavit also mentioned the discovery of an exploded pipe bomb in the woods near the school and suspicion of Harris being involved in the unsolved case. But for some reason, the affidavit was never submitted to a judge and therefore it went ignored, nothing happened. And things would only escalate from here. And on January the 30th, 1998, Harris and Klebold were both arrested for breaking into a van parked near Lyttelton. And what were they doing breaking into this van? Well, they were stealing tools and computer equipment. I'm guessing their desires for better tech wasn't covered by their jobs at the pizzeria. So they're just like, we'll just go steal it. And again, this kind of starts

to hint at their level of entitlement over things. Like, we'll just go take it. I don't care. And the owner of the van caught them in the act and called the police. So they were taken to court and they both pleaded guilty to felony theft. The judge sentenced them to a juvenile diversion program where they had to take mandatory classes in anger management. Oh, the perks of being a middle class white boy. Yeah. Are you fucking serious? I'm not like, throw them in jail and let them become hardened criminals. I'm like, how about we don't do that to other prisoners or other kids that have been accused of this? Jesus Christ, they were just sent to a juvenile diversion program and anger management classes. This is unbelievable. Both were eventually released from this diversion Class or whatever it is

Several weeks early because of good behaviour And they were put on probation But of course the good behaviour was all just an act Harris hadn't changed at all And now, if anything, he was angrier than ever He believed that the punishment was completely undeserved Which again shows you the level of like disconnect that he has from reality he feels like he's been wronged because he was sent to a

juvenile diversion program for breaking into a van and stealing computers and he wrote in one journal entry the following why the fuck should i be punished for being a shithead if you'd have locked your fucking van you wouldn't have been robbed that's natural fucking selection arsehole oh he's so horrible isn't he he's horrible and just all of that language in there just the hatred they're like bile that you can see pouring out of someone so young obviously this isn't the case that we can even do spoilers on because you all know what's going to happen, but just take it in. Also, what's interesting is pay attention to the that's natural fucking selection bit, because we'll go on to see just

how important the idea of natural selection was to Harris. Harris wasn't the only one who wrote about this because Klebold also wrote a journal entry about the van. And I think that their journal entries really reflect the spectrum on which both of them sit and how they kind of sit at opposite ends of it. Because Klebold wrote about this incident and said it was the most traumatic thing that had ever happened to him. So again, a very different reaction to the same situation. Shortly after the court hearing for the van break-in, Harris reverted his website back to purely hosting online video game levels. Inspired by Klebold, he instead began to write his thoughts down in a journal. The contents of these troubling journals were made public in 2006

and shine a light on the warped and terrifying psychology of the two teens. Harris opened his private journal with the sentence, I fucking hate the world. And when the media studied Harris, they focused on his hatred. Hatred that supposedly led him to revenge. It's very easy to get lost in all of the hatred. There's literally hundreds of entries like, you know what I hate? Country music. I mean, you're not on your own.

I don't know many people who've been incited to terrorism by country music. No, but it's just like, it's very indicative of like all of the things you're about to list as well. Just like how he is so, like how he just looks down at everybody and everything. He's so spiteful, so like just belligerent and belittling of every single thing that anyone could possibly like. He's such a hate-filled person, that's true, but it's also interesting because he's just writing this in a private journal. He's not like tweeting this for people to be like, yeah, me too, or like, you know, get pissed off with him for what he's saying. He's just writing it down in his own journal. Why? I don't know.

But anyway, please continue with the long list of things he hated. And yeah, for our audio medium, the you know what I hate bits are all capital letters, and then they're followed by a selection of exclamation marks and question marks, in whatever order you want. So you know what I hate? People who say that wrestling is real. How does that hurt you? Neither is Star Wars. Star Wars isn't real either, kid. Also, like, we covered this in the Chris Benoit episode. Wrestling is real. It's fucking hard. They're doing shit. Fuck off, you piece of shit.

Anyway, I hate him. I fucking hate this kid. Well, he hates other things as well. People who use the same word over and over again, unless that word is hate, apparently. And then, you know what I hate? Stupid people. Why must so many people be so stupid? I do have to admit that one of my most used GIFs is Scar from The Lion King going, I'm surrounded by idiots. I do use that quite often. I understand the sentiment, although I'm not quite that angry on the inside,

I don't think. Harris rages on for page after page after page about his hatred for the world, around him, the people in it, and everything else. But there's a far more revealing emotion bursting through, both fuelling and overshadowing his hate. Because what Harris is really expressing isn't hate at all, it's contempt. He was disgusted by the quote-unquote morons around him. And these entries are not really the rantings of a sad, angry young man picked on by jocks until he couldn't take it anymore.

They're actually the rantings of someone with a messianic-grade superiority complex out to punish the entire human race for its inferiority. It might look like hate, but it's a lot more about demeaning other people. And a lot of the time, actually, no, all of the time, people who demean other people, it's because they hate themselves. Of course, absolutely. That's a fundamental core of, like, all of the time, people who demean other people, it's because they hate themselves. Of course, absolutely. That's a fundamental core of like the whole thing.

And I think that's exactly it, is that it's contempt rather than hate. Because I feel like he looks at all of these other people and he sees everyone as beneath him. And I'm like, I don't know if this is just like, you know, a quirk of something that can't really be right or wrong. But like, can you really hate somebody that you think is not equal to you or do you just have contempt for them oh good question because that was something I was thinking about during the research for this episode which is like okay say you're a racist or say you're a misogynist do you really hate women or hate people of color or do you have contempt for them because can you only hate people from a position do you have contempt for them? Because can you only hate people from a position of you being inferior to them, if you see what I mean, or you feeling at

least like they're equal to you, that they're worthy of your hate? Whereas I feel like he just has utter contempt for people. But I don't know if that's just like an arbitrary thing and it doesn't really make a difference here or there, but it was just something I thought about. That's an interesting point. I will have to sit on that like a word egg and I'll get back to you. So if you'll join us in turning your mind back to earlier on this episode you'll remember Harris's resentment towards his father for moving the family around the country because he had to start at the bottom of the ladder wherever he went and Harris by his own reckoning didn't belong at the bottom of the ladder. He was far better than everyone else at the bottom of the ladder

and he deserved to be right at the very top and he felt like he should be recognised as a top of the ladderer. Throughout his life, Harris exhibited a pretty distinct pattern of grandiosity, contempt and a lack of empathy and remorse, all traits of psychopaths which Harris managed to conceal through deception. I also think for children who display psychopathic traits, obviously in this country, you will not get diagnosed as a psychopath kind of ever. But if you do, it's not until you're 18. No one wants their kid to be one of those. Like no one's going to explore that path unless they

absolutely have to. So I'm not surprised he managed to keep it a secret, especially in the 90s. Oh, absolutely. So what we kind of hinted at before about Harris and Klebold being at opposite ends of the spectrum, I think this is again sort of reflected in Klebold's journal, because it is so different. It is the opposite of Harris's. Because Klebold's writing was almost entirely fuelled by self-loathing and suicidal thoughts. Page after page were covered in hearts as he was secretly in love with another Columbine student. And Klebold would regularly write about how, quote, she will never notice me. Despite the fact that he had never even said hello to this girl.

Again, ding, ding, ding in cell bells, obviously. We've seen this before, them feeling like, I'm being rejected despite trying, but they never really try because they don't want to deal with the social anxiety that they have that stops them being able to form connections with other people. And instead, they externalize that rage. So in addition to this, Klebold also wrote that life was, quote, no fun without a little death. I don't know if he's referencing something. Possibly. I don't know. Or if it's just a weird sentence.

I was never in that scene enough to get it. No, I mean, literally the only thing I can ever think of is Peter Pan being like, to die would be an awfully big adventure. He doesn't strike me as a Peter Pan fan type. No. Unlike me. Can't get enough. Anything Peter Pan related, I will watch it. There you go. You heard it here first, guys. Klebold would also often talk about how much he wanted to kill himself to leave the world that he hated and go to a better place.

According to an FBI psychologist, Klebold displayed the signs of schizotypal personality disorder. We've talked about schizotypal personality disorder before on our episode on Gary Heidnik. So if you do want a full-on rundown into that, head on over and listen to slash re-listen to that case. But schizotypal, basically, it can create a scenario where people are more withdrawn. They struggle to make sort of emotional connections with other people. But the interesting thing with schizotypal personality disorder is the person doesn't really mind too much. They're not really interested in creating that connection. So I don't know if I totally believe that he had schizotypal because he was quite upset that that other girl wasn't responding to him positively. But if he did have this, then it would explain why he struck so many people as having a very shy nature and

also having seemingly random outbursts of violence resulting from his hot-headedness. Obviously personality disorders are never clear-cut. They can have comorbidity with other ones and we're not psychiatrists. We're just pointing out the symptoms that he clearly had. Klebold also appeared to have been delusional and similarly to Harris, viewed himself as godlike, writing that he was, quote, made a human without the possibility of being human. For God's sake. That would have been better if he'd written

made a human being without the possibility of being human. Come on, come on now. Ah, she strikes again. But again, it's what Hannah was saying, that this hatred, this contempt that they have for other people, we can see clearly with Klebold that that hatred of others began with hating himself. I think that Harris displays more narcissistic personality,

so I don't think he would have necessarily maybe seen himself as being inferior, even on a deep-seated level. I don't know. I also know before people say, narcissism can swing back and forth between grandiose and vulnerable, which can lead to people having different opinions of themselves. It's complicated, but I think what we're safe to say is there's hatred, there's contempt, but it starts from a level of self-hate at some extent,

especially for Klebold. So despite Klebold sometimes feeling like he was godlike, he also became convinced that other people hated him and he felt like he was being conspired against. These guys have just got the full bingo of all psychiatric possible, like, absolutely undesirable traits, if I can say that, like paranoia, a feeling of hatred, hating yourself, hating everyone else. Like it's a full fucking bingo, a smorgasbord. I can't separate it and make sense of what's going on. It's just all there. And this feeling of others hating him was despite the fact that Klebold was well loved by family and friends. Again, this would have been irrelevant. I think Klebold had, we'll talk about this later, but massive depression. I just don't think he would have seen it for what it was. He was convinced that everyone hated him. And again,

apparently, all of these are the classic traits associated with schizotypal personality disorder. What we can gather from these journals is that Harris and Klebold were two completely different personality types. Harris was a nihilist with clear psychopathic tendencies and he held a deep contempt for the world around him and everyone inside it. In his mind, those around him weren't even worthy of his hate. Klebold, on the other hand, was a schizotypal depressive. He felt unworthy of and lesser than those around him,

leading to feelings of intense hatred for both himself and others. On the face of it, the two teens' personality types could not have been further apart. But as we know, Harris and Klebold were described as inseparable, and this was not in spite of their differences. Most likely it was because of them. Of course, Harris and Klebold were not your stereotypical couple, but the dynamics between two people that kill, platonic or otherwise, is consistent. Team killers are rare, we know this. Rare as they are, there generally will be one dominant and driven personality type. In this case, Harris, contrasted with the submissive and compliant personality, which it looks like is probably Klebold in this situation. The dominant person will be the one making the plans and calling the shots, while the submissive partner will look to please the dominant person,

complying with their wishes. In many ways, this type of partnership is codependent with a common goal, or modus operandi. And I don't need to tell you guys because you've all seen CSI. That's what people mean when they say MO. And in most cases, at least one partner may have the potential to kill or commit the crimes alone, regardless of meeting a willing accomplice. Harris was that partner.

In 1998, soon after beginning their journals, we see the first mention of a mass murder plot. An entire year before the events of Columbine were to unfold. Harris wrote a detailed plan to quote get revenge on society for quote having the audacity to punish him and Klebold for breaking into the van. So as you can see when he does talk about revenge which became like a core theme that the media went on about as to the motivation behind this killing, he's talking about one very specific incident. He's not talking about years of bullying in school. He's talking about one specific incident in which they were punished for a crime that they committed.

And he doesn't feel that that's OK or justifiable because he's so godlike. So the plan involved attacking Columbine High School and the use of bombs for, and this is a quote, the maximum number of fatalities and to cause the most deaths in US history. It also contained the possibility of hijacking an aircraft at Denver International Airport and crashing it into New York City. And as Hannah said before, this was way, way, way before 9-11. Isn't Denver International Airport the one with all the conspiracy theories that it's satanic? Yes. Yes, it is. It is that one. We should definitely do some sort of episode or some sort of mention of that on Under the Duvet or something, because I think it's quite interesting.

Yes, I'll look at it for Under the Duvet. Excellent. There you go. Covered. So Klebold wrote in his journal, Killing enemies, blowing up stuff, killing cops. My wrath for January's incident will be godlike. Not to mention our revenge in the commons. Commons was a slang term for the Columbine School Cafeteria. And he also added how he would like to spend the last moments of his life in nerve-wracking

twists of murder and bloodshed. So yes, although submissive, as you can see, Klebold is not unwilling. He's very much a part of the plan. And so, given all the planning, the pair were set about obtaining guns and bomb-making supplies to execute their plan of indiscriminate mass murder. Harris's original plans indicated the pair would place a diversion bomb on the edge of Lyttelton to draw police and first responders away from the school. And then they would plant two further bombs in the school cafeteria set to explode during the busiest period of lunch break in order to cause the maximum number of deaths. And this is the thing we all really have to pay attention to. This is how well planned they were. This is how much they had thought it through.

They were going to have a diversion bomb to draw law enforcement away from the school so that they could hit their real target. This is some fucking like terrorist cell level thinking. And this is before they would have had the level of stuff that we have on the internet. This wasn't on Encarta encyclopedia, how to be a terrorist. Like this is the deviance of their mind, the dark, like, I don't want to say genius, like it's a good term, but their dark genius in how they were able to think this plan through. It's terrifying. Then the plan after the bombs went off was that Harris and Klebold

would camp out by their cars to shoot, stab and throw pipe bombs at survivors of the initial explosion as they ran out of the school. Then this would be followed by the explosion of huge petrol bombs set up in the pair's cars intended to kill first responders and other personnel. Again, a secondary explosive unit to take out first responders coming to the scene of the main crime straight out of the fucking terrorist handbook. You might have already spotted a flaw in their plan. Due to their age, Harris and Klebold were unable to legally purchase firearms, but they weren't going to let that stop them. They enlisted the help of two older co-workers from the pizzeria they worked at, telling them that they wanted to

go hunting. Fine. For God's sake. And these two adult men happily went out and bought the boys savage fucking hell. Okay, these guns are called Savage 311-D 12-gauge double barrel shotgun and a Savage Springfield 12-gauge pump shotgun and a TCDC-9 semi-automatic handgun. Why would you need a semi-automatic weapon to hunt something? I mean, fuck the fuck off. What the fuck is happening? This is unbelievable. It's not like they're like, can you go in and buy us a six pack of Heineken? They're like, can you go in and buy us three

fucking war weapons? This is madness. Absolute madness. I mean, okay, I only actually discovered that this was even a thing until this year. But did you know that Joe Biden has just made something called ghost guns illegal? I was like, what the fuck is a ghost gun? Apparently it's a gun that is just like sold in pieces. So it's just like a chop shop gun. So there's serial numbers have been scratched off. There's random parts from different guns. People can just buy the parts and then assemble their own fucking DIY gun. Untraceable DIY gun. Untraceable DIY gun.

Now that is illegal. Up until now, not illegal. Jesus Christ. Like, I just think it's such a... If you set the destruction guns cause aside for one moment, I think it is just culturally quite difficult for us to grasp, because we're not surrounded by guns. No.

I mean, even our police officers don't by guns. No, I mean, even our police officers don't carry guns, like normal beat cops don't carry guns. No, if you see, like the only time you'll see someone with an assault weapon is if there's some sort of terrorism threat and they'll be in stations and stuff. And that makes me feel very nervous and taken aback. Like that is an unusual thing to see in this country. I mean, it's not like other countries don't have guns. You know, obviously, I think Canada has more guns than it has people. Like, so there's more than one gun per person in Canada. But we don't hear about the same level of like gun violence happening there. So I do think there is something uniquely American about the culture of gun violence that comes out of America.

And this is me saying this knowing full well that all of the polls on gun say that the majority of Americans want more gun control. This is down to lobbying. This is down to the NRA. I know some people have had issues with that when I've said it before, but I'm sorry, facts is facts, people. And that's what's going on. So the majority of Americans are not pro no gun control. It's the NRA funds all the politicians and then the politicians are like, well, I can can't really do anything I've taken quite a lot of money from the NRA so I guess it's fine but yeah. Facts is facts and guns is bad I'm afraid and that's the end of that. Did you know 2021 so far is already the bloodiest year on record in terms of gun violence in the US? Well isn't that super? Yes it is

excellent and it's so interesting because we once once did an interview years and years ago now with an American podcast. And he was like, oh, I won't ask you about guns if you would feel uncomfortable. And we're like, no, it's fine. We said it. And then afterwards, if you want any of that gun stuff taken out that you said, please just let me know. And we're like, no, it's fine. And it's because we were like, we don't like guns. And we're like, we don't think people should have guns.

So I just understand it's a very culturally different thing. I'm never going to not I'm never going to stop being shocked by it basically no and I also have a really hard time with the argument that freely available guns don't lead to school shootings because they just do I mean yeah if we were to run a little experiment where every other country doesn't have freely available guns and a culture of gun glamorization and don't have school shootings, but the one country that does has a lot of school shootings. I feel like that's probably it. And by experiment, do you mean the world we currently live in? Yes, I do.

Okay, good. Just checking. These two children had no problem at all getting absolutely very aggressive guns. So they got these guns and they practiced their shooting as often as they could in a makeshift firing range in the mountains, Colorado obviously very outdoorsy. They also spent the next 12 months obtaining the components needed for homemade bombs, including carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipe, metal propane bottles and nails, all of which were purchased by the miners completely legally in the state of Colorado. And over the course of the year, several residents in the area reported

sounds of breaking glass and loud buzzing coming from the Harris's family garage. Of course, now it's clear why. The boys managed to make 23 bombs in the month of October alone. In the weeks leading up to the attack, Harris and Klebold continued to attend school and social events as normal, so as not to raise suspicions. But they couldn't help themselves, and their twisted minds spilled out into their schoolwork. In December 1997, Harris wrote a paper on school shootings

titled Guns in School, and a poem from the perspective of a bullet, which is interesting. On top of this, in a psychology class, he wrote about how he dreamed of going on a shooting spree with Klebold. Okay. I mean, the thing is that we have to say is that now I would hope to think that if somebody was doing these things in school, that that would be like major red flag. Because as is my understanding, is that kids in America, like we have fire drills, have school shooter drills, which is nightmarish. The idea that children should be inflicted with that level of fear that they have to do school shooter drills. And again, this isn't me shitting on American people, because like I said, most Americans don't believe in having no background

checks and not having any level of gun reform. It's the politicians. They're the problem. That is horrifying. But the problem with this at this point is that there hadn't really been a school shooting prior to Columbine. This was the watershed moment. This was the turning point for a lot of people in American history. This was the watershed moment. This was the turning point for a lot of people in American history. This was the OG school shooting. So Klebold also wrote a short story about a man killing students. And this did worry his teacher, so much so that she actually alerted his parents. But Klebold just brushed it off, telling them it was just a story.

Again, all the signs were there, but nothing would come of it. So the plans continued, and the teens decided that the 19th of April 1999 would be the date that they would execute their plan. And it is speculated that they chose this date due to it being the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, which was of course carried out by Timothy McVeigh, which had a death toll of 168 people. And apparently, Eric Harris saw himself somewhat in competition with Timothy McVeigh because he said he wanted to beat this number.

But the day before they were meant to go on their murder spree, Harris began to worry that they didn't have enough ammunition. So he got some more and waited one more day. And so that brings us to the 20th of April, 1999. Klebold and Harris skipped their morning classes, and instead, Harris went out to a field about three miles south of the high school and planted two backpacks filled with pipe bombs, aerosol canisters, and small propane bombs. These were all set to detonate at 11.14am and were intended as a diversion to draw firefighters and emergency personnel away from the school.

Harris and Klebold arrived at Columbine High School at around 11.10am. They entered the school and headed for the cafeteria, where they left two gym bags, each containing a 20-pound propane bomb. If detonated, these bombs could have destroyed the entire cafeteria, not only killing everyone inside, but also causing its roof to collapse, meaning the upstairs library and those inside would most likely be killed. Leaving the cafeteria, the pair headed back towards their cars to perform their final checks on the car bombs inside. Then they headed to the top of the western stairway,

giving them the advantage point they wanted to, quote, pick off the survivors. At around 11.18, Jefferson County Dispatch Center received the first 911 call from a citizen reporting an explosion in a field on the east side of Wadsworth Boulevard. Thankfully, only one of the improvised bombs planted by Harris earlier that day had detonated, and nobody had been caught in the blast.

Isn't that remarkable, though, that these two just built some bombs in their garage and one of them detonated? Even one of them worked. But then, at 11.19am, all hell broke loose. As witnesses heard, Harris shout, Go! Go! Klebold and Harris pulled shotguns from their bags and withdrew 9mm semi-automatic handguns from under their trench coats.

From their position at the top of the steps, they began shooting at students in the area. Columbine High School students Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo had been sitting on the grass eating their lunch outside the school's west upper entrance. The first gunshots fired towards them, killing Rachel instantly and paralyzing Richard from the waist down. Realizing that the bombs in the cafeteria had not detonated, Klebold ran down the stairs to an area outside the cafeteria to see what happened to them. On his way, he shot special needs student Daniel Rawbrough

at close range, killing him, before peering into the cafeteria. Harris went to join Klebold, shooting his automatic weapon into the largest crowds possible before shouting, this is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome. Columbine High School art teacher Patti Nielsen was patrolling the corridors on hall monitor duty when she heard a commotion

coming from the west entrance. Assuming students were pulling a prank, she went to investigate. As she walked past a large glass door, Klebold and Harris fired towards her, shattering the glass and causing fragments to become lodged in P Patty's shoulder, knee and forearm. Despite her injuries, Patty ran from the scene into the school library where she alerted students to get under the tables before making a call to 911. All available Jefferson County police units were alerted and dispatched to the high school. It was at this time that students in the west wing of the school and the cafeteria realised what was going on was far more serious than some sort of prank so mass panic ensued

The fire alarm was hit and students scrambled for any available exit A teacher at the school, Dave Sanders directed students away from the gunmen towards safety While running back into the school to alert more students to the danger Harris and Klebold opened fire causing him to fall to the floor. He too would later die from his injuries. Frustrated that still none of their bombs had detonated,

Harris and Klebold went to check on the gym bags they'd left in the cafeteria. Walking through the corridors, the pair would pause only to shoot into random classrooms, most of which were now empty, with many students either trapped on the upper level of the school or taking refuge in the library. When they reached the cafeteria, the shooters wandered aimlessly. Klebold even took a sip of a drink that had been left behind on an abandoned table before going over to inspect the bombs.

Just as they thought, neither had exploded. Harris shot at the bags in an attempt to set them off, but still nothing happened, which meant the bombing side of their plan had exploded. Harris shot at the bags in an attempt to set them off, but still nothing happened, which meant the bombing side of their plan had failed. So the pair continued to snake their way around the school, eventually making their way into the library, where several students and members of staff were hidden under tables. It was here that Harris and Klebold shot and killed eight more people.

They briefly shot out the library windows and towards the police and first responders that had gathered outside. Police fired back towards the windows and fortunately no one was hurt in the exchange. After completing a final lap of the library, Harris and Klebold sat together by a stack of books and spoke briefly about what they had done before eventually turning their guns on themselves. SWAT teams secured the area and counted the dead. 12 students and one teacher had been killed. America went into a state of national mourning following the shootings.

Every day for the next two weeks, the front page of the New York Times featured a new headline about the massacre. And this grief, I guess, like we said, it kind of was because America was taken so much by shock. Now, things are maybe different. And you know, even after the Sandy Hook shootings, you had people saying that that was a false flag operation, which is like, somebody literally went into a, what, like a playgroup, age group school school and shot a bunch of three and four year olds and people were still like nah that's not real that's not real like it's unbelievable but at this point America and the people were not used to this kind of thing and they wanted answers

how could children shoot other innocent children what caused such an awful school shooting to happen and also I think we can't ignore the fact that some of the shock came from the fact that the perpetrators were two upper middle class white boys. I think in the minds of many Americans, especially at the time, this wasn't the type of person to commit this kind of crime. Theories swirled around in the collective American conscience. It must have been bullying or violent video games or shock rock music. Surely there must have been a reason why. And I think even this idea for them to look at reasons is quite interesting, which we'll come on to discuss in a moment.

But what didn't help matters was that almost immediately after the shootings, a media circle formed directly outside the high school and traumatised students had microphones thrust in their faces by national news outlets. One student said that they thought it was gang-related, another said that Harris and Klebold were Nazis and someone else said they were bullied and wanted revenge. The media ran with all of these headlines at various points,

eventually settling on the bullying narrative. And this felt strange to us. It almost felt like the media were giving the killers an out for the horrific crime that they had committed. Because I do find it fascinating why, when these two boys have just committed this crime, why were the media so quick to decide that the angle and the hook they were going to take was to talk about

how they were the victims, how they had been bullied and that's why they were doing it? Why was that the story is something that I find quite interesting. And the idea that Harris and Klebold were bullied so badly for so many years that they just couldn't take it anymore is a very sympathetic narrative to the killers. And you have to wonder, if the killers hadn't been white, would the media have offered so many excuses? I think as white and also upper middle class, would they have offered so

many excuses? I think that we can say no, I don't think there would have been so many reasons for why they did what they did. No, and I think they would have been described as men. Oh for sure. If they weren't white. If there is I mean obviously there's a reason for everything so that in itself is a weird thing to be looking for but if there is a reason like you're bullying or like blah blah blah blah then it means you don't have to confront the fact that white men do things wrong too. Oh, absolutely. And I think, you know, it's no stretch to say that if Harris and Klebold had been black, for example, they would have immediately been written off as thugs. The incident would have been written off as like some gang initiation or something like that.

No one would have been wondering, had they been bullied? Was there maybe some mental health problems at play? Obviously, all of those things can be reasons, but they wouldn't have been the headline news, as was the case with the Columbine shootings. And I know this was before 9-11, but I think we can also very easily say that if this happened now and the two men slash boys who did it were Asian,

they'd be terrorists. And, of course, this idea of why the media went with this narrative to kind of give the killers an out to some extent could have something to do with our affinity bias, which is the tendency to evaluate people that remind us of ourselves in looks or otherwise more positively than those who are different from ourselves. I think that there is very clear to say there is a lot of research into this, that we naturally have more empathy towards people who look like us. I guess because it's a reflection of like, that could be me, that could happen to me. And that's why I feel scared and I feel more empathetic towards that person. And so you do

have to wonder that maybe the media gave so many outs for the Columbine shooters and created so many of the myths that swirled around them for years, possibly because did they see their own children in them? Did they see that it could have been their own kids that had done something like this? I don't know, but it's a thought. And Columbine wasn't just a school shooting. Columbine was a failed mass bombing. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not social outcasts,

out for revenge against the bullies that tormented them, nor were they a product of violent video games, films or even shock-robbed music. They weren't political terrorists, despite the fact the shootings happened to occur on Hitler's birthday. They weren't Nazis. Harris and Klebold simply wanted to harm as many people as they could. Everyone and anyone was a target of the killings. It's difficult to this day to know for sure exactly why they wanted to do this. Both wrote far more about how to carry out the killings than the reason behind them. Maybe they felt hard done by for their punishments in the robbery of an open van. Maybe it was their overwhelming feelings of superiority over others.

Maybe they wanted to be immortalised for their crimes. But perhaps the homemade t-shirts they wore beneath their trench coats on April 20th, 1999, can give us a bit more of an insight than anything else. Klebold's black t-shirt with the word wrath scrawled across it in white, and Harris wore a white t-shirt that said natural selection in red. It's almost like too perfect their t-shirts because they are, Klebold and Harris, they have very different psychological conditions as we saw. It's very much opposites on the spectrum and I think that Klebold wearing a t-shirt that said wrath and Harris wearing one that said natural selection really does sum it up. I feel like Klebold was very much that said wrath and Harris wearing one that said natural selection really does sum it up. I feel like Klebold was very much motivated by hate

and Harris was motivated by contempt for people he saw inferior to him. The real truth is that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were definitely terrorists. But unlike most terrorists, they weren't killing for a cause or an ideology that they deemed to be bigger than themselves. Their only goal was to inflict devastation on as wide a scale as humanly possible. They saw Columbine High School as the

heart of their community. By attacking the school, they would directly affect the whole of Columbine. It was never about the students inside the school. To Harris and Klebold, the school was just a symbol of the institution they wanted to attack. To them, the students were nothing more than collateral. And I think that's the thing. Maybe some people will be like, well, that's not the definition of terrorism. Terrorism, you have a cause, you're trying to scare people. But that's exactly what they were doing.

They didn't have a specific ideology that they wanted to instill on people, but they were trying to cause as much terror and as much devastation as they possibly could. The terror was the goal. So I think it's safe to say that Harris was a nihilist motivated entirely by contempt for the world around him. In his mind like we said he was better than everyone else. The kids at Columbine weren't even worth his hate. Klebold due to his depressive nature felt lesser, unworthy of the society in which he lived. This feeling of lacking power led him to both hate himself and those around him. And the mentality of mass killers is, understandably, extremely complex. After years of investigation, the FBI concluded that the killers suffered from severe mental illnesses,

saying that Harris was a clinical psychopath and that Klebold was severely depressed. The supervisor in charge of the Columbine investigation would later go on to say, quote, I believe Eric wanted to kill and didn't care if he died, while Dylan wanted to die and didn't care if others died as well. Columbine, like we said, was a watershed moment for America, not only in terms of school shootings, but also for gun culture and gun violence in general. Following the Columbine shooting, schools around the United States instituted new security measures, such as

see-through backpacks, metal detectors, school uniforms and security guards. I mean, it really does just feel like putting a big old fucking plaster on a gaping wound. Schools also adopted a zero-tolerance approach to the possession of weapons and threatening behaviour by students. What was the policy before? I don't know. Some tolerance? Handguns okay? No grenades? Like, what was the policy before? I'm genuinely interested to know.

Maybe they didn't have a gun policy, and now they're like, okay, now we need a gun policy. But if they do have this gun policy policy it doesn't really seem like it works because several social science experts feel that the zero tolerance approach adopted in schools has been implemented too harshly and often disproportionately affects black and minority ethnic communities I guess maybe they mean in terms of stop and search rather than black and ethnic minority kids not being allowed to bring guns into school. The white kids can have as many as they want. But you? No guns for you? Fucking hell, what is happening? And obviously it also hasn't fucking worked because despite all of these new policies and safety measures, in the wake of

the tragedy at Columbine, school shootings have continued to take place at a fucking regular pace in the United States, including, of course, some of the most notorious being Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and of course, more recently, the Stoneman Douglas High School. And in 2021, as I already alluded to, it is America's deadliest year of gun violence in the last two decades. And according to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 296 mass shootings in this year alone. There has not even been 296 days in this year yet. So let that sink in. The reason gun violence is so prevalent in the US when compared to other

countries with similar gun laws is tough to fully break down. In Michael Moore's documentary, which you will have heard of if you haven't seen Bowling for Columbine, I think it's probably his most famous one, Michael Moore states that the climate of fear and paranoia in the US is most likely the biggest contributing factor. And while we didn't love everything about the documentary, we do think that is a good point. Trust in the federal government in the US sits around 20% and has been on a steady decline since 1964. And a distrust in the government and authority often leads to civil unrest

and much higher crime rates, which in turn breeds a culture of fear, meaning that people feel the need to arm themselves for protection. Another factor involved in gun violence is the hyper-sexualisation of guns. Yeah, it's that like macho culture of guns and jugs and this kind of thing. And it's just like, you know, when we look at normal serial killers and we're like, when that violence and sexuality becomes a mesh, that's when you have real problems. That's almost like what's happened on a societal or cultural level. So it seems like the gun has gone from being a tool used for hunting to a symbol of sex and power.

And this blurred combination of sex and violence has proven to be a very dangerous one indeed. We don't have any answers when it comes to addressing mass shootings in the USA, but a national system of licensing and registration, along with comprehensive background checks, is probably a reasonable place to start. You'd think so. I can't believe, like, I know we're going to get kicked back from that.

And I just, it is bizarre to me that saying something as reasonable as that is offensive to some people. I mean, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm not going to say anything other than that because I can't think anything other than that. And it is remarkable because actually when a Democrat gets voted in, apparently gun sales go through the roof because people get so scared that the Democrats are going to take their guns away, that gun sales go fucking through the roof then. So there you go. No one's going to take guns away

in America. They're just never going to be able to. No politician will ever be able to do that. You just hope for sensible gun reform. That's the best you can hope for. And like we said, most people agree with that in America. So coming back to the Columbine massacre, Frank DeAngelis, the principal of Columbine High School, waited until 2014 to retire, saying he felt a

moral obligation to stay until those who were in elementary school at the time of the shooting had graduated. He said he often thinks about the students who were killed, about what kind of grown-ups they would have been. And he says they'd be young adults now, 38 and 39, and their lives were taken far too quickly. And Frank has found his own way to honour them and comfort himself. He said the following, Every morning I wake up, I recite the names of the 13 because they'll always have a special place in my heart.

I will keep their names alive as long as I can. And the names of those who were killed at Columbine High School are Rachel Scott, age 17, Daniel Rorbra, age 15, William David Sanders, age 47, who was of course a teacher, Kyle Velasquez, age 16, Stephen Curnow, age 14, Cassie Bernal, aged 17. Isaiah Scholes, aged 18. Matthew Ketcher, aged 16. Lauren Townsend, aged 18. John Tomlin, aged 16.

Kelly Fleming, aged 16. Daniel Mouser, aged 15. And Corey DePuta, aged 17. You really have to wonder like politicians who can still refuse to do anything about common sense gun reform that would stop this kind of thing happening or at least reduce the likelihood of it happening. How can they look themselves in the mirror? It's just despicable. It really is. But yeah, there you go, guys. You asked for it. That is the case of Columbine.

If you're sad now, it's your own fault. Real, really, really tough case to get through. But I suppose we've done it now. We don't have to do it again. Exactly. So there you go. We hope you found that at least insightful. Now we'll leave it at that.

So thank you again for voting for us in the Listener's Choice at the Bridge Podcast Awards. We fucking love you all. Go check out the billboard on Leicester Square. It's up for a week starting on the 8th of August, which is the day after this comes out. Or the day before this comes out, even. And yeah, send us your pictures if you are in the area, because that would be cool to see. And we'll see you guys later this week. and we'll all go on a big school trip exactly we'll do a holding hand crocodile absolutely when you're in primary school

we'll see you there bye So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you a profile. Her first act as leader asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah.

Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you.

A message from the Ontario PC Party. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes.

And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.