Kim Barraclough
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 28/99) - The recent carnage at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado, has St. Patrick high school students thinking.

Some of the students do not agree with ideas the media has been tossing around lately, as to what influenced Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to shoot up their high school with guns and explosives, killing 12 students, a teacher, and finally, themselves.

Media throughout North America have been suggesting it's the violent types of movies and music that students today are exposed to which may be influencing youth to act violently.

Jordan Murray, a student at St. Pat's, feels movies are not the root of the problem, but that rather "It's the culture that coincides with (the movies and the music). Ultimately, it's your own choice."

Fellow student Malcolm Walsh agrees with Murray.

"It depends what kind of screwed up people you hang around with -- they're the bad influence."

Gerard Landry's Grade 12 English class has mixed opinions on the subject.

"Everybody watches the same stuff -- everyone has negative thoughts," said Janna Pich. Pich thinks that generally people don't follow through on those thoughts except in extreme cases such as the incident in Colorado.

Many of the students seemed to think part of the problem was the upbringing of the students and perhaps also the fact that they were made fun of quite often at school.

Pam Jones thinks the teasing might have helped push the two boys over the edge.

"They put them down so bad," said Jones.

Student Jessica Patterson thinks perhaps school uniforms might cut down on the problems.

Patterson said that if students had to wear uniforms maybe some of the teasing about appearances would be cut down because all the students would look alike.

Overall, most of the students felt it was unlikely something such as the Colorado incident would happen in Yellowknife or furthermore, at St. Pat's.

Patterson said there is a "super-slim chance of it happening here."