Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

An expelled student dressed in black went on a shooting rampage at a school in eastern Germany on Friday, roaming the hallways with a pistol and a shotgun. Eighteen people died in the terrifying assault, including the attacker — a 19-year-old who killed himself as commandos closed in.

Witnesses said 13 teachers, two girls, a school secretary and a policeman died in the shooting spree, which lasted perhaps 10 minutes. Four people were injured, including three who suffered from shock.

"We cannot find words for what we feel in Germany right now," President Johannes Rau said. "Germany is in mourning in the face of these incomprehensible events."

During the standoff, about 180 students were trapped inside the school and a handwritten sign pasted to one window read "HILFE" — Help. Outside, groups of dazed and shocked students huddled in the street, hugging and crying. The school has about 700 students in grades five through 12.

"I heard shooting and thought it was a joke," said Melanie Steinbrueck, 13, choking back tears. "But then I saw a teacher dead in the hallway in front of Room 209 and a gunman in black carrying a weapon."

The death toll in the eastern city of Erfurt matched that of the 1996 shootings at an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, where 16 children, a teacher and the gunman died. Fifteen people, including the two teen-age attackers, died a 1999 shooting spree Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

"There were dead bodies lying everywhere in the corridors," said Thomas Rethfeldt, 18, whose teacher was shot in the head as she opened the door at the start of the shooting.

"I never thought anything like this could ever happen in a place like Erfurt," he added in a quiet, shaken voice. "I thought this must be a bad film. I thought this kind of thing only happened in America."

there is no way i am ever going to understand this kind of thing

i myself hated lots of teachers when i went to school. this may be typical: in germany, teachers can be sadistic, evil little people whereas in the US the pressure may be bigger from class mates. but i don't get it: how does hate get transformed into this kind of intensely criminal, mass-homicidal activity?

the guy was a great fan of slipknot and of sadistic computer games. he was intense and was reputed to have often said he intended to be famous at some point in his life. so what? there's an army of millions like that out there.

i remember how after columbine camilla paglia said something like: our society has no mechanism to channel the uniquely intense feelings that teenagers have. there is nothing they can really do with their feelings!

she of course is a slightly wacko libertarian but i get her point when she says: teenagers should be allowed to go to war as mercenaries or take drugs or get drunk or have crazy sex as much as they like -- they fucking need it, it is hard-wired into their emotional and physical system.

she may have a point but it goes without saying she is totally wrong too. let teenagers do what they want and you would have a lot more casualties than what we get from an occasional school shooting.

so what to do? i don't know; this whole topic is sickening, just sickening and i want to go and read the sports pages.