The Michael Knowles Show - Craig Scott ｜ Surviving The Columbine Massacre & The Media's Agenda

00:00:00.080 Coming up on Tuesday is the 22nd anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting.

00:00:06.440 It is unthinkable that it has been that long.

00:00:09.620 I remember it vividly.

00:00:10.920 I was pretty little at the time, but I remember that.

00:00:13.560 It totally changed the culture, changed the way news was covered.

00:00:19.540 I mean, really changed the way we thought about our schools.

00:00:22.920 And obviously, a lot of it still on the news.

00:00:25.200 A lot of school shootings, a lot of proposals from politicians to, you know, stop the school shootings by getting rid of all the guns.

00:00:33.160 I guess right now we don't even really have a lot of schools open.

00:00:36.060 A lot of pushes by the teacher unions to keep schools completely closed.

00:00:39.780 We are joined now by someone who saw those horrible events firsthand.

00:00:45.220 Craig Scott, who was present.

00:00:47.580 He was a student at Columbine during the shooting, whose sister was the first victim of the shooters.

00:00:55.200 And who has been speaking out on not just the shooting, but on solutions to these kinds of problems for more than 20 years since then.

00:01:03.800 Craig, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:01:06.300 Absolutely.

00:01:06.980 Love your show.

00:01:07.660 Thanks for having me on.

00:01:08.620 That's very kind.

00:01:09.300 Thank you.

00:01:10.120 So for those who don't remember, you know, there's a lot of youths who watch this show and who listen,

00:01:16.940 who maybe actually don't remember that shooting.

00:01:19.800 I hate to, hate to bring you back to a terrible time, but I know you've, you've recounted this a number of times over the years.

00:01:25.780 Can you just bring us back to what that moment means for you today, 22 years later?

00:01:35.980 Yeah, well, it's a day in history, in American history.

00:01:38.740 And if viewers are watching that weren't born when the shooting happened, it was a day that kind of time stood still in our country.

00:01:47.080 And anyone that is of age remembers exactly where they were, what they were doing when it happened, much like September 11th.

00:01:54.460 So it was a center of a lot of media attention because we were wondering, why is this, why could this, how could this happen?

00:02:00.360 And how is it in our culture that we got to a place where something like this would happen?

00:02:05.420 And so that day I went to school with my sister.

00:02:11.460 We were, got into a little argument in the car on our way to school because I was making us late.

00:02:17.440 I was, I spent too much time on my hair and we got into an argument in a fight and I started to call her names and we pulled up to the school and I got out of the car and I slammed the car door shut, not knowing that'd be the last time I'd see her.

00:02:31.500 I went to my classes and then to the library during my lunch period to study for a test.

00:02:36.460 I heard some popping noises coming from outside the school.

00:02:40.460 It was near the end of the school year, so I thought maybe some seniors were pulling a prank and had brought some firecrackers to school.

00:02:46.060 And just hearing these poppy noises for a couple of minutes and then this teacher ran into the room. 0.99

00:02:51.480 She was completely frantic.

00:02:53.420 She ran over to the phone and called the police and started yelling at all of us students to hide and get underneath tables. 0.93

00:03:00.100 And so I got underneath the table with two of my friends, Matt and Isaiah.

00:03:04.180 And underneath the table, hearing the poppy noises becoming louder and louder and then the shooters coming into the school.

00:03:10.320 And I started to realize this wasn't a prank.

00:03:15.400 This was serious.

00:03:16.420 And my two friends just started to freak out, very scared and frantic.

00:03:21.880 And I felt like I heard a voice within just tell me to be still.

00:03:27.080 And so I became very quiet, very still while my friends were kind of freaking out.

00:03:31.120 And the poppy noise is getting louder and louder.

00:03:33.680 And the shooters were throwing bombs as they were pipe bombs as they were coming towards the library.

00:03:38.740 And the library was the first room that they came into, immediately shooting off their guns.

00:03:43.580 They were taunting or making fun of students before they shot or killed them. 0.91

00:03:47.220 They'd peek underneath the table and say peekaboo and shoot a girl. 0.95

00:03:49.960 They came over to where I was and they saw my friend Isaiah.

00:03:55.100 Isaiah was one of the very few black students at our school.

00:03:58.820 And the shooters dwelled on a lot of negative media on a daily basis.

00:04:03.640 And also one of their role models was Hitler. 0.75

00:04:07.180 And so when one of the shooters saw Isaiah, he said, hey, we have an N-word over here, a racial slur.

00:04:12.820 And then the other shooter came over and they drug him out from underneath the table, calling him racial slurs.

00:04:18.200 And then they shot.

00:04:20.840 He tried to back up.

00:04:22.800 And the last thing that he said was, I want to see my mom.

00:04:26.540 And they shot and killed Isaiah.

00:04:28.040 And they shot and killed Matt right next to me.

00:04:30.720 And the whole time I just laid down, being very still and trying not to draw any attention to myself.

00:04:37.140 And they left me underneath that table.

00:04:40.340 And shortly after, they left the library with 10 students dead or dying and over a dozen wounded.

00:04:46.640 And I thought I was going to die.

00:04:49.340 My ears were ringing so loud from the shotgun blast.

00:04:51.640 I thought they were bleeding and I wasn't sure if they were still in the room.

00:04:55.220 But my heart was pounding so, so much.

00:04:58.860 I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack.

00:05:01.020 And so I prayed and asked that my fear be taken away.

00:05:04.920 It was just too much for me to handle.

00:05:07.180 And in that moment, I felt relieved from my fear.

00:05:09.200 And it felt like I heard God speak to me and tell me to get out of there.

00:05:13.960 And so I was the first student to stand up.

00:05:16.580 I listened to that voice.

00:05:17.620 And I was the first one to stand up, looked around, and I saw the shooters were gone.

00:05:21.900 I yelled at everyone, come on, let's get out of here.

00:05:24.120 And at first, no one moved.

00:05:25.500 Everyone was too scared.

00:05:27.320 And again, kind of rallied, let's get out of here.

00:05:29.300 And I heard someone asking for help.

00:05:30.900 And I turned around behind me, it was a girl rocking back and forth underneath the computer

00:05:35.720 desk.

00:05:36.840 She had had her shoulder blown off from a shotgun blast.

00:05:40.180 And she was asking for help over and over.

00:05:42.500 And I helped to pick her up.

00:05:43.800 And a group of us ran out of an emergency exit.

00:05:45.960 And there was a police car outside.

00:05:48.340 And we all ran for our lives to get behind that police car.

00:05:53.500 And I can't really describe the amount of joy, the amount of just exhilaration that when

00:06:01.540 I got behind that car, just to be alive.

00:06:04.660 I was just so happy to be alive.

00:06:06.600 But at the same time, I felt bad for leaving my friends underneath that table.

00:06:10.580 And other police cars began to come by and pick up students.

00:06:14.560 And right before I left, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, I think there's

00:06:19.100 a girl that's been shot over there. 0.98

00:06:21.060 And he points over towards the library exit door that we ran out of.

00:06:27.140 And it was my sister.

00:06:30.020 My sister had been the first one killed right outside the school library.

00:06:33.380 And so for the next couple of years, I had a real hard journey and dealt with a lot of

00:06:42.460 different things, a lot of different emotions, and was just pretty broken and dysfunctional.

00:06:49.180 And my mind was kind of fragmented and with a lot of grief, a lot of anger.

00:06:55.420 And so that was the worst day of my life, but it also has led to the most purpose in my life.

00:07:04.840 And now, 22 years later, looking back, I'm thankful for everything that I went through

00:07:11.500 because it's made me who I am.

00:07:12.880 It's also helped me to really help a lot of people, a lot of teenagers across the country.

00:07:17.840 So I do a lot of speaking in schools and share lessons learned behind the Columbine shooting.

00:07:25.320 And I also share my sister's story.

00:07:27.540 She had a pretty incredible story.

00:07:29.060 We made it into a movie.

00:07:30.420 It was in theaters a couple of years ago.

00:07:32.180 And actually, one of your producers, Ben Davies, is in the movie.

00:07:35.960 And he plays one of my sister's best friends.

00:07:38.680 He's an actor.

00:07:39.500 I was going to try to work in some kind of insult about him there, but he does a great job.

00:07:44.100 He does a great job in the movie.

00:07:45.520 So I can't do it.

00:07:46.280 Well, maybe we still have time in the interview.

00:07:49.100 He's a great guy, and he's the reason I'm on the show.

00:07:52.760 And so we've been telling her story now for the last over 20 years, and millions and millions

00:07:58.700 of students now look to her as a role model.

00:08:02.220 She wrote something really cool a month before she was killed in class in an essay she wrote.

00:08:08.260 She titled it, My Ethics, My Codes of Life.

00:08:11.380 And in the essay, she talked about her values and her beliefs.

00:08:14.460 And she talked about being a leader.

00:08:17.280 She talked about showing forgiveness, mercy to people, not being quick to judge anybody,

00:08:23.020 not being quick to judge just by an impression or by someone's appearance, but to look deeper,

00:08:28.960 look into their soul, look into their heart.

00:08:30.700 And so in this essay, she said, I have this theory that if one person will go out of their

00:08:37.300 way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same, and people will

00:08:41.840 never know how far just a little bit of kindness can go.

00:08:44.200 And she ended her essay by saying, you just may start a chain reaction.

00:08:50.040 And at the same time she wrote this paper a month before the shooting, the two shooters

00:08:53.780 made a videotape in their parents' basement without their parents knowing.

00:08:57.420 And they're called the basement tapes.

00:09:01.180 They were never released to the public, but victims' families got to see them.

00:09:04.740 At the very end of the video, one of them picked up a sawed-off shotgun that he used to kill

00:09:08.900 Isaiah and pointed it at the camera and said, we need to kickstart a revolution.

00:09:13.920 We need to get an effing chain reaction going here. 0.99

00:09:16.460 And he was talking about starting a chain reaction at school shootings.

00:09:21.740 That was actually something that they wanted to kickstart.

00:09:26.060 And they have.

00:09:28.240 There's been some copycat shootings.

00:09:30.600 There's been some people that have idolized them and studied what they did and looked up

00:09:36.020 to them.

00:09:37.080 But my sister's chain reaction is far outreached there. 1.00

00:09:39.700 So I talk to kids a lot about if you allow it, the worst things that happen to you in

00:09:48.580 your life can become a source of your biggest strength and can become a part of your purpose

00:09:54.260 and lead you to being a deeper person.

00:09:57.940 And so, yeah, it's been 22 years and I'm still going.

00:10:04.480 I'm still sharing her story, still sharing my story.

00:10:06.660 So I want to get in a moment to this ideological aspect that you've alluded to.

00:10:13.520 These shooters were admirers of Hitler.

00:10:16.980 They wanted to start a sort of chain reaction, a kind of political revolution.

00:10:21.080 Very often in the media, these guys and similar criminals are depicted as having been bullied

00:10:28.120 or, you know, it was really they were just reacting to mean old society.

00:10:31.900 I think the reality of this is far different.

00:10:34.040 They were looking at other targets, that sort of thing.

00:10:35.720 So I want to get to that in one second.

00:10:37.980 But I would like to go back for a moment to something you said, which is you're there,

00:10:43.860 you're underneath the table.

00:10:45.160 Somehow you survive.

00:10:46.260 Your friends are dying around you.

00:10:47.820 Somehow you survive.

00:10:48.800 You hear this voice.

00:10:51.020 You sense a kind of divine voice or providence.

00:10:54.320 You get out of there.

00:10:55.740 And then you have this relief and this joy that you're behind the cop car and you survived.

00:11:01.320 You have this horrible realization that your sister is there, has been killed, first death.

00:11:06.660 And you go through this very difficult period.

00:11:10.560 Sounds like you're quite Christian.

00:11:12.380 You know, I know that to be true.

00:11:14.480 So can you just take us through that, how you can believe in God, experience basically the

00:11:21.560 most horrific thing you can possibly experience, go through a very difficult period of your life

00:11:26.540 and then still believe that there is some providence, that God would permit this to happen,

00:11:33.580 how you could make sense of that problem?

00:11:35.620 Well, I was taught by my father, who's a really great teacher.

00:11:42.860 He taught me a verse out of scripture that basically, in essence, talks about being a

00:11:47.920 see-througher.

00:11:49.280 And there's a verse that says, if your eye is single, it is full of light.

00:11:53.800 And if it is dual, it is full of darkness. 0.98

00:11:56.200 And so I have this principle in my life that I was taught earlier on to be able to see through

00:12:02.180 both the good and the bad that happens in my life and that there is a purpose in everything

00:12:08.160 that happens in my life.

00:12:09.680 And if I can discover what that is, if I can be in touch with it, then things that happen

00:12:15.000 happen for a reason.

00:12:16.100 And I don't have to escape my problems.

00:12:19.060 I don't have to see things in a dual way.

00:12:24.160 But I can know that there's, I do believe in God and believe in a source that's ultimately

00:12:29.720 in control.

00:12:31.620 And having that faith, really, Michael, that's the biggest, I have a number of keys of healing

00:12:39.420 for me over the years.

00:12:40.960 But really having that was the biggest thing for my healing.

00:12:47.720 And how I tap into that is I just practice stillness.

00:12:52.040 And that was, that's something that I do.

00:12:56.160 And I even talk to kids about it.

00:12:58.160 And you don't have to be a religious person.

00:13:01.200 And I don't go and push religion when I speak.

00:13:04.760 But I do talk about faith.

00:13:06.580 I do talk about believing in something bigger than yourself and believing in your own value,

00:13:11.600 in your own purpose, that you have great potential within you just by being a person.

00:13:17.500 And, but the stillness was huge for me.

00:13:21.900 Just spending time, because on the outside, you know, Michael, it looked like nothing but

00:13:26.320 a bloody tragedy, nothing good.

00:13:29.000 But if I could practice stillness, then God or spirit or whatever you want, conscious,

00:13:35.420 could speak to me and tell me how I could get through this.

00:13:40.540 Tell me what I needed to do, tell me how this was ultimately going to lead to me becoming

00:13:47.180 a better person and being able to help more people.

00:13:50.940 And so that was the biggest key factor was just having that faith in my life.

00:13:57.260 You know, it's a beautiful, beautiful explanation that you're giving.

00:14:02.580 And it's a traditional Christian explanation of why do bad things happen to good people.

00:14:07.660 And it's because in the Garden of Eden, man sinned and falls out of paradise and sin and

00:14:14.020 death pervade the world.

00:14:15.900 And this causes all sorts of terrible things.

00:14:18.240 But that there is, as you say, a purpose to it, a telos.

00:14:22.040 And so we sing on Easter, we just sang it recently on Easter,

00:14:25.740 Oh, happy fault that won for us so great, so glorious a redeemer.

00:14:30.300 That somehow amid all the horrific things, hard to get much worse than what you went through,

00:14:35.620 there is a broader providence whereby God even can turn evil things to good.

00:14:43.640 And so if you see that sort of purpose, it makes sense.

00:14:46.820 And it makes total sense to me intellectually until something really bad happens, you know.

00:14:53.220 And then in that moment, you just started to think, wait a second, hold on, wait a minute here.

00:14:56.880 C.S. Lewis went through this.

00:14:57.960 He wrote that book, Problem of Pain, on this problem of theodicy.

00:15:01.140 And then his wife is dying and he said, it's a totally different experience when you've

00:15:05.560 actually got to live it than when, you know, you're just thinking about it more rationally.

00:15:11.240 Now that we are so far removed from it, 22 years after the incident, what is, I suppose

00:15:19.040 it isn't amazing to me, but it still seems distasteful, is people continue to politicize

00:15:25.320 the tragedy.

00:15:26.200 And what I mean by politicize is they continue to try to read that event as a justification

00:15:31.600 for some, in some cases, very distantly related partisan desires.

00:15:37.720 And it might be on guns, it might be on school reform, it might be on this, that, or the other

00:15:41.800 thing.

00:15:43.280 Do you have any thoughts on any of those moments, movements rather, and do you have any suggestions

00:15:48.520 as someone who experienced it firsthand going forward?

00:15:53.300 Yeah, there's definitely things that are taken, tragedies, events that the media picks

00:15:59.300 up on that they want to politicize it.

00:16:03.000 They want to use it for whatever cause that they think is important or needs to happen.

00:16:09.260 And, uh, you know, I've been involved and interviewed and questioned, um, over news media, I've been

00:16:16.940 over on a thousand interviews throughout my life.

00:16:20.220 And that, that's an issue that comes up a lot, but I, I know that that is a surface level issue.

00:16:28.120 I know that, um, that when somebody has, um, real darkness, real hatred in their heart, uh, that if

00:16:36.400 they want to take the time to plan and kill people, they can find a way to do it.

00:16:41.040 There was actually a propane tank that was set at Columbine that was right underneath me.

00:16:45.360 I was on the second floor in the library and directly below me in the cafeteria was a propane tank.

00:16:50.260 If it had gone off, it would have killed 500 kids and we would have been, you know, banning propane

00:16:55.800 tanks. But the, those, I'm not against, um, things that make legislation rules that make

00:17:04.200 things safer, but rules don't change people. Laws don't change people's hearts. And so the real

00:17:10.920 issue is dealing with on a cultural, you can call, I like to think of it as a spiritual, but, uh, sometimes

00:17:18.220 it gets labeled as a mental health thing, but dealing with people's hearts. Um, my program has helped

00:17:25.060 to stop documented school shootings and thousands of suicides. I have a, uh, book of emails from kids

00:17:33.440 over the years, just that had contemplated suicide over a thousand of them and that heard this story

00:17:40.560 and had a change of heart. And so, you know, I think that, um, you know, people that, that use these

00:17:47.920 events for their own, uh, agenda, I think that a lot of them really believe that, that, that this is

00:17:54.080 the problem. You know, they think that the gun, the guns are the problem, but it really wasn't the

00:17:59.980 main problem. Uh, if you really want to look at, I, I, I know of every school shooting that's happened

00:18:06.940 since Columbine. I get questioned by the media after everyone, I research it, I learn about it.

00:18:11.720 And if I were to tell you the biggest thing, the biggest commonality between all of these school

00:18:16.660 shooters, it's pretty simple. It's that they focus on everything that was negative in this world.

00:18:24.180 They focus on everything that was negative in themselves and they didn't see the good in

00:18:28.600 themselves or in other people. And they have this perspective of seeing the world. They could have

00:18:34.660 been in the most beautiful place. They could have been in the Sistine chapel and, in Italy with

00:18:39.360 Michelangelo's beautiful paintings and found dirt in the corner and focused on that. And when you have

00:18:46.160 a view where everything is dark and jaded and you see nothing good, then in you, it creates

00:18:52.260 a darkness. It creates an anger and a hatred. And what I've learned also about all these shooters,

00:18:58.560 school shootings is that they all dwelled on a lot of very negative media, uh, almost on a daily basis.

00:19:04.740 And if you can just imagine, um, and you know, of course there's, there's, there's, there's nothing

00:19:10.620 negative in the media, right? When I ask that question to students in schools, I say, you know,

00:19:15.340 how many of you guys would agree there's a lot of negative, like in the media, like every hand goes

00:19:19.560 up. Yeah. Negative media, it's sort of a redundant phrase. You don't need to say both, right?

00:19:25.320 You know, uh, it doesn't mean you can't address the negative or talk about it, but where's your focus?

00:19:30.920 Because whatever we place attention on, we give power to whatever it is, whatever the media chooses

00:19:37.560 to focus on. Um, the media told this narrative after Columbine, that really wasn't true.

00:19:44.220 And Columbine was such a covered thing after the shooting. It was on the news for months. And we had,

00:19:52.740 uh, uh, a news camp of reporters near the school for months. And the narrative that basically came

00:20:00.300 out was this, two guys are pushed to the edge because of bullying and they get revenge at their

00:20:06.080 school. The problem is that's really not the true story. That's really not the main issue. And even the

00:20:11.760 psychologists that have looked into it, that have looked at everything that happened, don't believe

00:20:15.900 bullying was a factor. They were bullied to a degree at school. I know of a couple of stories.

00:20:20.700 I also know kids at my school that were bullied a lot worse. And I also know that they themselves

00:20:24.800 were bullies at times and became the ultimate bullies that day. If I were to tell, when I talk to kids,

00:20:31.620 I say the biggest reason they did what they did is that they focused on everything that was negative

00:20:36.720 in this world. And that's, that's the bigger reason it's not bullying. Um, the bigger reason is,

00:20:43.200 is what they focused on. And so I have a program called value up. And I named it that after reading,

00:20:50.640 um, the book from Sue Klebold, her son was Dylan, one of the shooters at Columbine.

00:20:57.120 Dylan wasn't going to go through with the shooting. He thought Eric, his friend who was very psychopathic,

00:21:02.560 um, was crazy. And he only decided to go along with it in the last couple of months of his planning. 0.50

00:21:09.280 He planned it for a year and, uh, but he was more suicidal. And what his mom said was, we valued

00:21:15.840 Dylan, but he didn't value himself. And it struck me because I realized I had already spoken to over

00:21:22.320 a million teens across the country in person. And I realized that's such a core issue when somebody

00:21:28.880 doesn't believe in their own value, they're not going to treat other people with value.

00:21:33.920 But if they can realize the truth and whether you want to come out this from a Christian perspective

00:21:39.360 or other religion that, you know, Christian, you're fearfully, wonderfully made, um, other perspective

00:21:45.440 that we just have the capacity within us to do great good. We have so much potential, especially

00:21:51.680 young people. And so if they can realize it doesn't matter what they look like, it doesn't matter what

00:21:56.960 other people say about them. It doesn't matter where they come from, who their family is, that

00:22:01.600 they have a great potential in them to, and the capacity to do great things and be a positive

00:22:08.880 influence in this world. Like my sister was, she did small things, stepped out of her way for, uh, 0.69

00:22:15.920 a girl that sat all alone during lunch, who just lost her mom in a car accident.

00:22:20.880 I, uh, a fr-, a friend told me how he has a slight disability and he was, uh, made fun of and ignored,

00:22:28.080 usually ignored a lot at school. His name was Adam. And the first time she met him, she stood up,

00:22:33.600 a couple of guys were, were making fun of him. She stood up for him. And he told me that the time

00:22:38.880 that she reached out to him, he was having thoughts of taking his life. And after she met him every day in

00:22:43.840 the hallway, she would just say hi to him. And he said, he literally started waking up in the morning,

00:22:48.960 looking forward to this day that this pretty girl would say hi to him in the hallway.

00:22:52.880 In a small act of kindness, human connection, what is going to really change our culture? What's

00:22:59.920 really, how are we going to get to the root of the problem? Well, the root of the problem is in

00:23:04.160 our hearts. The root of the problem is, it really is. It, those are where the problems are. It's also

00:23:09.680 where the solutions are. So, um, you know, uh, again, you know, if there's a legislation that

00:23:16.960 comes up, that seems smart, uh, that makes it harder for, uh, criminals or people that are insane

00:23:23.680 or, um, you know, to get firearms, great, I'm all for it. But if they want to tell me that this is the

00:23:29.920 answer to the problems, then I say, no, you're, you're really looking at it from a shallow point

00:23:37.040 of view. And, um, those, those people that commit these atrocities break all those rules anyway.

00:23:43.680 Uh, you could create a hundred more laws. They're going to, they, they get them illegally

00:23:49.120 anyway. Um, so, you know, it is that argument that it really, it really affects the law abiding

00:23:54.640 people than it, you know, than it does the criminal. Well, I love your, I love your point

00:23:59.840 here on, uh, if, if you hate yourself, I'm not saying you, you have to be prideful and you have

00:24:04.640 to think, you know, you're the bees knees and everything, but if you really truly hate yourself

00:24:08.160 and you just focus in on all the worst aspects of yourself and of the world, you're going to lash

00:24:13.200 out. You're going to have a dim view of the world. When Christ says, love your neighbor as yourself.

00:24:18.880 Well, if you, if you hate yourself and you treat yourself poorly, then you're, you're obviously

00:24:24.240 going to do the same thing to your neighbor by that, by that principle. So I think that's so

00:24:28.400 smart. And your point on politics, you know, that at the legislative level, that's a little bit of

00:24:34.400 the surface level because, uh, you know, we, we say that politics is downstream of culture. We've all

00:24:39.520 heard that phrase a lot and culture is downstream of religion. Cult and culture come from the same root

00:24:44.320 word. Uh, what a culture worships is going to define that culture. And so these things are not so

00:24:49.200 easily separated. You do have to take it down. And when you're thinking of political public matters,

00:24:54.000 you know, how we all get along together. Well, that is going to begin, not just by focusing on

00:24:58.640 everybody else's problems. It's going to begin with, to quote Michael Jackson, the man in the

00:25:03.040 mirror. That's good. You're going to have to focus on yourself too. If you have a country

00:25:07.120 of vicious people, vicious, self-involved, miserable sort of people, then it doesn't 0.93

00:25:12.320 matter how many laws you're going to pass. You're going to have a vicious, miserable nation. And so a 0.98

00:25:16.640 little, a little personal self-help can, can work too. You know, Michael, my dad gave,

00:25:21.760 he gave a poem, he read a poem to the House Judiciary of Congress, uh, three months after

00:25:26.960 the Columbine shooting. And, um, it was widely, uh, sent along forwarded email. Internet Explorer

00:25:34.320 told us it was the, the most forwarded email in 1999, but he went there. Um, actually, uh, the NRA

00:25:43.280 had called him. My dad's not a member of the NRA. He doesn't even own a gun. And, and they said,

00:25:48.400 would you come and share? And he, he taught, he opened up and saying, I'm, you know, I'm not here

00:25:53.760 to defend them. I'm not here to support them. I just don't think that, that, that this is where

00:25:58.960 the real issue lies. And he read this poem, uh, this beautiful poem that he actually wrote before

00:26:05.680 knowing he was going to speak there. And he said, your laws ignore our deepest needs. Your words are

00:26:11.440 empty air. You've stripped away our heritage. You've outlawed simple prayer. Gunshots fill our

00:26:17.760 classrooms and precious children die. You seek for answers everywhere. Ask the question why

00:26:23.680 you regulate restrictive law through legislative creed. And yet you fail to understand that God

00:26:28.880 is what we need. And he gave his beautiful speech talking about how as a country, we used to recognize

00:26:35.280 that we're a three part being where body soul, which is our mind, our will intellect and our emotions

00:26:42.720 and our spirit, which is an intuitive thing. It's our conscious. And it's also a communion with the

00:26:48.000 divine. And we used to recognize that as a three part being for nearly 200 years, the United States

00:26:54.720 was number one in the world in education. As a first world nation, we were number one. And when we

00:27:01.040 were number one, my, uh, my father's a scholar in American history specialized in American education.

00:27:06.800 And he showed me that, uh, that every educator knew a motto. It's in teacher training manuals.

00:27:15.360 And it was the three H's. It was before the three R's reading, writing, arithmetic. And the three H's 0.91

00:27:21.840 were heart, head and hands. They believed it was their job as a teacher to first teach the hearts of young

00:27:28.560 people. Today, the focus of our educational system, the philosophy is knowledge or academic achievement.

00:27:36.160 And even though that's a great goal, that was secondary when we were number one. Today,

00:27:41.120 the United States is nowhere being near number one as a first world nation in education.

00:27:47.120 And yet, you know, that's the goal is to be at the top. When our focus was first teaching principles

00:27:53.040 of the heart of character. And of course, a lot of this happened, uh, removal of it in 1963,

00:27:58.720 when we removed prayer and 10 commandments from school. Um, but what also happened,

00:28:04.320 and I'm not suggesting putting religion back in school.

00:28:06.800 I am, but I, but you're a little nicer to the other, but I am saying that we have to look at

00:28:14.000 education that touches the hearts of young people and teaches them real life principles.

00:28:18.160 Because you know what? The two shooters at Columbine were very smart. The problem wasn't

00:28:22.800 the education of their mind. It wasn't their knowledge. It's the education of their heart

00:28:26.960 and life principles. And what would have stopped them or any other of these shooters from doing what

00:28:34.000 they were planning to do? It would have taken another person stepping out in compassion with some

00:28:40.640 love and some truth and reaching their heart, seeing past their, seeing past their exterior,

00:28:46.800 seeing past their negative attitude, their words, their demeanor, and seeing that this was a person

00:28:52.400 that was hurting, that needed some help that would have had an impact. I'll show one quick story.

00:28:59.120 One week before the shooting happened, Eric was really the leader of the two shooters. He actually

00:29:04.480 went to a youth group meeting and I've met with the youth pastor. He said that he was given his message

00:29:11.440 and all of a sudden it hit him. He said he was not planning this. It hit him out of the blue. He's

00:29:16.640 in the middle of his little message and his spirit speaks to him and says, say this. And he stops his

00:29:23.680 message and he says, I just feel to say this. He says, there's somebody here that is going to do

00:29:28.720 something terrible soon. They're going to hurt themselves and other people. And I want you to know

00:29:34.000 that this is, that you do not have to go through it, that this is your chance to, to change, to repent,

00:29:39.840 turn away from that if you want. And Eric Harris was sitting there in that audience. And of course,

00:29:47.040 he didn't, he didn't, he didn't, he, he, he was given a chance to change right then and there and he

00:29:51.360 didn't. And so, um, you know, if we, if we practice stillness, if we practice and you know,

00:29:58.240 all great philosophers from every, every religion talk about the power of meditation and prayer and

00:30:04.640 being still quieting your mind and listening deep within. And if we get in touch with that,

00:30:10.000 then there's a, there's an intuitive voice that will speak to us. It's the same voice that talked

00:30:14.560 to me that day that said, be still, that said, get out of there. It's the same voice that spoke to my

00:30:20.000 sister when she was writing in her journals and in her journals, she had this feeling that she was

00:30:25.280 going to live to be very old, but that God was going to use her to impact millions. She told the

00:30:30.240 number of my friends, her friends about it. And some of my family, she actually said that she didn't

00:30:35.120 think she was going to live old enough to get married. And the last, the, one of the last things

00:30:39.280 that she did was drew in her journal in class a half hour before she was killed. She drew this picture

00:30:46.240 picture of her eyes crying and 13 tears were falling from her eyes, watering a rose with 0.72

00:30:52.640 drops of blood coming off from it. She took her, this drawing up to her teacher before class ended

00:30:57.840 and showed her Mrs. Carruthers, who was later my teacher. Mrs. Carruthers told me that Rachel said,

00:31:03.280 she showed her and she said, wow, Rachel, it's beautiful. What is it? She said,

00:31:06.400 oh, it's my tears. She said, I'm crying. And then she's looked at her teacher and said, Mrs. Carruthers,

00:31:12.000 I'm going to have an impact on the world. And her teacher said, Rachel, I have no doubt of that.

00:31:17.920 She walked out of class and not even a half an hour later, she was killed. And that day,

00:31:23.200 there were 13 people that were killed matching the number of tears that she drew. And the rose

00:31:28.640 that she drew that had drops of blood. Well, rose is the U.S. national flower. Every state has a state

00:31:34.480 flower. And the rose is the American flowers, the national flower. And she drew the same rose other times

00:31:40.640 in her journal growing out of a Columbine flower. And when we, when my dad first got this journal,

00:31:46.240 and he got it from the sheriff's department, it had bullets that had had a bullet that had got

00:31:49.920 lodged into it after passing through her body. He went to go pick up her backpack and he flipped

00:31:56.000 open to the last page and he sees this picture that his daughter drew of her eyes crying, 13 tears.

00:32:03.040 And we found in her journals, four other times, she drew the same rose growing up out of a Columbine

00:32:07.600 flower. Columbine is the Colorado State flower. And he felt that that voice speak to him and said,

00:32:14.480 the rose represents the young generation. And it's going to grow spiritually from what happened

00:32:19.440 at Columbine. But it's Rachel's tears. It's the small sacrifices that she made for others.

00:32:25.760 It's her story and her death that's going to allow that growth to happen.

00:32:30.000 So we have to get back to being a country where we recognize that we're more than just body and mind,

00:32:36.960 that we have a spirit, we have something. And if we can do that, we can tap into an immense power.

00:32:43.120 You know, hearing that story, which I had not heard before, it reminds me of a line

00:32:48.000 that might sum it all up, which is all nature is but art unknown to thee, all chance direction,

00:32:54.400 which thou canst not see. And of course, the rose, the symbolism of the rose, even beyond the country,

00:32:59.600 goes down to the heart of our faith. Craig, we have to leave it there. Craig Scott,

00:33:04.000 the organization is ValueUp. Craig, where can people find you?

00:33:06.880 ValueUp.org. I'm really hoping that I can get back out there and get this message out to a lot

00:33:14.400 of teens. I do too. Absolutely brilliant. Really, really inspiring stuff. Such a pleasure. Wish we

00:33:20.000 could have gone on about seven more hours, but I'm sure, hopefully there will be more time in the future.

00:33:25.760 You'll like it. Get Ben to give me a call. That sounds good. Yeah. Not Shapiro. We can have

00:33:32.960 Shapiro give you a call too, but Ben Davies, our producer as well. And you can go check out the

00:33:37.360 movie that, coincidentally, my producer happens to be in. And I hate to admit it, he does a very

00:33:42.400 good job. Craig, thank you so much for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

The Michael Knowles Show - April 17, 2021

Craig Scott ｜ Surviving The Columbine Massacre & The Media's Agenda

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