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Crime

Blaze Exclusive: Columbine Survivor Reacts to Connecticut Elementary School Massacre

Dec. 14, 2012 8:02pm Jason Howerton

As the world struggled to understand the unspeakable tragedy unfolding in Newtown, Conn., a man who knows tragedy all too well joined Scott Baker, TheBlaze’s editor-in-chief, on Friday to discuss the implications of such an earth-shattering event.

Craig Scott survived the Columbine shooting in April of 1999. However, his sister Rachel was among the 13 students killed on that fateful day. Scott also lost some of his closest friends in the shooting.

After the gunman had left the library, where he was hiding under a table, Scott heroically led a group of students out of the school to safety. What he did not know at the time was that his sister had been the first student to die that day.

In the years since, Scott’s family started a non-profit group based on Rachel’s idea of starting a “chain reaction of kindness.” Rachel’s Challenge is a non-profit, non-political, non-religious organization based in Littleton, Colo. that seeks to teach kindness and compassion while fighting against school bullying.

During his appearance on Friday’s “Blazecast,” Scott said the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a “senseless act of violence.” The shooter, identified as Adam Lanza, opened fire inside the Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked as a teacher, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

The way to prevent such horrific acts of violence, Scott explained, is to change the culture in the United States. He talked about a culture that often times encourages the “dehumanizing” of individuals, whether it’s violent video games or easily accessible pornography on the web.

“What happens when you are a person that grows up today and at school you’re not taught about character, integrity or values…at school you are picked on and bullied and at school teachers care more about your test scores and your knowledge and your academic achievement than the condition of your heart,” Scott said. “And when we were concerned about the heart we were number one in the world in education as a first world nation.”

“On the deepest level, these are spiritual problems that we are having in our country,” he added.

To find out more about Rachel’s Challenge, click here.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

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Comments (20)

cwrink
Posted on December 15, 2012 at 8:33pm
Craig Scott is absolutely right. Where is the “heart” of America or do we even have one now?
Its great for a teacher to encourage character and values but these things need to be taught in the home, of course, that is not possible in some cases. The parents have none of these values.

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Flashydave
Posted on December 15, 2012 at 1:34pm
Well besides the school problem there is the deterence problem too. When murderers get more rights than victims and punishments are decades away from the crimes, what true deterent exists? When the perps kill themselves after these crimes, what are we to say about punishment at all? I own handguns, rifles, and shottys, but they are for hunting and recreation. Today’s kids need to be shown what damage guns reall do thru hunting and instruction. I know any young person should feel some remorse killing an animal for food as I did shooting that first little bunny. But lessons and deterence go together. I don’t believe in life without parole. I don’t believe in 15 years either. I believe we need to starve, deprive convicts of sleep, and make prison a place they don’t want to return to ever. Today’s prisons are just hotels run by the inmates who share info on becoming better criminals to not get caught. Early parole from overcrowding is ******** and they should be ‘hot bunked’ like sailors, while the others perform their pointlesswork of digging holes and filling them up.

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Flashydave
Posted on December 15, 2012 at 11:32am
This is a result of the liberal ideal of removing God from school. I believe if we held the responsibility to protect and educate our children as highly as we hold the 2nd Amendment, we wouldn’t let any child receive the indoctrination of todays public schools. I’m not sorry feeling this way because I went to Catholic schools from grades 1-12. I am sorry that the public schools spend 5 times as much and are producing an inferior product because its also my money being wasted. It’s also my country that’s being trashed by the teachers, bus drivers, and lunchroom ladies unions that are failing all of us. These incidents only show we need to completely scrap the Dept of Education, and let charter type schools, privately held compete for the education dollars of students and taxpayers. Please pray for the parents of these innocents slain by an evil sick lunitic.

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- Pontiaku
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 1:43pm
  [This is a result of the liberal ideal of removing God from school.]
  Because parents and churches aren’t enough for teaching kids about bronze age sky daddies that will condemn them to hell for using his name in vain, we now need GOVERNMENT teaching kids this garbage. Oh yeah I see that working out great. I can see the protestants, catholics, baptist, and the rest of the christian cults at each others throats fighting over which version and and interpretation of the bible is the one true word of gawd…
  
  “By maintaining the separation of church and state the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars… Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state? The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. ~” — Barry Goldwater,1981
  
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GuruMeditation
Posted on December 15, 2012 at 9:58am
It’s definitely a spiritual problem.

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Carlinpa
Posted on December 15, 2012 at 9:34am
RE”The way to prevent such horrific acts of violence, Scott explained, is to change the culture in the United States. He talked about a culture that often times encourages the “dehumanizing” of individuals, whether it’s violent video games or easily accessible pornography on the web.”

Wow!! A voice of reason and mature insight.. Thank God for that.. He hit the nail on the head.. of course liberal will totally ignore this

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- neverending
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 6:13pm
  He did hit the nail on the head plain and simple.
  
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Eleutheria
Posted on December 14, 2012 at 11:54pm
This fellow exhibits spiritual virtuosity.

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- Lonescrapper
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 7:01am
  “On the deepest level, these are spiritual problems that we are having in our country.”
  
  comepletely, utterly, emphatically agree
  
  http://www.noellecampbell.com
  
  Report this comment
Jenny Lind
Posted on December 14, 2012 at 8:59pm
It is indeed a spiritual problem. The government is taking God out of all teaching, and without a basis for morality, it becomes a do-your-own-thing world. There will be those who say they don’t believe and they are still moral, OK, I challange them to tell me where their values come from? Who’s idea of life are they living? I maintain, even if they say they do not believe in God, their values come from someone, or someones, who did believe somewhere in their lives. The ten commandments are the very law all our law is based on, or were, now it’s changing and society is suffering for it. The more we decide laws against God’s law, the worse our civilization becomes. Anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, cannot say we are a better world than we were. Our technology has outrun our morality. and this is what we get. We are in more trouble than we know. God bless the parents and loved ones of those innocent babies and the adults, too.

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- SendTheMeteors
  Posted on December 14, 2012 at 10:37pm
  Jenny Lind, I appreciate your faith and your belief. You are the best kind of person, I’m sure of that.
  
  But I’d like to challenge you. You ask, where do the values of individuals come if not from belief in the Christian God? You say their values must come from “someone,” meaning I guess from some individual who promotes some other ideology other than that you find in the Bible.
  
  Think about something of value to you, maybe a nice 96″ TV, or a couple of gold bars or pile of $100 bills or a brand new car. Whatever, think about what you’d like to have but don’t and can’t afford. And suppose you, or an atheist could steal that thing and never be found out by the police or anyone else.
  
  What I think you’re saying is that you would not take those things because of your fear of God and his knowledge that had committed this sin. Suppose for a second that there was no God, would you then steal from your neighbor, there being no Heavenly consequence? Is the fear of God the only reason you wouldn’t steal from your neighbor?
  
  Of course not. It’s wrong to steal from another whether or not there is a God, whether or not you will be punished by God. It’s just wrong. You know that’s wrong outside of any religious beliefs you have. Being an atheist doesn’t mean you lack morality. In fact, does God value your fear of Him above someone who simply knows in his heart something is wrong?
  
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- Zipit
  Posted on December 14, 2012 at 11:43pm
  Jenny! How about that little lecture from SendtheMorons? Condescension at its finest!
  It’s almost inconceivable, that her posts this evening could be as inane as last evenings! She is quickly positioning herself as the resident pee-brain here at The Blaze! Irrelevance is a lonely place, and she should try and get out a little More! She does comes off as being the perfect representative for the ME generation. Jealous of what others have, intolerant of others views, and she has to put herself on some sort of intellectual pedestal to prove her point! Sad Actually!!!
  
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- ThriCeSLewis
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 12:01am
  @Sendthemeteors I used to be agnostic. I understand your contention as it seems as if the Christian worldview is predicated on fear of punishment as the sole motivator…it restrains us from doing bad things. And on the converse, the promise of ‘heavenly reward’ motivates us to do good. Both delusional of course…but effective. I get this but it’s untrue. This is actually a projection of the atheist framework onto the Christian: you presuppose survival as the main drive of living things and as such, thereby project a carnal (material) motivation onto us. Having been on both sides of the fence, I can tell you that my motive as a follower of Jesus is not a carnal self-preserving fear but a love predicated by a healthy fear of God. To fear God is to to understand His love for His creation and the seriousness of how our actions affect one another. Since we are the objects of God’s love, to mess with his kids is to mess with Him. In effect, one motivated by carnality will not steal the 96″ tv, though tempted, to avoid self-affecting consequence: jail time, shame and embarrassment from getting caught, being socially ostracized, etc. One motivated by fear of God, however, will not steal the tv because of communal consequence: hurting someone else (causing grief, anger, insecurity, frustration, etc…in their fellow brother/sister in humanity). Conversely, carnality gives to get something back. God gives for the sake of giving. Joy is loves motivation…nothing el
  
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- WATER-THE-TREE
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 5:39am
  SENDTHEMETEORS — Whether or not you believe in the law of gravity, it is still there, your belief does not change that, throw something up it comes back down and that is just that. — The laws of God are still LAWS, they are there whether or not you believe in them. They are spiritual laws, keeping them brings every good and happiness to man, breaking them brings evil and pain. some people like to call it karma, but it is just these laws that are in motion.
  Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.
  
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- Nan
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 12:18pm
  In reponse to sendthemeteors — You are absolutely right, that “it’s just wrong,” whether you believe in God or not. But it’s God who writes that natural law on every man’s heart, even thought the atheist does not realize it, as God is the creator of evey man and all things. That’s why you cannot explain why “it’s just wrong.” One explanation on what the fear of God means. It doesn’t mean that we are afraid of what he’ll do to us, it’s a fear of doing something wrong that hurts the one we love. God bless!
  
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ThomasUSA
Posted on December 14, 2012 at 8:59pm
This is one of the best, most timely, to the point, thought provoking interview I’ve seen in a very long time. Good job Blaze! This is so unthinkably sad… I pray the people can find some sort of peace and resolution as this young man has…

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searching for the Truth
Posted on December 14, 2012 at 8:24pm
Well, Rachel is looking down and saying, ” What a wonderful time we will have dad ! “

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- searching for the Truth
  Posted on December 15, 2012 at 8:30am
  I heard you speak before – I’m Bapticostal as well, in an Apostolic sort of way.
  
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SaturdaysWarrior76
Posted on December 14, 2012 at 8:08pm
I listened to this live today it was really inspiring. This young man is spot-on with his observations and wisdom. Well worth a listen if you haven’t heard it!

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- gyro
  Posted on December 14, 2012 at 10:58pm
  this
  
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