I originally posted about the Arapahoe High School shooting in Centennial, Colorado here. That’s when, back in December of 2013. 18-year-old Karl Pierson stormed the school with a shotgun, shot and killed 17-year-old Clare Davis, then turned the gun on himself. At the time of the shooting, his motive was said to have been that he held a grudge against his debate team coach and was actively looking for him in order to kill him.

Recently the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department released their report on the shooting. In the report, it says that Pierson hoped the school shooting would start a conversation about bullying because Pierson claimed he was bullied in middle school.

Too many people are willing to take that statement at face value. If you do, you’re taking the word of an admitted psychopath. Let’s not forget that Pierson was said to have had this obsession with the need to always be right. You don’t develop that kind of personality trait overnight.

While Pierson may have seen it as bullying, it sounds more like that other people thought he was a jerk. Not to mention that I doubt Claire Davis was his bully. She probably didn’t even know him.

Every article I’ve read about the report talks about identifying the next shooter before it happens. If anything, school shooters just make the bullying problem worse.

Pierson was just another narcissistic, ego-maniacal coward who blamed everyone else for his own failings. To excuse his actions in any way is reprehensible.