A survivor of the Columbine shootings recently spoke out and gave some advice to grieving parents on how to cope with the recent Sandy Hook tragedy .
According to TODAY , Chris Scott was just 16 years old when he faced the terror of the Columbine shootings. Scott was lucky to make it out alive, however, his sister Rachel was not as fortunate. She was the first student to be killed in the 1999 high school massacre.
Scott, who is now an advocate of violence prevention, told TODAY:
“I struggled with a lot of anger with the two shooters at Columbine. I know there are parents that are so angry and are going to struggle with that anger over the next couple years…it’s important what they choose to do with that and where they choose to place the focus.
Scott’s parents were devastated after the shootings at Columbine High School.
Since the shootings at Columbine, Scott’s father has held a lot of regret that he wasn’t there to protect Rachel from the gunfire. Scott also said that his mother “was in a state of constant sadness” for about two years.
Scott took the experiences of his parents and told the parents of the Sandy Hook Victims that there was no way they could have been there to defend their children.
He said:
“Hopefully they don’t hold any kind of guilt towards themselves for not having been there. There’s no possible way they could’ve known it was going to happen or see what was going to come.”
Scott also recently had an interview with The Blaze . In the interview, Scott explained that the way to prevent such horrific acts of violence is to change the culture in the United States.
Scott said:
“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. 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.
Here is Scott’s interview with TODAY: