Nineteen Minutes

Angeles Martinez 
804
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult 
Contains some spoilers. :3 

I am currently reading the book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. (Okay, I'll admit now, I read this before, but I'm rereading it.) The book...I must say is a very interesting one. It's told from many perspectives-from Alex and Josie Cormier, Peter, Lacy, and Lewis Houghton, Jordan McAfee, and Patrick Ducharme. The whole story wraps around a shooting that happened at Sterling High. A shooting which had been done by Peter Houghton. [*LE GASP*]
No one really has expected Peter of all people to be able to pull this off. Why? Because Peter was that loser kid that everyone picked up. He once had a friend-Josie-but, they even took her away from him. Peter has always been that kinda kid who could never stand up for himself-which made it more fun to pick on him. Peter may have had problems, anti-social like really anti-social since not even the other losers wanted to hang out with him. He's not welcomed. Never will be. 
But, that would give him more reason to start the shooting huh? In the book, Peter's lawyer-Jordan-and his wife, Selena, were like: 
Jordan: Battered women syndrome. It's a valid legal defense. Battered women get stuck   in a world that slams them down; eventually the feel so constantly threatened that they take action and truly believe they're protecting themselves-even if their husbands are fast asleep. That fits Peter Houghton, to a T." 
Selena: "Far be it from me to point out this to you, Jordan. But Peter's not female, and he's not married."
Jordan: "That's not the point. It's Post-Traumatic stress disorder.  When these women go ballistic and shoot their husbands or slice of their [not-gonna-say-this] they aren't thinking about the consequences...just about stopping aggression. That's what Peter's been saying all along-he wanted it to stop. And this is even better because I don't have to fight the Prosecutor's usual rebuttal about a grown woman being old enough to know what she's doing when she picks up the knife or gun. Peter's a kid. By definition, he doesn't know what he's doing." 
It also says: "Monsters don't grow out of nowhere; a housewife didn't turn into a murder unless someone turned her into one. The Dr. Frankenstein, in her case, was a controlling husband. And in Peter's case, it was the whole of Sterling High School. Bullies kicked and teased and punched and pinched, all behaviors meant to force someone back where he belonged. it was at the hands of his tormentors that Peter learned to fight back."
Peter was a nice, gentle kid, like the book says, Peter didn't turn into a monster, he didn't want to start the shooting. But he had to, if he wanted it to end, if he wanted all the pain they caused him, all the hurt, mentally, emotionally, and physically, he wanted that to go away. 
All the children who died's parents may not like it. But, they can't say their children were the victims. They can't be like: Peter is a monster! He murdered 10 kids! He deserves to feel the pain we feel! But, do they really know how their children acted. Do they know what evil things they did to Peter? How they broke his glasses. How they called him gay and made fun of him. How the hurt him. Punched him down. Kicked him. Made him bleed. Are they really so gullible they don't see? 
I'm not saying that what Peter did was good, no, shooting a bunch of kids, killing 10 and leaving some injured and scarred mentally? No, that's not good. I'm not saying that. I'm just deciding to see the way Jordan has to fight for Peter in court.  Everyone just looks out on the surface of things, judging them from there, making them seem like a bad person, when they haven't seen the inside of it. Do they not see the pathetic little Peter who was just defending himself? Do they not see a little kid who didn't know what to do other than to stop it? Clearly, Sterling doesn't see it, only very few people do, and they're not really doing anything-all, well except Jordan. 
Peter may have done all that damage, but he was just doing his best. He couldn't go to the teachers. They just told the students who bullied him that they should stop or would get in trouble. They never made it clear they were going to stop-stop it, they just said. He couldn't go to his mother or father, because clealry they did not see. Plus, he felt like they didn't understand him. No one understood him until they looked closely into Peter. 
My question now is: Which side do you take? Do you see Peter as guilty and should be killed, should pay for his crimes? Or do you see a helpless little boy who was just defending himself-or at least was trying to defend himself.