The lesson is clear to me. The people that made outcasts of the Trenchcoat Mafia shouldn't have been so mean. The killings result from the meanness in the actions of the self-righteous in-crowd, of those who think themselves "the way to be".

There is no right "way to be". Thanks to TV, movies, books and magazines, we know that people can live their lives in so many varied ways that we can never cataloue them all. There is not one right way to be.

We shouldn't be mean to people and we shouldn't punish people for beiing different.

Everyone matters.
Thinking about how two boys caused so much pain leaves me with an even more profound and general thought: Everyone matters. One single person on the planet that gets hold of some anthrax, or a stray nuclear weapon could manage to create so much horror as we have not yet seen. (Do you really believe that, even now, there are no stray nuclear weapons in the world?!) Everyone matters. We live a fragile life of mutual dependence. We live with, by and for each other (though not exclusively)

One unhappy man halfway around the world can make your life unbearable if he finds himself with the right tools.

I'm not suggesting that we need to make sure that everyone is happy; that's an impossible task. But I do believe we should collectively realize that the other guy matters. He holds our lives in his hands.