Columbine Massacre 20 year Anniversary

[JordynDarby5]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/for-columbine-survivors-life-is-about-finding-that-new-normal-20-years-later/ar-BBW2oX6?ocid=spartanntp

http://www.wistv.com/2019/04/20/years-after-school-attack-columbine-remembers-lost/

I hope its okay to create a thread for this. Today is the 20th anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. I was a senior in high school when it happened and lived in a nearby town.  The school is having a public remembrance service today.

Although there had been school shootings throughout the 90s it was at the time the biggest one. Every time there's a new one it always reminds me of Columbine. It was really scary. Its been burned into my memory. I still think about it and the victims often especially today. 

I didn't know any of victims but one of my friends did. I still remember her crying for days afterwards.  Our teachers let us watch the news coverage every day in each class afterwards.

On Tuesday the school along with many others were locked down because there was a threat from an 18 year old made threats towards various schools including Columbine. The school along with many others were closed on Wednesday.  The 18 year old was found dead in apparent suicide in the foothills on Wednesday.

Until Virginia Tech, Columbine was the worse. It was always mentioned and compared too. Obviously, since then there have been so many more and most worse then Columbine. It was hard to imagine back then it could ever be worse then Columbine. But of course there were. Virginia Tech, Newtown and Parkland. Its been 20 years and nothing really has been done to stop it. There have been no real changes.  Just the same words, same hearts and prayers. But no actual change.  I hope we finally find away to make them all just stop.

I hope the survivors have all found peace with what happened and are doing really well.  

http://time.com/5572586/columbine-shooting-20th-anniversary-teacher/

Edited April 20, 2019 by JordynDarby5

[louisa05]

Columbine rocked me as a young teacher. Every school shooting since has as well. After Parkland, on a relative's Facebook page, someone I vaguely  know (person my mother grew up with) told me that if I or other teachers or more students get killed in a school shooting, it's just "a price we pay for our 2nd Amendment freedom". That rocked me, too. Teachers and children are considered collateral damage so the gun nuts can continue with their disgusting obsession. When someone can say that (and get over 20 people to click "like"), well, perhaps we deserve for this country to collapse in ruin. Because we've moved beyond all reason. 

As a substitute, I am handed a lanyard every morning in each building (well, except one where they prefer that we can't lock the room and can be locked outside with students, I guess). It has a classroom key, a fob for outside entrances and a card with lockdown procedures. When I go in a classroom I haven't been in before, during my morning routine of reading plans and locating everything I may need, I take a moment to figure out where the students and I can hide in case of a lockdown type emergency--translation: where will I hide these kids from a shooter. I also scan to see if there is a good quick way to get them out, even though instructions are to not do so. If getting them out were the best choice, every teacher I know says they'd get them out (through a window, exit that doesn't go into the hall, etc...). 

I have lost faith in any government, state, local or federal doing anything to prevent any of this. Even the ones who like to brush off any talk of gun control and go on about it being a mental health issue won't fund mental health professionals in schools. The school psychologists I know can tell you about the dismal statistics of how many licensed mental health professionals are available in our schools as a ratio to student population. Currently there is one for every 1381 students while the recommendation of their professional organization is to cut that ratio by more than half. One of my districts has made that investment and has two for a total preK-12 population of about 850. The other district serves 2500 students and has 1.5 school psychologists (one full time, one half time). BTW, guidance counselors are not licensed mental health professionals. Our state legislature just shut down a program that made services of state employed licensed mental health professionals more available in schools, in fact. They deemed it unnecessary. So even the "it's a mental health issue" thing is all talk. 

 

[JordynDarby5]

26 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

Columbine rocked me as a young teacher. Every school shooting since has as well. After Parkland, on a relative's Facebook page, someone I vaguely  know (person my mother grew up with) told me that if I or other teachers or more students get killed in a school shooting, it's just "a price we pay for our 2nd Amendment freedom". That rocked me, too. Teachers and children are considered collateral damage so the gun nuts can continue with their disgusting obsession. When someone can say that (and get over 20 people to click "like"), well, perhaps we deserve for this country to collapse in ruin. Because we've moved beyond all reason. 

As a substitute, I am handed a lanyard every morning in each building (well, except one where they prefer that we can't lock the room and can be locked outside with students, I guess). It has a classroom key, a fob for outside entrances and a card with lockdown procedures. When I go in a classroom I haven't been in before, during my morning routine of reading plans and locating everything I may need, I take a moment to figure out where the students and I can hide in case of a lockdown type emergency--translation: where will I hide these kids from a shooter. I also scan to see if there is a good quick way to get them out, even though instructions are to not do so. If getting them out were the best choice, every teacher I know says they'd get them out (through a window, exit that doesn't go into the hall, etc...). 

I have lost faith in any government, state, local or federal doing anything to prevent any of this. Even the ones who like to brush off any talk of gun control and go on about it being a mental health issue won't fund mental health professionals in schools. The school psychologists I know can tell you about the dismal statistics of how many licensed mental health professionals are available in our schools as a ratio to student population. Currently there is one for every 1381 students while the recommendation of their professional organization is to cut that ratio by more than half. One of my districts has made that investment and has two for a total preK-12 population of about 850. The other district serves 2500 students and has 1.5 school psychologists (one full time, one half time). BTW, guidance counselors are not licensed mental health professionals. Our state legislature just shut down a program that made services of state employed licensed mental health professionals more available in schools, in fact. They deemed it unnecessary. So even the "it's a mental health issue" thing is all talk. 

 

My sister-in-law is a teacher and so are some of my cousins. Their schools practice throughout the school year with their kids drilling them with different scenarios of school shooters. I remember my nephew telling me excitedly that he "passed" one because he didn't fall for a trick of a school shooter. Its so horrible that they have to practice. They have to prepare. Each of the schools are locked and any visitor has to go through the front door but has to be bussed in and unlocked the door.  

I remember in the years before Columbine at my high school we got used to the school passing off bomb threats and other credible threats as fire drills. But we always knew because the police showing up and searching the school with police dogs. We'd just wait out on the football field for three or four hours until it was all cleared and went right back to class. It was so normal. 

I've given up on any government, state, etc. doing anything too. Its been twenty years and the only thing that has changed is more security for schools and more school shootings and the rise of mass shootings. A lot of people have died. Adults, teenagers, and kids. Little kids have died in school shootings and that wasn't enough to get people to do something. I had hoped for change after Columbine. For something but after Newtown happened and nothing changed. That was the one I knew it never will. Shooting of high school students didn't change anything, or college students and not elementary school kids. But I'll never understand why.  

[Bajovane]

After Newtown,  I lost faith that common sense gun laws would ever be enacted.  When people decided that the loss of 20 first graders was ok, and their right to own guns like an AR-15 was far more important.... I just died inside.   Nobody needs a gun capable of SPRAYING bullets.   Each child at Newtown had between 3 to 11 bullets.  They were literally shredded. 

But oh noes, our gun rights shall not be infringed - ever. 

[formergothardite]

11 minutes ago, Bajovane said:

After Newtown,  I lost faith that common sense gun laws would ever be enacted.  When people decided that the loss of 20 first graders was ok, and their right to own guns like an AR-15 was far more important.... I just died inside.   Nobody needs a gun capable of SPRAYING bullets.   Each child at Newtown had between 3 to 11 bullets.  They were literally shredded. 

But oh noes, our gun rights shall not be infringed - ever. 

After Newtown I lost faith in a lot of people. I remember seeing people I had liked posting about how ti was all faked to take guns. Realizing that people who I knew would react to children being murdered by clutching their guns and claiming it was all lies was very sobering. There is something seriously wrong in this country that little children getting gunned down in school won't make people rethink anything. 

[ViolaSebastian]

1 hour ago, louisa05 said:

Columbine rocked me as a young teacher. Every school shooting since has as well. After Parkland, on a relative's Facebook page, someone I vaguely  know (person my mother grew up with) told me that if I or other teachers or more students get killed in a school shooting, it's just "a price we pay for our 2nd Amendment freedom". That rocked me, too. Teachers and children are considered collateral damage so the gun nuts can continue with their disgusting obsession. When someone can say that (and get over 20 people to click "like"), well, perhaps we deserve for this country to collapse in ruin. Because we've moved beyond all reason. 

As a substitute, I am handed a lanyard every morning in each building (well, except one where they prefer that we can't lock the room and can be locked outside with students, I guess). It has a classroom key, a fob for outside entrances and a card with lockdown procedures. When I go in a classroom I haven't been in before, during my morning routine of reading plans and locating everything I may need, I take a moment to figure out where the students and I can hide in case of a lockdown type emergency--translation: where will I hide these kids from a shooter. I also scan to see if there is a good quick way to get them out, even though instructions are to not do so. If getting them out were the best choice, every teacher I know says they'd get them out (through a window, exit that doesn't go into the hall, etc...). 

I have lost faith in any government, state, local or federal doing anything to prevent any of this. Even the ones who like to brush off any talk of gun control and go on about it being a mental health issue won't fund mental health professionals in schools. The school psychologists I know can tell you about the dismal statistics of how many licensed mental health professionals are available in our schools as a ratio to student population. Currently there is one for every 1381 students while the recommendation of their professional organization is to cut that ratio by more than half. One of my districts has made that investment and has two for a total preK-12 population of about 850. The other district serves 2500 students and has 1.5 school psychologists (one full time, one half time). BTW, guidance counselors are not licensed mental health professionals. Our state legislature just shut down a program that made services of state employed licensed mental health professionals more available in schools, in fact. They deemed it unnecessary. So even the "it's a mental health issue" thing is all talk. 

 

In my state, the legislature just passed a law that requires one mental health professional for every 2,500 students. Patted themselves on the back while the social work community wondered how one person could keep tabs on 2,500 people and provide treatment—especially in schools with populations exposed to a lot of trauma. That’s not sustainable and none of us want a job like that where we’re set up to fail. I feel your pain. 

[louisa05]

1 hour ago, ViolaSebastian said:

In my state, the legislature just passed a law that requires one mental health professional for every 2,500 students. Patted themselves on the back while the social work community wondered how one person could keep tabs on 2,500 people and provide treatment—especially in schools with populations exposed to a lot of trauma. That’s not sustainable and none of us want a job like that where we’re set up to fail. I feel your pain. 

One school psychologist I talked to after Parkland emphasized that one of their jobs should be risk assessment. One person cannot adequately do that for a population of 2500. At the time, she was the only one in that district. Since then, they hired a second by going with a licensed school psychologist for the open elementary guidance position rather than someone with just a master's in guidance which is not adequate for mental health needs. 

[Bajovane]

My cousin is a school psychologist in Arizona.   She told me that the true number of gun incidents are much higher than the media reports.  Not all involve a shooting, of course, but she was stunned to learn how bad the issue is. 

[Carm_88]

I was 10 at the time of Columbine and even though, I lived in Canada; we started doing drills in case an active shooter was in the school. Now they have lock down drills. 

Newtown shook me to the core. We were celebrating my Dad's birthday and we turned on the news. Birthday was completely forgotten because all we could think was those poor kids. Was it last month that one of the children who was killed in Newtown committed suicide? I think it was. 

As for Columbine, I still think of what Dylan Klebold's mother thought when she heard that there was an active shooter and thought that it was her son or maybe knew, I am not sure exactly. She hoped that he killed himself instead of hurting anyone else. How hard must that be as a parent? 

[JordynDarby5]

3 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

In my state, the legislature just passed a law that requires one mental health professional for every 2,500 students. Patted themselves on the back while the social work community wondered how one person could keep tabs on 2,500 people and provide treatment—especially in schools with populations exposed to a lot of trauma. That’s not sustainable and none of us want a job like that where we’re set up to fail. I feel your pain. 

 

2 hours ago, louisa05 said:

One school psychologist I talked to after Parkland emphasized that one of their jobs should be risk assessment. One person cannot adequately do that for a population of 2500. At the time, she was the only one in that district. Since then, they hired a second by going with a licensed school psychologist for the open elementary guidance position rather than someone with just a master's in guidance which is not adequate for mental health needs. 

This doesn't surprise me. In our district there we don't have a school psychologist or mental profession. Instead it was given to the guidance counselors who have no training, degree and weren't even hired for that job but to help get kids into college and help with grades. Because it would cost money to hire someone or a couple people who are qualify when they can instead give it to someone their already paying. But their expected to somehow be able to spot problem kids. Its absolutely insane how little effort can be bothered into protecting kids and trying to spot troubled ones. Nope, its all let's lock doors, cameras, put mental detectors, and expect a couple unqualified people to spot the problem. It doesn't work. Its clear that it doesn't work. But no one will do anything about it.

8 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

I was 10 at the time of Columbine and even though, I lived in Canada; we started doing drills in case an active shooter was in the school. Now they have lock down drills. 

Newtown shook me to the core. We were celebrating my Dad's birthday and we turned on the news. Birthday was completely forgotten because all we could think was those poor kids. Was it last month that one of the children who was killed in Newtown committed suicide? I think it was. 

As for Columbine, I still think of what Dylan Klebold's mother thought when she heard that there was an active shooter and thought that it was her son or maybe knew, I am not sure exactly. She hoped that he killed himself instead of hurting anyone else. How hard must that be as a parent? 

It was both. There was one Parkland survivor that committed suicide about the same time or same weekend as one of the parents' from Newton. 

[Bajovane]

9 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

I was 10 at the time of Columbine and even though, I lived in Canada; we started doing drills in case an active shooter was in the school. Now they have lock down drills. 

Newtown shook me to the core. We were celebrating my Dad's birthday and we turned on the news. Birthday was completely forgotten because all we could think was those poor kids. Was it last month that one of the children who was killed in Newtown committed suicide? I think it was. 

 

Yes, one of the fathers recently committed suicide.   Too tragic

[Glasgowghirl]

6 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Columbine rocked me as a young teacher. Every school shooting since has as well. After Parkland, on a relative's Facebook page, someone I vaguely  know (person my mother grew up with) told me that if I or other teachers or more students get killed in a school shooting, it's just "a price we pay for our 2nd Amendment freedom". That rocked me, too. Teachers and children are considered collateral damage so the gun nuts can continue with their disgusting obsession. When someone can say that (and get over 20 people to click "like"), well, perhaps we deserve for this country to collapse in ruin. Because we've moved beyond all reason

That to me seems insane that people would say that about a shooting. I was 8 on the 13th of March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary school and shot dead 16 children and a teacher. It was the first and hopefully the last school shooting ever to happen in Scotland or the rest of the UK. The movement to ban guns started almost immediately, their were some opposition to it originally Prime Minister, John Major wanted to ban all hand guns but had to compromise and the ban only went to up to .22 calibre but later on that year, when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, the ban was extended to all hand guns. 

Columbine did attract a lot of coverage here in the UK as well, I thought the US would do the same as what the UK did and introduce gun control's to prevent more deaths, I was 11 at the time. I watched a few interviews with survivors of Columbine, one woman spoke about on the day of the shooting her basketball coach handed her a basketball scholarship and he wished her luck for next year and gave her a hug, next time she saw him he was telling students to run from the shooters and later he was killed. She ended up not taking the scholarship because she could no longer play a game without being upset and picturing her coach. 

The image I always remember from the news of the Dunblane shootings is seeing petrified mother's running to the school gates to see if their child was dead or alive. No parent should send their children to school and have to go through that. Better mental health treatment for people that may become future shooter, better security in schools and public buildings and make it harder for at risk people getting guns is needed. While it may not prevent every shooting but even if it halved the number of shooting in the US it would go a long way.

 

[louisa05]

@Glasgowghirl The gun nuts (who are a separate group from reasonable gun owners who understand that they own deadly weapons which should have some restrictions for everyone's safety--and those people do exist) are controlling the narrative and public policy in this country. 

One in my family was a victim of domestic violence in her first marriage but the gun nuttery has taken her over with insane propaganda to the point that she was railing against the idea of red flag laws targeting people with restraining orders or convictions for domestic violence on social media lately. The laws would prohibit those people and others that law enforcement can prove are a potential threat to others from purchasing or owning firearms. A survivor of domestic violence has been brainwashed by the propaganda of the gun lobby to believe that her abuser should be allowed to own guns. That's how strong it is. So why wouldn't they believe that some teachers and students dying is okay as long as they get to keep their weaponry? 

It's disgusting. 

[Glasgowghirl]

@louisa05 Even when hand guns were legal here, it wasn't something most people had. Shot guns are still legal in the UK but it's mainly farmer's and Hunter's that have them. Scotland went one further than the rest of the UK and introduced a restriction on air guns a couple of years ago. In 2004 a two year boy was shot dead by a man who had been aiming his air gun at other people, his parents had tried to get them banned in the UK but they wouldn't go for it and the Scottish Parliament at the time didn't have the power to introduce any legislation restricting them. 

Guns have became part of a lot of American's culture and people are that use to having them, that they feel they are needed for protection. The NRA and other gun lobbyists have gotten people thinking that people are wanting to take all guns away, when they are only wanting to have harder background checks. I remember when I was upgrading my mobile phone and they were having to do credit checks and checking that I wasn't taking out a contract using other people's Identity to get the phone, an American customer said that it is quicker to get a gun in the US than what it was to get a phone here. 

 

[Briefly]

Guns don't kill people, people kill people is the tagline that I always hear.  No, they don't - but people using them do kill people is my response.  I am not anti-gun, but they simply are too easily available.  I am responsible, so is Mr. Briefly. But not everybody is.  There needs to be a complete overhaul of the system.  I do not believe for a second that "they" want to take all our guns away, as the NRA often claims.  But some guns simply should not be available to the general public.  There is simply no reason for an average citizen to have semi-automatic weapons.  I do know someone who has one, they bought one a couple of years ago because they bought into the line about how "they" are going to take all our guns away.

I read the book by Sue Klebold, it's called A Mother's Reckoning.  It is intense and I think that at times she was in denial and may still be to a point.  But that may be how she copes with the knowledge of what her son did.  My take was that her son had mental issues that should have been dealt with and that his parents were not as attentive as they should have been.  Which is easy for me to say since I'm not in her shoes.

When Newtown happened, I was on the way to pick my daughter up the community college she was attending.  It was the last day before the winter break.  I heard the first news reports when I was on the way there, and I was trying hard not to cry when she was getting in the car.  All I could think of was that we could hug our daughter, but those parents couldn't hug their children.  And that the children were so young.  And within a day or so, the idiotic conservative news speakers were all on the bandwagon about how "they" were all going to take our guns away because of this and how wrong that would be, and so few of them actually seemed to remember that those were very young children that were murdered by someone who never should have had access to a gun.  Yes, I know that it was his mother who had the gun legally, but she knew how her son was and she should not have had that weaponry where he could get to it.

It makes me furious beyond belief when I hear people insisting that it was a hoax, or that any of the school shootings were hoaxes.

[VelociRapture]

I grew up in the Newtown area. The day of the shooting I was at work in a nearby city and saw there had been a shooting at a school in the state - no idea where or what school or whether there were any casualties. My heart stopped because I immediately thought of my big sister, who was teaching sixth grade language arts at the time. I know how much she cares about her students and I know without a doubt she’d die protecting them if it came down to it, so I was beyond terrified to open up that article. I still feel guilty to this day that I initially felt relief when I saw it wasn’t her district or school. 

I know people who lost family members at Sandy Hook. One of the adults was the cousin of someone I went to college with. Another was the great-great-niece of my father’s favorite Aunt (her husband was this woman’s biological uncle, so I’m not directly related and didn’t know them well at all.) One of the women who cuts our hair had children who attended school in Newtown at the time, though I’m not sure if they were at Sandy Hook. One of my coworkers at the time had a granddaughter at Sandy Hook, though thankfully she wasn’t in the classrooms attacked. What happened at Sandy Hook was horrific for so many people across the entire country, but especially for those of us from the immediate area. I think anyone from an area that experiences a mass shooting - like Columbine, Aurora, and Parkland - would probably understand and agree with that sentiment. Having evil like that touch so close to home changes you and changes your community. 

Alex Jones and the others who have spawned those conspiracy theories are scum. I’m not a violent person by any means, but I’m so tempted to forget that every time I see a conspiracy theory floated about Sandy Hook. What kind of monster do you have to be to profit off of the crushing grief of those families?! Especially when so many of the victims were so young?! I just... I can’t. I just can’t.

I struggle with how I feel about this country more and more everyday, partly because of this very issue. I worry every single day for the safety of the teachers I know and love - my sister, my husband’s older brother, one of our longtime friends - and for the ones I don’t know. And I worry every single day for the kids who go to school not knowing if they’ll be safe there. I worry every time I take my toddler somewhere crowded or indoors - like a mall - and I make sure I take a few moments to locate places to hide or escape routes in case of a shooting. The fact that I feel I have to do that to keep my child and myself safe is a travesty. The fact that so many have been hurt and killed since Columbine without the Government doing anything is also an absolute travesty. Every time I hear a politician talk about this being the “greatest” country, I just laugh because great countries don’t willingly allow their children and citizens to be slaughtered.

[smittykins]

And then you have people who go on social media and say “But what about the babies who are murdered in their mothers’ wombs Every Single Day?”

Edited May 5, 2019 by smittykins

[Bajovane]

2 minutes ago, smittykins said:

And then you have people who go on social media and say “But what about the babies who are murdered in their mothers’ wombs Every Single Day?”

It's always whataboutisms with those people.  I'm sick of that argument. 

[Glasgowghirl]

34 minutes ago, Bajovane said:

It's always whataboutisms with those people.  I'm sick of that argument. 

That pisses me off too, every arguement they have to bring up abortion. I went to both a Catholic primary and high school and while I knew the church did not agree with abortion, it wasn't slammed down our throats everyday and we certainly didn't bring it into every political argument. 

11 hours ago, Briefly said:

I read the book by Sue Klebold, it's called A Mother's Reckoning.  It is intense and I think that at times she was in denial and may still be to a point.  But that may be how she copes with the knowledge of what her son did.  My take was that her son had mental issues that should have been dealt with and that his parents were not as attentive as they should have been.  Which is easy for me to say since I'm not in her shoes

I can't imagine what the Harris and Klebold family's were going through at the time of shooting, grieving the loss of their son's and also knowing they killed and injured so many other people. No parent wants to think their child is capable of doing that and a lot of people including them missed signals that the boy's were going to do something terrible. Them being able to access guns and buy the ammoniation so easy didn't help either.

[JordynDarby5]

2 hours ago, Bajovane said:

It's always whataboutisms with those people.  I'm sick of that argument. 

So am I. I am so sick of it. There are actual children who are alive that need help. That need a good home, a good education, access to decent health care and should be able to have all of those things including going to school and not having to worry about losing their lives because someone mentally ill, or upset or doesn't give a shit showing up and trying to kill them. That's really not too much to ask for. There are things we can do to crack down on school shootings. Better gun laws to keep guns out of the hands of those mentally ill or dangerous, better and affordable mental health programs and making sure its access to everyone, and working to get those who need it the help they need, hiring people with the training and enough for each school to try and spot those who are trouble and need help. Its not going to prevent all of them of course. But it wouldn't prevent a lot. The other argument that infuriates me is the "What if we abort the person who cures cancer? "What if we abort the next winner of a Noble Peace prize?" You know what? Maybe the kid who grows up to cure cancer gets shot in his or her classroom. Maybe the person who was going to invent the next technological leap was shot dead in his or her classroom. Then next George Lucas, Rowlings, or Angelou.   There has been over two hundred kids and adults killed in school shootings in the last twenty years. I forget the actual number but its over two hundred. That's two hundred lives lost for no reason, kids who didn't get to grow up and decide what they wanted to be, adults who were doing their job, who were teaching kids, what about them? Where's the outrage at them losing their lives? And all they could have potentially done? What  about the hundreds more kids and teachers who survived but go on to have problems from surviving and from being shot? So many go onto have Survivor's guilt and spend decades in therapy or having problems stemming from what happened. Not to mention EMTs, police, SWAT, and medical who saw kids lying injured or dead in classrooms or treating them and unable to handle or ended up seeking therapy afterwards.   But no let's worry about the potential life of an unborn baby instead the lives of kids that are already here.   

[Themanda Duggar]

Eleven months before the shooting at Columbine, there was a shooting here, at Thurston high school, that resulted in 2 deaths and 25 injuries.  The shooter killed his parents before he went to the school that day.  I still think about the two boys who were killed there.  I think it’s important to remember them, and every child murdered in school, as the individual human beings they were, and not as faceless names on a list.  

I’ve thought a lot about our gun laws in the years since this shooting, and how to bring about change in the face of the seemingly all powerful NRA and our impotent legislature.  I have two ideas that I think could help shift the public narrative.  The first, which would have to be enacted by individual states, is to hold all gun owners criminally accountable for crimes committed with their guns, regardless of who committed the crime.  If it was stolen, then the owner failed to adequately secure it, and should bear equal criminal responsibility for it’s actions.

my other idea is gruesome, and that’s how it would have impact.  I think photos of the actual carnage from gun violence should be shown on the news, in the papers, on billboards...etc.  I think we should have no choice but to see what murdered children look like, what a classroom filled with splintered furniture, blood, gore, and dead children actually looks like.  We should all have to face the actual results of our laws.

I think about Mamie Till, and her insistence that her child’s brutalized body be publicly displayed in an open casket for all to see, and the impact that image had on the public.  When people saw the photos of Emmett’s body, so battered that he was unrecognizable, the narrative changed.  I think the public needs to be shocked in the same way over gun violence.  

[Carm_88]

7 hours ago, smittykins said:

And then you have people who go on social media and say “But what about the babies who are murdered in their mothers’ wombs Every Single Day?”

In one case, the mother is choosing to abort. The fetus that is within her, will not make her life any better. Whatever her reason is for that abortion, she made that choice. The children of the Sandy Hook massacre were much loved, much wanted children. Their parents brought them to school that day or sent them out the door never knowing that they would never see them alive again. They did not make the choice, the gunman did. Those children were murdered because the gunman wanted to go down in history. I know his name, I will not use it. Classifying a wanted abortion with the murder of children that close to Christmas is disgusting and anyone who does that is a horrible human being. 

[Briefly]

9 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I can't imagine what the Harris and Klebold family's were going through at the time of shooting, grieving the loss of their son's and also knowing they killed and injured so many other people. No parent wants to think their child is capable of doing that and a lot of people including them missed signals that the boy's were going to do something terrible. Them being able to access guns and buy the ammoniation so easy didn't help either.

According to Mrs. Klebold's book, the Harris family didn't seem as concerned about the obvious mental issues that their son had, it's been a few years since I read it but I want to say that they didn't even attempt to get him help and didn't really seem to pay attention to him and they probably knew about his fascination with guns.  What I did get from the book is that she is not attempting to shift the blame off of her son, that she feels terribly guilty about it as well as grieving the loss of her son and that she wrote it almost as a warning for other parents to pay attention. But I did feel very sorry for her.

[Cleopatra7]

27 minutes ago, Briefly said:

According to Mrs. Klebold's book, the Harris family didn't seem as concerned about the obvious mental issues that their son had, it's been a few years since I read it but I want to say that they didn't even attempt to get him help and didn't really seem to pay attention to him and they probably knew about his fascination with guns.  What I did get from the book is that she is not attempting to shift the blame off of her son, that she feels terribly guilty about it as well as grieving the loss of her son and that she wrote it almost as a warning for other parents to pay attention. But I did feel very sorry for her.

As I recall from an interview Sue Klebold gave a couple of years ago, Dylan’s brother was involved with drugs during the same time period that he and Eric Harris were planning the attacks. The family was so absorbed in the brother’s problems that Dylan fell through the cracks. All of this is yet another reason not to have Duggar sized families, since I seriously doubt that the Duggars and those of their ilk could handle multiple children in distress, other than send them to re-education camp.

[JordynDarby5]

6 hours ago, Themanda Duggar said:

Eleven months before the shooting at Columbine, there was a shooting here, at Thurston high school, that resulted in 2 deaths and 25 injuries.  The shooter killed his parents before he went to the school that day.  I still think about the two boys who were killed there.  I think it’s important to remember them, and every child murdered in school, as the individual human beings they were, and not as faceless names on a list.  

I’ve thought a lot about our gun laws in the years since this shooting, and how to bring about change in the face of the seemingly all powerful NRA and our impotent legislature.  I have two ideas that I think could help shift the public narrative.  The first, which would have to be enacted by individual states, is to hold all gun owners criminally accountable for crimes committed with their guns, regardless of who committed the crime.  If it was stolen, then the owner failed to adequately secure it, and should bear equal criminal responsibility for it’s actions.

my other idea is gruesome, and that’s how it would have impact.  I think photos of the actual carnage from gun violence should be shown on the news, in the papers, on billboards...etc.  I think we should have no choice but to see what murdered children look like, what a classroom filled with splintered furniture, blood, gore, and dead children actually looks like.  We should all have to face the actual results of our laws.

I think about Mamie Till, and her insistence that her child’s brutalized body be publicly displayed in an open casket for all to see, and the impact that image had on the public.  When people saw the photos of Emmett’s body, so battered that he was unrecognizable, the narrative changed.  I think the public needs to be shocked in the same way over gun violence.  

Both are good ideas. We wouldn't even have to go that far to charge the law just incorporate it into the aiding and abetting laws or facilitation or tie it felony laws. You give a gun to someone who goes and robs a store you can be held criminal responsible. That can be true if you give guns to friends or relatives who have mental problems or criminal. There was case not that long ago where the courts took away guns from a man who had mental problems I think it was Kentucky but it might have been another state. They gave the guns to his dad a year or so later, his dad gave them right back to his son. I want to say he was the one who tried to kill people at a fast food restaurant or something. That should make him as responsible as his son.