Echoes of Columbine

I am a mother of 3, from Colorado, USA. I am also a writer, researcher, and Colorado certified victim’s advocate. I began researching school shootings in 2007, just after the Virginia Tech Shooting. At first, I was just toying with the idea of writing a book about a school shooter. Seeking realism I spent what would become the next ten years digging into these massacres. Though I vowed to keep an open mind and put all preconceived notions about my research into school shootings aside, I was shocked to find my views on many things challenged with each new case I studied.  I had to change what the “typical” school shooter looked like in my head. I had to look at the role of parents, schools, courts, and even the media in a new way. Why were the shooters overwhelmingly male? Why were the shooters mostly American? How big of a role did guns really play? And most of all where there holes in the system that could be plugged?  What I learned in a nutshell, is that crea...

When searching for solutions to mass violence, the guns are only one factor in the overall picture. There have been several cases of mass murder that did not involve firearms at all. What follows are some of those incidents, which had many of the same hallmarks as a school shooting without the guns. Some feel these incidents are proof that gun control will not stop mass killings, which is sadly true. Some people are broken beyond what society can ever really understand. In places where guns are difficult to access, people have found other weapons sometimes to even more deadly effect. Deadliest by far has been fire, which is why all public buildings are required to have sufficient fire safety measures in place. Overhead sprinklers, multiple exits, posted exit plans, fire safety drills. These are all in place to prevent further mass fire casualties. Bladed weapons are the most often used in mass attacks, especially in places with strict gun control. Rarely do mass stabbings end w...

If you came to Echoes of Columbine in search of a way to 100% positively identify a school shooter before the fact, you've come to the wrong place. Any group or person who clams they have any single identifier is just plain wrong. Currently, the only way to find them is to wait for them to hurt someone and then try to intervene as quickly as possible. That method is costing America dearly. Everyone has their pet cause of course. Many have blamed bullying, while just as many say it is easy access to guns. Others blame it on mental health issues. Violence in movies, music, and video games are favorite targets as well. Some say it is the media fascination with blood and anti-heroes. The copycat effect. Lack of parenting and failure to disciple. Weak school structures. Overcrowded classrooms. A godless society. Latchkey kids. Nobody seems to agree where the blame should go, and all of this finger pointing is wasting valuable time. They not only keep happening, but have increas...

The Cult of Columbine now dictates that the crimes be more shocking and the body counts be higher with each attempt. Including explosives. Ways to carry more ammo. Ways to prevent people from escaping. Though they usually worked alone, sometimes in pairs, they all worked towards a singular goal. Destruction of our society from within. They wanted to make us hurt, this much is true but more than they they wanted that hurt to be known, and impossible to forget. Mass shooters are all copy cats now, carbon copies of carbon copies. The goal of mass shootings isn't just to kill people. Mass shooters are often suicidal as well as homicidal. They have usually already decided to end their own lives through suicide by cop. If death was their eventual goal, why did they feel the need to create such a spectacle around it? Part of that power they are looking for comes from the media attention. The attention previous crimes have gathered is usually part of their overall plan. If they jus...

In every mass shooting case you will find what professionals refer to as "leakage". The perpetrators leaked plans before the attack. It was as if they boiled over, or perhaps were testing the reaction. These kids told at least one other personally, usually more than one ahead of time. In some cases dozens of students knew about the plot beforehand, they even gathered to watch that morning just to see if it would really happen. Almost a year before Columbine, local law enforcement officers were handed death threats, detailed bomb making instructions, and even details on the bomb tests. This information was all housed on a personal website run by one of the perpetrators. Law enforcement even went as far as obtaining a search warrant... but failed to execute it. After the criminal investigation began, that information disappeared for a time, only to be retrieved by a reporter. Up to that point law enforcement denied it existed at all. Many of the witnesses questioned after...

In almost all cases these boys felt as if they were separate from the rest of the world. They were misunderstood at home, they were teased at school. As a result they began to develop an "it's me against the world" mindset. They fail to understand that image isn't everything. They felt they had no friends. they felt they had no support, and they felt like things would never change for them. You notice that I say they "felt." In many cases it seems they were not as alone as they imagined themselves to be. After the fact many had friends or acquaintances come forward who had no idea the boy felt that isolated and alone in the world. Perception is 9/10th of our reality. They felt alienated, even when they weren't. This became their reality. Whether they were alone in life or not, these boys felt alone. In most cases, they had a severely damaged self-image. Many of them would have gone on to lead happy and successful lives. They would have gotten marri...

When does a boy become a man? We are one of the very few societies without a rite of passage. There is no clear line between childhood and adulthood for most American youth. In most societies a boy was introduced to manhood around the age of 12 or 13. Here 18 is old enough to go to war and die for your country, but not old enough to legally drink a beer. As modern Americans our culture is one of few that does not offer a clear cut line to define where childhood ends, and where manhood begins. We have several stepping stones. Turning 13, turning 16, getting their drivers license, turning 18, going off to college, turning 21. Is it any wonder our American boys are confused? We live in a society that places a great deal of emphasis on the image of masculinity with no clear but lines on what that actually means. As far as school shooters, almost none of these boys fit into the traditional male image. They were small for their age, often thin, they were not ladies men, and in many...

According to the Secret Service study, 71% of school shooters reported feeling "persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked or injured by others," with some of the bullying classified as "long-standing and severe." Many of those who committed school shootings also targeted females to a large degree. Some were girls that did not return their affections, many whom they described as snotty and stuck-up. Columbine shooters journal entries specifically called some of these girls "Christian snobs." Real or not, it seems they felt rejected by these girls for one reason or another - socially, romantically, and even religiously. The Columbine school shooters planned what they considered their revenge for two years. They had started with desired "kill lists" but most of the people on the list had graduated the year before. It's clear that these boys did not "just snap." Their rage did not weaken or dissipate, and they continued with the...

Why a Recipe? There are so many questions after a mass shootings, most remain unanswered. It is easy to get lost trying to wrap your head around the where, and the who, and the whys of such a deep tragedy. What could go so wrong in a persons life that they would choose to kill random people for no reason? Everybody wants to find that one thing that has the power to stop this cycle, but it isn't that simple. When you make a cake, you don't just get out a the sugar. Likewise if you leave a bowl of flour and milk on the counter you will end up with a cake no longer how long you wait. A few cups of flour, some sugar, eggs, milk, butter, and a little bit of baking powder are the basic ingredients. Then, after some heat is applied and some chemical reactions take place if all goes right, you will be having dessert. There are many different kinds of cake, each with their own unique recipe. Most cakes do have similar base ingredients though, and when you think about it so d...