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...

It is troubling that many of the solutions to mass shootings choose to focus on arming people to stop the shooter, or preventing the shooter from getting to people once they are already firing their weapon. As of February 2018, the vast majority ( 90% - Quinnipac , ) of Americans are in favor of background checks to keep weapons out of the hands of mentally ill people with violent potential. It is a simple, common sense suggestion, but how do we determine who has violent potential and who doesn't before they actually at on their urges? Mental illness is a very broad category. Suffering from depression does not make one a danger to society, and having a personality disorder does not equal violent intent by any means. In 1966, the Texas University shooter had seen a psychiatrist, and reported feelings of rage and a desire to harm people. No actions were taken to evaluate him, or prevent him from harming others. Often so subtle or inconclusive the red flags were overlooked...

The United States has very complicated privacy laws. Often those in authority are not allowed to share information with one another. The court might not be allowed to notify the school of a problem with a student, nor can the school notify law enforcement about a problem if it is outside of the scope of the law. The teachers and staff aren't always allowed to talk among themselves about a student or compare notes to see if the other teachers have seen similar behavior. Even if a principal is aware of a problem, he can't always warn the other teachers. Studies have been done where teachers have been fed information about a particular students performance ahead of time. In some cases they were told that students performed well above average on tests, when they were actually poor performers. On the other hand a child that was presented to a teacher as a "problem child" could be in every other case a model student, but this specific teacher saw them exactly as they we...