I grew up in the wake of columbine, as a teen in the 2000’s. Weird time. Like someone on true anon said it best:
In a weird way this was the real end of America. Everyone in power punted on the chance to offer any meaningful remedy for school shootings, they eventually became normalized, and every other horrifying event that has occurred since is offered the same response that was offered to Columbine- thoughts and prayers.
I still remember when I learned about the white supremacist/Nazi side of the Columbine shooters, growing up I heard all the standard “they were bullied/trenchcoat mafia” type shit, I had to learn on my own about their obsession with hitler and how they were trying to follow the example of the Oklahoma city bomber
Yeah I didn’t learn the neo-nazi angle to the shooter’s until I started reading the subreddit back in 2019-2020 or so.
I was also a teen at the time but I knew about their idolization of Hitler pretty soon after it happened. I do remember it being mentioned in the news, but their Nazism was always just a quick side note, only remarked on in passing before focusing on the fact that they played Doom and listened to Marilyn Manson, which was where all The Discourse got centered. Their fascist inclinations were what got written off as typical edgy teenager behavior whereas the shit that really was just typical edgy teenager behavior (at worst) was what got all the attention. A decent example of emphasis/de-emphasis as a tool of propaganda in news media.
Learned about that from a YouTube doc about Teenage Dirtbag
I remember it being THE school shooting growing up, the one that scared people across the country into developing plans and such for dealing with school intruders and taking it all much more seriously
Now, 14 dead (and the shooters) would barely make headlines for a week
Yeah it’s wild how normalized school shootings have become. Like other people much smarter than me have said, if after Sandy Hook gun control didn’t happen, it never will now.
three days, tops
Columbine is the third school shooting I remember making national news in my lifetime. The other two, while terrible and confusing, were not Made For TV. The media also didn’t know how to cover such horror.
Columbine was prime-time ready. Kids in black trench coats, best friends who at least looked like social outcasts, taking over the whole school. Then there’s a Christian martyr (Cassie Bernall), a ton of casualties and deaths. The story angles are obvious and hit hard with the pearl-clutching-do-nothing class.
That massacre created a fear elsewhere, and there are a lot of shootings inspired by Columbine, including Kerch Polytechnic College massacre.
Never heard of this shooting
no shame in that, there’s more school shootings than schooldays in a year in the US at this point.
I had been out of HS for two years when this happened.
This is what caused the HS to go to a closed campus, to hire cops instead of rent-a-cops, and to begin installing locking doors in classrooms.
Yeah I had just got into high school when it happened and we got locking front doors and a school cop.
Just the year before there was a well planned, for a child, school shooting in Jonesboro Arkansas. Kids pulled the fire alarm and laid in wait for the students to file out. That and Columbine back to back made me think even then that this was normal and I just had never noticed. But no it wasn’t normal yet
I swear I was the only person who remembers this. I was the same age as the shooter and I remember saying “that kid’s evil but that’s a really smart and creative plan for a 12yo”
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