Columbine - Ten Years and a Day Later...

As previous generations can recall where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, many of us, particularly in Colorado recall where we were on the morning that two sick, murderous teenagers carried out their plan to attack their classmates at Columbine High School. I was a computer consultant, at work in an office in downtown Denver. News began to trickle over the internet as I, and my colleagues tried at first to focus on our work. But as more details of the attack emerged, it became harder to concentrate on anything else. I knew enough people in the area to wonder if anybody I had worked with in the past was, at that moment, rushing to CHS, desperate to know if their child was safe--or not.

It seems with the tenth anniversary that our society has reached a watershed. Some of the survivors, now in their twenties, have declared that the attack will not continue to define them. They will remember the events of ten years ago, but will also put it behind them, and move on with their lives. That may be easier for the classmates of the dead to do rather then the parents. But the fact remains that there is a fine line between remembering, and allowing what happened to define the rest of their lives.

Other people have used Columbine, and other criminal acts like it to advance their agenda of disarming Americans. They have called for everything from a ban on handguns, to a renewal of Clinton's expired [sic.] Assault Weapons ban (the city of Denver still has it's own AW ban in place).

On the other hand, more progressive views have prevailed. We now have laws in 48 of the 50 states that enable law abiding citizens to carry a handgun concealed (CCW) for their self-defense. Has blood flowed in the streets since CCW laws were enacted? No, with the exception of some criminals who were shot when they tried to attack an honest, citizen. In fact, statistics show that those people who are approved for issue of a concealed weapons permit are among the top tiers of law-abiding citizens.

Another important development has been the changes that Law enforcement has made in the way that they deal with school shootings. The most significant changes are improvements in communications between various emergency responders, and changes to the tactics employed against active shooters by the first police officers to arrive at the scene. Prior to Columbine, most cops were trained to secure the perimiter of a Columbine-type incident and wait for the SWAT team to show up. Nowadays, it's typical for departments to train their oficers that as soon as four officers are present, they form up as a team and enter the building. I've personally witnessed one of our local departments training for this scenario, and Rapid Entry Deployment works.

It's easy to take a tragedy like Columbine and simply call for everybody to be disarmed. But that is not a logical, or a suitable strategy. The founding fathers gave us the Second Amendment for some very good reasons that had nothing to do with hunting or target shooting. If we take the disarmament, gun banning argument and apply it to car accidents, for example, nobody would be able to travel long distances quickly. If we applied the same argument to injuries from power tools, construction would take three times as long. Life is full of trade-offs. But trading guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens for perceived safety is a mistake. Ben Franklin talked about that.

I wonder if Columbine would have turned out any differently if a few people with concealed carry permits and handguns had been on-scene when the attack began?