Tenth Annniversary of Columbine School Shooting

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April 20th, 2009 is the tenth anniversary of the tragic events that occurred at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Last September, I
was able to visit the Columbine Memorial, behind the high school, and it was truly beautiful and inspiring.

Ten years later now, we remain a violent society, and within the past years, further gun related tragedies have occurred... at Virginia Tech in April 2007, the shooting at Binghamton, N.Y in April, 2009, the death of three policeman in Pittsburgh, the drug violence across the border in Mexico...

Not a day goes by when it becomes evident of another shooting somewhere in the U.S.A. Even more astonishing, thousands of people are flocking to gun shows across the country fearful of the likelihood that President Obama will implement some kind of harsher gun laws.

"No one has the right to take my guns away"...said the young man who shot and killed the three policeman in Pittsburgh. Yet, what about the many, innocent victims of those shootings who have a right to live?

With the growing sense of isolation of people in the world, many connected only in cyberspace by detached electronic devices, where one simply has to "twitter" these days...Could the tragic events of Columbine High School happen in YOUR neighborhood?

Yesterday was 14 years since the Oklahoma City bombing.
Today is also Hitler's birthday...he would be 120 years old.
On the day of the Columbine shootings, Nato accused Yugoslavia of using "human blood banks". Thanks to the shootings, this accusation has not stuck as have so many others.

*shudders*

Society is rather disturbing today! wonder why us aspies like being alone

"Bowling for Columbine" was a great movie. I especially like the part comparing th US vs. other developed countries in gun violence.

I have to say the people on the forum who live in the U.K., Australia, or Canada are lucky, I am an American, and I know America sucks. Americans are arrogant gun-loving nuts who have no respect for weak and we deal with everything by fighting. American arrogance makes us think we are "The best country in The world." We are certainly the most powerful, but I doubt we are the best.

I have concerns about violent crime (not so much massacres as street crime). That's why I lobby for concealed weapons permits in my state.

School bullying after the Columbine incident got worse. I think that little is being done to prevent school bullying, the recent deaths and bullycides don't help at all.

The Columbine Shootings were a real hard time for me. The massacre had happened exactly one month after I left a school which was so bad, I was being swarmed by 200 to 300 people on occasions. A week after the Columbine shootings was the Taber shooting and at the high school by my old school which I loathed, there was a swarming where the kid did not make it out alive.

I had old wounds lifted and a new terror to consume me that year. I was terrified that the kids from that old school might find me and swarm me once again and finish off what they started.

As I said, the Columbine shootings is a very painful event for me.

Uggh, I remember when that happened. I was unlucky enough to have been wearing a trench coat for years before Columbine, and since everyone already knew what I was into I practically had my own security officer shadow at school for a while. One silver lining was that it did get a lot easier to frighten off people who might have mistaken me for an easy target to bully, since the possible consequences were right in the front of everyone's minds.

BTW, Bowling for Columbine is an absolute travesty and an affront to the term "documentary", and Michael Moore should have been ashamed of himself (I don't think that's possible for him) for exploiting such a tragedy for fame and profit. I could go on at length about factual and implied fact inaccuracies in that movies, but the people at MooreWatch have a much more comprehensive list of the sins of Michael Moore, along with plenty of supporting documentation, something lacking from his films. The part where he splices footage together from two different speeches that Charlton Heston made at two different events (watch the background and Heston's tie) to make him "say" something he didn't, or the interview with Heston that's edited to put his answers in the worst possible light (watch the wall clock in the background to see the editing) are but the more egregious tips of the proverbial iceberg.

What happened at Columbine had nothing to do with seeking revenge for bullying. Most of their victims were geeks in the library, which leads me to believe the boys were bullies themselves.
One was a psychopathic skinhead racist who brainwashed the other.

I felt a very strong connection to the Columbine shootings becasue of the erroneous media claim that it had been cause, in part, by bullying (check out Dave Cullen's fantastic new book Columbine- extensively researched and sensitively written). As a survivor of bullying I was horrified and sickened by what Haris and Kelbold did, but I certainly could understand (what I thought to be) the motivation.

You're absolutely right Jkid- the ensuing years after Columbine haven't revealed a damn thing being done to crack down on bullying. Instead we have paranoia driven 'zero-tolerance' policies that are, in essence, vigilanteism, and a culture of fear viewing anyone different as a potential problem.

I am grateful to live in a country (Canada) with not only a set of gun control laws (though I'll be the first to admit they are far from perfect), but which is not governed by the sort of pro-gun mentality seen in the United States. Perhaps my perception is scewed, but to be honest the prevalence of gun violence in America makes me afraid to even visit the States. I realize that not every American is a gun toting firearm fanatic but the sheer prevalence terrifies me. With all due respect to the people who founded America I think including the right to bear arms in your countries constitution was a mistake. In my opinion having it emblomized in that fashion makes restricting gun access, even in the name of public safety, an uphill battle as it seems to be interpereted as an atack on civil liberties and personal rights.