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Was Columbine the start of all of this?


I.Dup.
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I remember how horrible Columbine was when it happened. I was in high school and was glued to the TV, the whole nation was horrified in a way that I can't remember happening before (but then again, I was just in high school). Now it seems so many school shootings have happened. In the Sandy Hook shooting, twice as many people were killed as in Columbine. And they were so little. :crying: This seems even worse, although of course every shooting is terrible. I remember how much publicity, attention, books, movies, shows, were dedicated to Columbine. People still talk about it. I haven't seen that with other shootings. Will this get the same attention? Or with all the shootings that have been happening recently will this pass over like the others?

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I don't think the other shootings get "passed over." This one is a larger scale and with the children being so young, it makes a bigger impact. Every life is precious, of course, but there is a more terrible horror and shock over such little children being murdered and so many of them.

 

It does seem in my memory like Columbine was the first major school shooting, but it may also be because I had a little child then, so a school shooting would have gotten more of my attention than it probably would have before I had a child of my own.

 

I expect this to stay in the public memory on par with Columbine for sure, and also to stand out in the same way as other horrific events like 9-11.

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There have been mass school murders for more than a century. I believe the first in the US was a school bombing done by a man upset about the increase of his property taxes. Children were killed when he bombed the building on the first day of school. AFAIK the beslan massacre is the worst school mass murder in recent history. The media has created goldfish memories for most people... so yes this shooting will eventually pass from the public eye. If people could forget beslan (which most have), they'll forget this.

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There were some smaller scale shootings before Columbine (Jonesboro sticks in my head, and maybe Oregon?), but Columbine caught so much attention because there were so many casualties.

 

 

That's what I thought...and then I saw there were "only" 13. :( 13 way too many, but way less than what happened at Sandy Hook.

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Columbine really ignited the debates on bullying and peer violence and media violence. I assume if the Sandy Hook shooting does the same for mental illness and gun control, it will stay front and center in the news for a long while.

 

Also, schools and police have improved their responses to school violence a lot because of Columbine. Peer violence is easier to spot before it turns into mass murder, and the police are better prepared. Those were big issues in 1999, but they aren't factors at Sandy Hook because the shooter wasn't a student.

 

I think it's interesting how different Columbine and Sandy Hook "feel" to me. I was a sophomore in high school in April 1999, but now I'm a parent with an almost school-age child. Both affected me a lot, but the fear isn't the same.

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The first school shooting as far as folks around here are concerned has always been the UT Tower Sniper. When Columbine happened, that was what everyone immediately compared it to.

 

That's what I was thinking, too. I am almost 38yr old and grew up in TX, so that was a legend there. My parents also both went to UT in the early '70's. Colombine was the only other one I knew of after the UT one.

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I think it's generational thing, kind of like shuttle disasters. My mind will always go first to Challenger, but my sister, only 4 years younger than me, was just too young for that memory, and will only think of the Columbia disaster. The media sure plays a part as well. When I was in middle school in the late '80's a student walked into a classroom holding a loaded gun. He intended to shoot the teacher and himself, but luckily the teacher was able to talk to him long enough to grab the gun away. That could very easily have become a tragedy.

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Here's a pretty chilling list of events in American History I saw somewhere posted today. Towards the bottom, there's a table.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

 

I think this event really stands out because of the age of the victims. But then when I think about it, we should be rocked to our core each and every time this happens. It's not ok in a mall, in an elementary school, on a college campus. So incredibly sad.

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The first school shooting as far as folks around here are concerned has always been the UT Tower Sniper. When Columbine happened, that was what everyone immediately compared it to.

 

I remember the University of Texas bell-tower shooting, even remember the shooters name. While ordinarily a fan of Huntley-Brinkley on NBC, that night I remember watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news on CBS. Seemed like madness then. Still does.

 

Strange to think I was almost exactly the same age then that my son is now (8). As hard as I tried I was not able to insulate him from the news of this story, which he handled well. But what I wouldn't give to have a grandchild grow up in a world without this sort of nonsense.

 

Bill

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I am torn between wanting the media to get out of my beautiful town and wanting to make sure that people remember. I want people to understand that this was the least likely place in the world for something like this to happen and if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. If we continue to tiptoe around the gun control issue, more of you will have to watch your towns go through what mine is going through right now. Our hearts are broken and I hope that no one else ever has to experience this.

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I am torn between wanting the media to get out of my beautiful town and wanting to make sure that people remember. I want people to understand that this was the least likely place in the world for something like this to happen and if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. If we continue to tiptoe around the gun control issue, more of you will have to watch your towns go through what mine is going through right now. Our hearts are broken and I hope that no one else ever has to experience this.

 

:grouphug: I'm so sorry for all of the families, this is just horrific.

 

I'm surprised to see on the chart above that 33 people died at the VT massacre. I did not realize it was so many. See, I haven't heard a whole lot about that since it happened.

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I am torn between wanting the media to get out of my beautiful town and wanting to make sure that people remember. I want people to understand that this was the least likely place in the world for something like this to happen and if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. If we continue to tiptoe around the gun control issue, more of you will have to watch your towns go through what mine is going through right now. Our hearts are broken and I hope that no one else ever has to experience this.

 

:grouphug: If you are there, my heart breaks for all of you. Hold each other close. And I totally agree with you.

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Columbine wasn't the start. I remember seeing a documentary about the UT tower shootings. And lets not forget the Virginia Tech shootings, that one had 33 fatalities, so it still ranks #1 in the list of fatal school shootings.

 

ETA was posting at the same time as IDup, I here a lot about it but then I only live about 300 mi as the crow flies from there.

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According to a Salon article, the deadliest school massacre was a bombing in the 1920s. The bomber was upset by tax increase levied to fund school. Over 30 children were killed.

 

 

I believe that's the Bath one in MI they are mentioning above which had 45 fatalities.

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I am torn between wanting the media to get out of my beautiful town and wanting to make sure that people remember. I want people to understand that this was the least likely place in the world for something like this to happen and if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. If we continue to tiptoe around the gun control issue, more of you will have to watch your towns go through what mine is going through right now. Our hearts are broken and I hope that no one else ever has to experience this.

 

 

I am sorry this happened to you but please don't put the blame on gun control. The blame is with why mental health services in this country and many others are so poor. So few services, so few insurances pay for it, and many families can't afford it. Waiting lists in some areas for families who need help are a couple of years and in some areas the solution is to lock the person up with little services as jails are not meant to deal with these complexe issues. We need to stop patching the system with what might by a temp fix and ignoring the big picture. If a person wants to do it, they will find away.

 

I think it is more in our faces now as we have instant access to news.

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Here's a pretty chilling list of events in American History I saw somewhere posted today. Towards the bottom, there's a table.

 

http://en.wikipedia....e_United_States

 

I think this event really stands out because of the age of the victims. But then when I think about it, we should be rocked to our core each and every time this happens. It's not ok in a mall, in an elementary school, on a college campus. So incredibly sad.

 

 

wow. That list made me physically ill. I was in high school at the time of both Detroit shootings at Murray-Wright in Detroit and I remember it clearly. But honestly, there are so many shootings of teenagers in Detroit that it was news but not "big" news.

 

just awful.

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Here's a pretty chilling list of events in American History I saw somewhere posted today. Towards the bottom, there's a table.

 

http://en.wikipedia....e_United_States

 

I think this event really stands out because of the age of the victims. But then when I think about it, we should be rocked to our core each and every time this happens. It's not ok in a mall, in an elementary school, on a college campus. So incredibly sad.

 

 

 

In that link, the number of shootings in 2012 alone is chilling. And, that doesn't even include the mall and theatre shootings this year.

 

That speaks volumes. Tragic and disgusting volumes.

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I think it's interesting how different Columbine and Sandy Hook "feel" to me. I was a sophomore in high school in April 1999, but now I'm a parent with an almost school-age child. Both affected me a lot, but the fear isn't the same.

 

This is sort of how I feel about them too. When Columbine happened I had 2 babies but was still only a couple years out of high school so I pictured myself in the shoes of the students and what it must have been like. With Sandy Hook it is different, I see my youngest 2 going through that, I see myself as the mother being told her baby isn't coming home. MUCH much different emotion connecting to it.

 

I also think even if I didn't have young children the feeling would be different between the 2 anyway. Both are horrible and tragic. Both shuld not have happened. BUt I think with the majority of people there is a primal call to protect the very young. We don't think of teens as being the young, they are nearly adults, so while we never want something like this happening to them and it hurts to see it happen, it doesn't kick you right in the gut the way a death of a young child does. And I find that to be true whether the young child died due to illness, accident, or attack, we feel it differently, 2 people due in a car crash, one 17 and one 7, we immediately feel worse for the loss of the 7 yr old, but that does not mean we do not feel for the loss of the older child. It's just different.

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My son was in high school for two years with the shooter and he doesn't remember him at all. My son knew everyone. None of his friends remember him either. He wasn't on anyone's radar and his parents could afford any type of care that he needed. The only way that this could have been prevented was if he hadn't had access to guns. I don't want to start an argument but my son's friend buried her little brother yesterday, I passed three funerals today in my limited time out and I will be going to my kids' music teacher's son's funeral tomorrow. Everyone that I know is burying someone that they loved this week and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with something like this.

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My son was in high school for two years with the shooter and he doesn't remember him at all. My son knew everyone. None of his friends remember him either. He wasn't on anyone's radar and his parents could afford any type of care that he needed. The only way that this could have been prevented was if he hadn't had access to guns. I don't want to start an argument but my son's friend buried her little brother yesterday, I passed three funerals today in my limited time out and I will be going to my kids' music teacher's son's funeral tomorrow. Everyone that I know is burying someone that they loved this week and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with something like this.

 

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

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My son was in high school for two years with the shooter and he doesn't remember him at all. My son knew everyone. None of his friends remember him either. He wasn't on anyone's radar and his parents could afford any type of care that he needed. The only way that this could have been prevented was if he hadn't had access to guns. I don't want to start an argument but my son's friend buried her little brother yesterday, I passed three funerals today in my limited time out and I will be going to my kids' music teacher's son's funeral tomorrow. Everyone that I know is burying someone that they loved this week and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with something like this.

 

Thank you for sharing this with us. I'm so sorry for everyone in your community. Like you said, if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. It happened in the 1920's...it happened in an Amish school...it happened in a lovely CT community...just so sad.

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My son was in high school for two years with the shooter and he doesn't remember him at all. My son knew everyone. None of his friends remember him either. He wasn't on anyone's radar and his parents could afford any type of care that he needed. The only way that this could have been prevented was if he hadn't had access to guns. I don't want to start an argument but my son's friend buried her little brother yesterday, I passed three funerals today in my limited time out and I will be going to my kids' music teacher's son's funeral tomorrow. Everyone that I know is burying someone that they loved this week and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with something like this.

 

 

As I said, join the fight to fix the mental health system. They could afford quite a bit but the problem is finding the correct people to help you. The same thing was said about the OK bombings and if he couldn't have accessed the stuff to make it. The shooter was withdrawn from school I think during the 10th grade. I know you are upset and focusing right now on the short term but we really need to stop putting on a bandaid on this and look at the big picture.

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I don't know that we are allowed to talk about gun control, and I didn't mean for this thread to turn into that. If we are allowed to post about it, here is an article related that makes a lot of good points... I understand if this needs to be removed. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

 

As with guns, some auto deaths are caused by people who break laws or behave irresponsibly. But we don’t shrug and say, “Cars don’t kill people, drunks do.â€

 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has five pages of regulations about ladders, while federal authorities shrug at serious curbs on firearms. Ladders kill around 300 Americans a year, and guns 30,000.

 

I'm sorry if I am breaking any rules, I have not seen any specific guidelines about guns so I'm not sure. But again, I didn't start this thread to talk about guns.

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I don't know that we are allowed to talk about gun control, and I didn't mean for this thread to turn into that. If we are allowed to post about it, here is an article related that makes a lot of good points... I understand if this needs to be removed. http://www.nytimes.c...ef=general&_r=0

 

As with guns, some auto deaths are caused by people who break laws or behave irresponsibly. But we don’t shrug and say, “Cars don’t kill people, drunks do.â€

 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has five pages of regulations about ladders, while federal authorities shrug at serious curbs on firearms. Ladders kill around 300 Americans a year, and guns 30,000.

 

I'm sorry if I am breaking any rules, I have not seen any specific guidelines about guns so I'm not sure. But again, I didn't start this thread to talk about guns.

 

:iagree: I think we need to be talking about mental health AND keeping guns out of the wrong people's hands. And maybe other things too. There are no easy answers here.

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I have never heard of anyone in Newtown not being able to get access to any kind of help that they needed. If it isn't available in town, Manhattan, Stamford, Hartford, Boston and New Haven (Yale) are all a reasonable distance. It would take an amazing amount of money and effort to be able to predict which odd ball is likely to snap next. I would absolutely support increasing funding for mental health issues but that is only part of the problem. We will never be able to stop people like Timothy McVeigh but we should be able to stop people like Adam Lanza. On the same day that the children were killed in Newtown, a man in China stabbed 22 children at a primary school. There were no fatalities.

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I have never heard of anyone in Newtown not being able to get access to any kind of help that they needed. If it isn't available in town, Manhattan, Stamford, Hartford, Boston and New Haven (Yale) are all a reasonable distance. It would take an amazing amount of money and effort to be able to predict which odd ball is likely to snap next. I would absolutely support increasing funding for mental health issues but that is only part of the problem. We will never be able to stop people like Timothy McVeigh but we should be able to stop people like Adam Lanza. On the same day that the children were killed in Newtown, a man in China stabbed 22 children at a primary school. There were no fatalities.

 

 

See that is the thing. People think that because the cities have doctors that they can get in with minimal wait but it is not. A doctor qualified to deal with these complex issues have wait lists that are too long. Getting someone committed can take so long and is quite difficult even if they pose a threat.

 

And you will never hear about someone having issues finding that kind of doctor as it is not talked about. Mental illness carries such a black cloud that people can't talk about it yet they should be able too. Most don't even tell their best friends as they are afraid.

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As I said, join the fight to fix the mental health system. They could afford quite a bit but the problem is finding the correct people to help you. The same thing was said about the OK bombings and if he couldn't have accessed the stuff to make it. The shooter was withdrawn from school I think during the 10th grade. I know you are upset and focusing right now on the short term but we really need to stop putting on a bandaid on this and look at the big picture.

 

 

The "big picture" is not mental health care alone. The "big picture" includes addressing the easy access to devasting weaponry and the devastating weaponry itself.

 

I find it abhorrent to attempt to divert all attention to mental health alone while sweeping under the rug the role that firearms play in every. single. one. of these cases.

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The "big picture" is not mental health care alone. The "big picture" includes addressing the easy access to devasting weaponry and the devastating weaponry itself.

 

I find it abhorrent to attempt to divert all attention to mental health alone while sweeping under the rug the role that firearms play in every. single. one. of these cases.

 

But the thing is just focusing on guns will not stop someone. People who are that ill will find a way to do it no matter what from homemade devices to guns.

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As I said, join the fight to fix the mental health system. They could afford quite a bit but the problem is finding the correct people to help you. The same thing was said about the OK bombings and if he couldn't have accessed the stuff to make it. The shooter was withdrawn from school I think during the 10th grade. I know you are upset and focusing right now on the short term but we really need to stop putting on a bandaid on this and look at the big picture.

 

 

Gently............

 

Did you READ her post? Let her be. Her circumstances are life changing. Her lived context right now is changing people's lives forever, changing people's brains in ways that are very difficult to heal.

 

Please don't tell her what she needs to do or look at right now.

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But the thing is just focusing on guns will not stop someone. People who are that ill will find a way to do it no matter what from homemade devices to guns.

 

I did not say to "JUST focus on guns." I said stop trying to posit that guns do not play a crucial part in the big picture.

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Everything that went into the actions of the two boys at Columbine were pretty complex. I had to follow it closely because of a website my ex-husband and I owned and ran. It was aimed at Goths. We got LOTS of death threats and I was followed around by the FBI for a while. The original date for the massacre was April 19th, the same date as the Oklahoma city bombing and the last day of the Waco siege. The attack actually happened on April 20th, Hitler's birthday. Some people feel that the actual date points to the attackers as having Neo-Nazi leanings.

 

It's sad to say that you can generally follow a line of "inspiration" back in history. For example, The VA Tech killer was "inspired" by the Columbine massacre, which in turn was "inspired" by the Oklahoma City bombing, which in turn was "inspired" by both the incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Some say David Koresh was "inspired" by Jim Jones and the whole Jonestown incident. It all just keeps going back and back and back. Sometimes I wonder if violence like this isn't a disease that is spread by view or talking about it.

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But the thing is just focusing on guns will not stop someone. People who are that ill will find a way to do it no matter what from homemade devices to guns.

 

That statement doesn't seem to be supported by the facts. After the Dunblane school massacre in 1996, the UK effectively outlawed private ownership of handguns. They haven't had another school shooting since, and only one other mass murder in 18 years.

 

Australia had 11 mass murders in the decade leading up to the Port Arthur Massacre, also in 1996. Massive gun control laws were instituted immediately following Port Arthur. They haven't had a single mass murder since. And although people still kill each other in Australia, when the murder rate by gun went down, the murder rate by other methods didn't rise. It just lowered the murder rate overall.

 

It is just not the case that disturbed and angry people will always find another way. Unless you're positing that disturbed and angry Americans are just more resourceful than the disturbed and angry people they have in countries with strict gun control. No. It's the guns. It's the lack of mental health care and the guns. It's the sick macho culture and the guns. It's the economic alienation and the guns. It's the guns.

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I really recommend the article I posted above. It's very good.

 

I don't think it needs to be an all-or-nothing thing, either. I don't think ALL guns need to be taken away from everyone, across the board. Not at all. It's our constitutional right to bear arms. But I think things do need to change, obviously.

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