alarming than those involving minority students at urban schools? “To ask the question is to answer it: in the crass logic of reporters and editors, things like that are ‘supposed to happen’ to darker skinned youth,” Males argues.8
The alarms sounded over teen terrorists at school reached far beyond suburban Denver to Washington, D.C., where elected officials had to respond to their fretting constituents. What Harris and Klebold had done was seen as a threat to national security, demanding an investigation worthy of a terrorist attack. In June 1999, the U.S. Secret Service teamed up with the Department of Education to study “targeted violence in schools.” The Safe School Initiative, as it was called, examined thirty-seven previous incidents of violence at schools between 1974 and 2000 to understand the behavior and planning of students involved. The goal was to identify risk factors and threats in order to prevent future Columbine-type events. The Secret Service applied the same framework it had developed for an earlier study of assassination attempts against public officials.9 After three years, the joint task force issued a report, which offered few surprises and little solace to those in the Columbine community like DeAngelis who believe that the attack was unforeseeable. Among the key findings were:
• Incidents of targeted violence at school are rarely sudden, impulsive acts.
• Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s idea and/or plan to attack.
• Most attackers engaged in some behavior, prior to the incident, that caused concern or indicated a need for help.
• Most attackers were known to have difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures. Many had considered or attempted suicide.
• Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack.
• Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack.
The report, while culling these commonalities, asserted that there was no one useful profile of a school shooter, making prevention a highly individualized challenge for school districts. In a follow-up report, the Safe School Initiative provided a detailed guide to threat assessment that, surprisingly, called it just “one component” in a wider strategy to reduce school violence. The best prevention strategies, the guide asserts, “create cultures and climates of safety, respect, and emotional support within educational institutions . . . environments [that] emphasize “ ‘emotional intelligence,’ as well as educational or intellectual pursuits.” But a public panicked about crazed student terrorists would not be mollified by recommendations to bolster “emotional support” and “emotional intelligence” at school. No, if anything students had been coddled too much, for too long. Bring on the metal detectors and zero tolerance rules.
JOHNNY GOT HIS GUNS
The tidy single-family homes that dot the streets in the area surrounding Columbine High School are like so many pixels forming a familiar picture of American suburbia, with shiny new minivans in driveways and tow-headed toddlers in strollers. Like folks in communities around the country, residents in this corner of Jefferson County enjoy the popular cultural tradition known as garage sales. Driving to an interview with Principal Frank DeAngelis one morning, I saw hand-drawn flyers advertising garage sales taped to utility poles, beckoning me to a closer intimacy with Columbine residents. What better way to explore a community than to mingle with neighbors perusing one another’s household clutter? Spotting a bold black arrow at an upcoming corner, I took a right turn, passing an entry sign: COLUMBINE WEST, A COVENANT PROTECTED COMMUNITY. A few more flyers led me to a cul-de-sac where the sale was under way, with kitchen utensils and pillows, excess clothing and kids’ toys displayed on the driveway. The home owner chatted with another woman inside the open garage as I rummaged around. Here was something odd, I thought, as I reached for what looked like a wide, tan leather belt. It was an old ammo belt and its small loops were holding about four spent shell casings and what appeared to be half a dozen three-inch copper-tipped rifle rounds. Having shopped at hundreds of garage sales over the years, this certainly was a first. I held it up to the owner, showing surprise about finding live ammunition plopped next to her old kitchen curtains. Nonchalantly she said, “Oh, I guess I should take those out.” She didn’t, and I departed. Welcome to Colorado, where gun culture is a vibrant element of its identity as part of the Wild West.
In the days, weeks, months, and years since April 20, 1999, the Columbine attack has been dissected and researched from just about every possible angle—except for one. It is the elephant in the room, the topic that at most gets minor mention and even less serious scrutiny. Simply put, without easy access to guns, Harris and Klebold never could have killed so many people. School shootings cannot happen without guns. Period. In fall 1998, Harris and Klebold were only seventeen years old, so they brought a friend, Robyn Anderson, eighteen, to the Tanner Gun Show, Denver’s largest and oldest gun mart, where she purchased two shotguns and a 9mm carbine rifle from the dealers Ronald Hartmann and James Royce Washington with her friends’ money. She broke no law in handing over the guns to Harris and Klebold, because it wasn’t technically a sale. Anderson, who was sued by victims and their families and settled by paying $300,000 for her role, reportedly said she was comfortable going to the Tanner show because she knew the transaction would not be documented. At that time, Colorado law permitted gun dealers who were not federally licensed to sell long arms to anyone eighteen and older without conducting the background check required by federal law. The boys also bought a TEC-DC9 semiautomatic handgun from Mark Manes, an acquaintance of Phillip Duran, who worked with Harris and Klebold at a pizzeria. That handgun also originated at the Tanner show. Manes’s sale to the boys, however, was illegal, and he was convicted on felony charges of selling a handgun to a minor and sentenced to six years in prison. Duran, who steered the boys to Manes, was convicted of related charges and sentenced to four and a half years. Manes and Duran were also sued by victims’ families and settled for $720,000 and $250,000 respectively. Victims sued the dealers Hartmann and Washington and the gun show’s owner, J. D. Tanner, but they avoided liability. In Colorado as in many states, gun-rights sentiment is strong and gun-control supporters are marginally less reviled than sex predators. Weeks after Columbine, it was business as usual as J. D. Tanner held his gun show—although he did cancel one scheduled for the weekend after the attack. Tanner’s thirty-year-old show, held monthly at Denver’s Merchandise Mart, faced no public protests or disruptions. Tanner told a reporter he couldn’t explain Columbine. “Guns are not to blame, and the ready availability of them is not to blame,” he said. “It’s in the minds of the children . . . I’m not a psychologist.” His dealers, however, were reportedly upset that state legislators were entertaining gun-control measures as a consequence of the school tragedy.10
Principal Frank DeAngelis might reasonably be expected to have strong feelings about gun control. But he doesn’t. “Robyn Anderson, she was eighteen and she actually went down to a gun show and purchased the guns,” DeAngelis says. “And so those laws were in place, so you question some of those laws. If there would have been tougher laws—she wouldn’t get the guns. But some of these others they purchased were purchased illegally from someone else in the community, and that’s where there’s a question of guns laws. If Klebold and Harris wanted to get guns—and I truly believe this—whether you talk about Washington, D.C., and things, if kids want guns they’re gonna get guns. It’s not the law-abiding citizens. Criminals are gonna get the guns.” The flaw in this reasoning is that Harris and Klebold were not “criminals,” even if they’d burglarized a van. They were emotionally disturbed teenagers, not gun-toting drug dealers, and there is a vast difference. It may be true that in our gun-infested culture, criminals will always get guns. It’s also true that gun-control laws make it more difficult for everyone to get guns. The Brady Law requires federally licensed gun dealers to document purchases by conducting background checks on buyers, a significant hurdle for anyone—not just criminals—who does not want to leave a legal paper trail. The law’s loophole permits dealers who are not federally licensed to forgo the process. For Tom Mauser, gun-control laws are speed bumps on the way to dangerous
