Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

Where silence is golden
Every issue you can think of comes up in our nation's capital, except one: What's to become of the company store?
By David Weir
[12/30/99]

Try him again
Justice for the widow of a dead police officer, cut down in the prime of his life, will not be served by executing a framed man, even if he's guilty.
By Debra Dickerson
[12/29/99]

A tale of two villages
Over which small town will the first American sunrise of the 21st century shine?
By Charles Graeber
[12/24/99]

The hall of shame
From the murder to a football star's pregnant girlfriend to the retirement of four sports icons, 1999 was a bad year to be a sports fan.
By Julian Rubinstein
[12/23/99]

Jerusalem braces for Christian pilgrims
Hordes of tourists are coming to the holy city for millennial celebrations, but a clash between Orthodox and secular Jews has created a ban on Christmas in the city's kosher hotels.
By Flore de Preneuf
[12/23/99]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

They knew exactly what they needed to enact their evil plan. And we as a society stepped back and let them have it.

They wanted to kill a lot of kids in as short a time as possible. "I hope we kill 250 of you," Klebold says on the infamous Columbine videotapes.

So in addition to the propane-tank bombs they fashioned, and the two 30-year-old shotguns they sawed off, Klebold and Harris also went after some better firepower.

They knew they wanted the kind of light, easily concealed, rapid-fire semi-automatic weapons that they saw in their favorite video games and movies.

Say, a TEC-DC 9 semiautomatic pistol. And a Hi-Point carbine rifle.

And they knew that gun shows were the best place to seek such weapons out. They knew which loopholes to exploit.

The propane bombs they made didn't go off. If the bombs had exploded, hundreds would have been killed. But they didn't work.

The TEC-DC 9, the Hi-Point carbine rifle and the two sawed-off shotguns did.

The National Rifle Association and its powerful allies argue that Klebold and Harris broke a dozen or so gun laws that day they jumped into the headlines and sadly, became the story of 1999. More laws aren't the answer, the NRA says. Enforce the ones that exist.

(For some reason, the NRA often forgets to tell us how hard it's worked to prevent those very laws from passing.)

Clearly, more went wrong at Columbine High School than just a lack of gun laws. There were police screw ups, inattentive parents, nefarious entertainment influences.

But none of that means that tougher gun laws couldn't have prevented the tragedy. Or at least set up a few roadblocks.

When listening to the arguments of the NRA and the politicians in its pocket, it's probably helpful to remember that the NRA opposes any and every gun law.

In the 1980s, it fought the banning of armor-piercing "cop-killer" bullets for handguns. It opposes waiting periods for gun purchases.

The NRA also opposes trigger locks. When police organizations support common-sense gun control, the NRA casts doubt on the credibility of these brave men and women in blue. When a conservative, reliable pro-NRA voter like Arizona Sen. John McCain expresses a willingness to listen to a common-sense gun law, the NRA floods primary states like New Hampshire with anti-McCain leaflets, even if he votes its way 90 percent of the time.

And yet, the gun lobby is on the defensive. It knows that, if further examined, Klebold and Harris' rampage provides the worst kind of illustration of why the loopholes the lobby has pushed for should not exist. Until now, however, out of respect for the mourners, there has been no comprehensive examination of how the enactment of common-sense gun laws could have maybe changed things.

But there is a vague political sense out there that something's got to give. "Columbine has made a lasting impact on swing voters," says Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center.

Political trendsters point to key pro-gun-control voting blocks like soccer moms, and now, what the Pew Research Center has identified as "New Prosperity Independents" -- young, independent, better-educated, less religious, Internet- and stock-market-lovers who make up a ninth of the electorate.

Even Republican governors -- the grass-roots leaders of the GOP -- are getting into the act. "Columbine opened a new era in the gun debate," Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt told the New York Times. "We're starting to get a sense of proportion. There is a capacity to protect Second Amendment rights, but that does not mean we can't limit the way guns are used. That dialogue is starting to go on."

Like in Colorado, where GOP Gov. Bill Owens -- once strongly endorsed by the NRA -- has started talking about common-sense gun measures: Requiring gun-show dealers to conduct background checks. Raising the minimum age of legally purchasing firearms at gun shows from 18 to 21. Typically, the Colorado gun lobby has begun smearing Owens, calling him "Governor Gun Control," and promising to defeat his bills.

But the gun lobby in Colorado and D.C. is extremist on this issue. They're out of touch. And they're wrong in saying that nothing could have prevented the tragedy at Columbine. Dead wrong.

Next page | Where did they get the guns?