columbine high school shooting essay

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Columbine Shooting

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 29, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

The Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, occurred when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others, before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide.

The Columbine shooting was, at the time, the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. Subsequent school shootings, including at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, continue to raise questions about school safety and gun control in the United States.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in trench coats, began shooting fellow students outside Columbine High School, located in a suburb south of Denver. The pair then moved inside the school, where they gunned down many of their victims in the library.

By approximately 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 other people. Shortly after 12 p.m., the two teens turned their guns on themselves.

Investigators later learned Harris and Klebold had arrived in separate cars at Columbine around 11:10 on the morning of the massacre. The two then walked into the school cafeteria, where they placed two duffel bags each containing a 20-pound propane bomb set to explode at 11:17 a.m.

The teens then went back outside to their cars to wait for the bombs to go off. When the bombs failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold began their shooting spree.

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Columbine Shooting Victims

Victims of the Columbine shooting include Cassie Bernall, 17; Steven Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 17; Kelly Fleming, 16; Matthew Kechter, 16; Daniel Mauser, 15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William "Dave" Sanders, 47; Rachel Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren Townsend, 18, and Kyle Velasquez, 16.

She Said 'Yes'

In the days immediately following the shootings, it was speculated that Harris and Klebold purposely chose athletes, minorities and Christians as their victims.

It initially was reported that one student, Cassie Bernall, was asked by one of the gunmen if she believed in God. When Bernall allegedly said, “Yes,” she was shot to death. Her parents later wrote a book titled She Said Yes , honoring their daughter.

However, it later was determined the question was not posed to Bernall but to another student who already had been wounded by a gunshot. When that victim replied, “Yes,” the shooter walked away.

Columbine Shooting Investigation

Subsequent investigations determined Harris and Klebold chose their victims randomly, and the two teens originally had intended to bomb their school, potentially killing hundreds of people.

There was speculation that Harris and Klebold committed the killings because they were members of a group of social outcasts called the Trenchcoat Mafia that was fascinated by Goth culture. It also was speculated that Harris and Klebold had carried out the shootings as retaliation for being bullied.

Additionally, violent video games and music were blamed for influencing the killers. However, none of these theories was ever proven.

Through journals left behind by Harris and Klebold, investigators eventually discovered the teens had been planning for a year to bomb the school in an attack similar to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing .

Investigative journalist Dave Cullen, author of the 2009 book Columbine , described Harris as “the callously brutal mastermind,” while Klebold was a “quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire.”

Did you know? The deadliest school shooting in U.S. history took place on April 16, 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people before killing himself at Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Columbine Massacre Aftermath

In the aftermath of the shootings, many schools across America enacted “zero-tolerance” rules regarding disruptive behavior and threats of violence from students. Columbine High School reopened in the fall of 1999, but the massacre left a scar on the Littleton community.

Mark Manes, the man who sold a gun to Harris and bought him 100 rounds of ammunition the day before the murders, was sentenced to six years in prison. Another man, Philip Duran, who introduced Harris and Klebold to Manes, also was sentenced to prison time.

Some victims and families of people killed or injured filed suit against the school and the police; most of these suits were later dismissed in court.

The list of school shootings in the United States grows longer every year, and includes the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, the Robb Elementary shooting in 2022, the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018 and the Umpqua Community College shooting in 2015, among others.

Gun control and disagreements over the interpretation of the Second Amendment continue to be a controversial issue in the United States, where 45,000 people die from gun-related injuries each year.

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The lasting legacy of the columbine massacre.

It’s been 24 years since two teenagers opened fire at a high school in Littleton, Colorado.

Go beyond the headlines.

Your weekly briefing on gun violence..

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Twenty-four years ago today, two teenagers opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and killed 12 students and one teacher. The massacre shocked a nation that has now grown accustomed to violence at schools: Since 1999, according to a Washington Post tracker, there have been 377 campus shootings, and more than 349,000 students have experienced gun violence at school. 

Many of those attacks were directly influenced by the “Columbine effect.” Four years ago, Mother Jones reported that at least 100 mass shooting plots and attacks since 1999, including the Sandy Hook and Parkland massacres, were directly influenced by Columbine; that number, which relied on public records, was likely an undercount. But Columbine wasn’t America’s first school attack. Why has it inspired so many mass shooters?

According to criminal justice researchers Jillian Peterson and James Densley, Columbine’s potent legacy can be attributed to the dawn of contemporary mass media: It took place during the beginning of the 24-hour news cycle and the “year of the net.” “This was the dawn of the digital age of perfect remembering,” Peterson and Densley wrote for The Conversation , “where words and deeds live online forever.”

“At the time, Columbine was considered a once-in-a-generation type of tragedy — one that few other people in our country would ever have to contend with,” wrote survivor Craig Nason in an essay for NBC Think last year. He continued: “I think about how we vowed to ‘never forget’ Columbine. How we would make sure the next generation would be safer. The opposite has happened. … It is a burden too heavy.”

What to Know Today

ICYMI: As more politicians lose friends and family to gun violence, will it change how they govern? [ The Trace ]

How can Chicago prevent outbreaks of violence among young people? Public safety experts and youth advocates have some ideas — and most of them don’t involve policing. [ WBEZ ] Context: Last summer, teenagers talked to The Trace’s Justin Agrelo about their experience of Chicago’s gun violence crisis, and how they think the city should address it.

Two Texas cheerleaders were shot outside an Austin-area grocery store after one of them mistakenly entered the wrong car. The incident follows two similar high-profile shootings that occurred in the past week: Homeowners shot Ralph Yarl, in Kansas City, Missouri, and killed Kaylin Gillis, in upstate New York, after each victim mistakenly approached a house. [ NBC ]

Seven mass shootings — defined as an incident in which four or more people were injured or killed, excluding the shooter — took place on April 15, the most of any day so far this year. The U.S. has already seen more than 160 mass shootings in 2023, with attacks taking place in almost every type of public and private space. [ CNN / Stacker ]

Gun reform proponents in Congress plan to again push for tougher firearm laws, but they aren’t optimistic that the fight will yield any results. [ The Hill ]

Tennessee lawmakers gave final approval to a bill that would further shield gun companies from civil liability lawsuits; the legislation now heads to Governor Bill Lee. The bill comes as Lee’s administration has been urging the General Assembly to pass a red flag law . In a letter, dozens of Nashville musicians — including Sheryl Crow, Kacey Musgraves, and Jason Isbell — joined the governor in calling for an extreme risk protection order law. [ Associated Press / The Tennessean ]

In Michigan, the Democratic-controlled Legislature sent a red flag bill to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s desk. Whitmer signed legislation expanding background checks and mandating safe firearm storage into law last week. [ Detroit Free Press ]

Family members of children killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde waited more than 12 hours to testify before a Texas House committee on a bill to raise the age to purchase some semiautomatic rifles to 21. [ The Texas Tribune ] Context: Uvalde families have rallied around the push for a raise-the-age law . They view it as a compromise, grounded in the reality that Texas is a gun state.

An Ohio grand jury decided that eight Akron police officers involved in last summer’s killing of Jayland Walker, whom the officers shot 46 times, will not face criminal charges. In response to the decision, Democratic U.S. Representative Emilia Strong Sykes, of Akron, said she will request a Justice Department investigation into the Police Department. [ Akron Beacon Journal ]

Three people, including two teenagers, were arrested and charged with murder in connection to the mass shooting at a Sweet 16 party in Dadeville, Alabama. Per the local district attorney, the teens will be tried as adults. [ USA TODAY ]

A Shooting Survivor Who Refuses to Let a Massacre Define Her : Anne Marie Hochhalter was a Columbine High School junior eating lunch with her friends when two gunmen stormed the lawn. (February 2016)

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Riding the Subway With Guns

Violence on the New York City subway, real and imagined, was invoked by pro-gun Supreme Court justices in their Bruen ruling. Now the decision's effects may be playing out.

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Columbine at 20: how school shootings became 'part of the American psyche'

It was an attack that could have been exception. Instead, its brutality has been made routine

W hen the US’s glaring failure to respond to gun violence was spotlighted – again – after 50 people were killed and dozens wounded in mass shootings at two mosques in New Zealand, Tom Mauser looked on in pain.

Not only was the Christchurch attack a brutal reminder of the assault at Columbine high school that left his 15-year-old son, Daniel, dead, in 1999, but New Zealand’s decisive action to ban assault rifles threw into stark relief decades of US inaction.

“In America, we often see ourselves as this great model for the rest of the world in so many arenas, but this is not one of those arenas,” said Mauser. “… We do nothing, we just shake our heads and say our thoughts and prayers and wait for the next one to happen.”

Mauser spoke with the Guardian from Colorado, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine high school. The attack on 20 April 1999 saw two boys murder 12 students and one teacher before killing themselves.

It was an attack that could have been exceptional.

Instead, its brutality has been made routine. The series of mass killings that followed Columbine have failed to result in a dramatic change to US gun culture, unlike similar events in comparable countries.

“ It’s not so much the sheer numbers of voters who support the very extreme view of gun rights and are pro-gun, it is more that that group is incredibly mobilized politically,” said Philip Cook, the co-author of The Gun Debate.

“If you ask any of the pro-gun people: ‘have you written to your congressional representative, have you made a contribution, have you gone to a public meeting’ … the answer is more likely to be yes for somebody who is pro-gun.”

Columbine was not the first school shooting in the US, but it was the most deadly since 1966 . The media sprinted into the tempest of confusion and shock, firing out inaccurate reports about a “trenchcoat mafia” and how Marilyn Manson’s music influenced the shooters.

Eventually, the public learned other people bought the shooters’ guns and that their actual goal was to kill hundreds more people with poorly made bombs police found in the cafeteria and parking lot.

In its wake, mass shooter drills became a normal part of the education system. And the federal government froze.

From 1994 until February of this year, not a single gun restriction bill advanced in Congress. The drought ended with a bill to expand federal background checks to all gun buyers and most gun transfers, closing a loophole that allows unlicensed gun sellers to not run background checks. That bill is unlikely to be taken up by the Republican-held Senate, and the president has said he would veto it.

“ The USA is failing to protect individuals and communities most at risk of gun violence, in violation of international human rights law,” Amnesty International warned . “The right to live free from violence, discrimination and fear has been superseded by a sense of entitlement to own a practically unlimited array of deadly weapons.”

Public spaces: from sacred to killing grounds

School shootings are not the leading cause of gun deaths in the US. In 2017, there were 39,773 gun deaths in the US , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – about 60% of those deaths were suicide.

But the idea that public spaces such as schools, churches and music festivals can be turned so quickly into killing grounds is one of the many outliers in the US attitude towards guns.

Last month, a student at Columbine during the attack, Craig Scott, said at an anniversary event that he worried school shootings have become “a part of the American psyche”.

When 10 students and teachers were killed in a shooting at Santa Fe high school in Texas in May 2018, a reporter asked a 17-year-old student, Paige Curry: “Was there a part of you that thought this isn’t real, this wouldn’t happen in my school?”

Curry answered, with chilling calm: “No, there wasn’t. It’s been happening everywhere. I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

Today’s teenagers were born after Columbine. They were children during Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook . They saw conservative politicians resist change after each attack, tightening the gun lobby’s grip on government, refusing to back even moderate gun reform.

And in 2018, they asked why an atrocity depicted in their textbooks continued to take place.

The February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school , ended the lives of 17 students and staff in Parkland, Florida.

Teenagers at the school broadcast their disgust on social media and to television cameras, spurring the most prominent movement against gun violence in decades.

The students delivered impassioned speeches and challenged critics, while also building up what would be one of the largest student demonstrations in US history – the March for Our Lives . Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at marches and walked out of class, including at Columbine high school, in March 2018 in support of stronger gun control measures.

‘There is hope’

The groundswell of public support wasn’t just in the streets, but also represented in March for Our Lives’ demands, which included universal background checks for all gun sales and a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines in the US, both of which are supported by a majority of Americans . In the 2018 midterm elections, Democratic candidates were more outspoken about guns, and won.

“There is hope on the part of folks that support reasonable regulation on guns and gun safety,” Cook said. “There has been some shift, maybe partly as the result of Parkland, and the remarkable effectiveness of those students in garnering attention and support.”

Mauser said the Parkland kids have had a “tremendous” impact, particularly in strengthening gun control in Florida. But Mauser has seen so many glimmers of promise before, that each one inspires a breath of caution.

“I really have to add, I’ve seen other things come up in the past. You think you are going to make some progress and it doesn’t sustain itself,” Mauser said. “I think these young people have the capability to keep it sustainable, but they have to keep working at it.”

Mauser knows better than most what it is like to tread through the muck of the gun control fight in the US.

Ten days after Daniel was killed, Mauser joined thousands of others to protest outside the National Rifle Association (NRA)’s annual convention in Denver, 15 miles from Columbine.

The NRA has for decades steered elections towards pro-gun candidates , despite being less financially powerful than other lobbies. It relies on a minority of impassioned individuals to block laws and regulations favored by most Americans.

Mauser for 20 years has come up against that dedicated minority while pushing for stronger gun control in Colorado. At the moment, he is supporting a “red flag” law that allows law enforcement or family to ask a judge to block someone considered to be in danger of harming themselves or someone else from purchasing a gun.

At key moments in these campaigns, Mauser wears the same shoes his son was wearing when he died in April 1999.

But the climate has changed since then, he said, with people who oppose gun restrictions more deeply entrenched than they were in the wake of Columbine, when he was able to speak with Republicans about possible gun restrictions.

“In the case of the red flag law, not a single Republican voted for the bill,” Mauser said. “The level of resistance and the intensity of the opposition has gone up significantly.”

No matter how badly Mauser wishes this all to change, the Columbine anniversary is simply another day without his son.

He and his family will steer clear of public events, instead privately remembering Daniel, a quiet, thoughtful boy who liked BBQ chicken and his dad’s homemade waffles .

“He was extremely shy and yet he chose to join the debate team at Columbine, where he had to get up and talk in front of people,” Mauser said. “That’s been the inspiration for me – if Daniel can do it, as tough as it is to do what I do and to talk about it, he took it on so I can take it on too.”

• US school shootings
• US gun control
• March for Our Lives
• Parkland, Florida school shooting

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Retro Report

20 Years After Columbine, What Have We Learned?

A horrifying mass shooting that unfolded onscreen in real time has become a recurring nightmare with a well-worn script.

By Clyde Haberman

Columbine wasn’t the first. There had been other mass shootings at American schools. One in 1997 killed three students and wounded five others at a high school in West Paducah, Ky. A 1998 massacre at a middle school in Jonesboro, Ark., left five dead and 10 wounded.

But no earlier burst of gun insanity shattered the national psyche like the carnage on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., outside Denver. The very name Columbine — rooted in the Latin word for dove, an enduring symbol of peace — was instantly transmogrified into a metaphor for a nation gone haywire in its embrace of devastating weaponry. Twenty years later, the attack remains as vivid as yesterday for many Americans, and not only because of its appalling casualty count: 13 killed and 21 wounded, excluding the heavily armed shooters, teenage students who took their own lives.

Columbine was more than the deadliest assault till then on a high school in the United States. It was a defining horror of the nascent digital age. Much of it unfolded onscreen in real time. Cowering students used cellphones to report what they had seen or heard. The possible impact that violent video games and internet trawling had on adolescent minds came wrenchingly to the forefront of debate.

In line with its mission of examining the past to try making sense of the present, the Retro Report series of video documentaries recalls Littleton’s nightmare on its 20th anniversary to explore what we have learned about school shootings across the years — and have yet to learn.

Among the unknowns is just how severe the threat is to America’s vulnerable young and their teachers. Some analyses show an increase in Columbine-like episodes, others a decline. Researchers disagree even on methodology. Do you include gang fights in the tally of misery? How about incidents that take place near school grounds but not on them?

But the knowns are self-evident, and unspeakable. From their writings, we know that Columbine became a touchstone for some of this country’s most unhinged. It inspired the armed young men who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 and 26 first graders and their instructors at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. Less clear was its influence on the shooter who took 17 lives last year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Still, the madness spoke for itself.

The derangement extends beyond schools to other venues once considered sanctuaries against a raging world. Concertgoers at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas came under fire in 2017, with 58 of them killed. Houses of worship are no longer havens. Witness the 9 shooting deaths in 2015 at a black church in Charleston, S.C. , the 11 deaths last year at a synagogue in Pittsburgh , the 6 at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. , in 2012, and the periodic assaults on mosques, even if none in this country have approached the carnage last month in Christchurch, New Zealand , where 50 Muslims were gunned down at prayer.

For people fearful of falling victim themselves someday, the question is no longer “Why me?” but, rather, “When me?”

Gun Violence Archive , which tracks the mayhem online, defines a mass shooting as one with four or more casualties. Through April 10, the archive had recorded 80 incidents in the United States this year, with at least 103 people killed and 284 wounded. Last year’s numbers were 340 mass shootings — an average of nearly one a day — with at least 373 deaths and 1,347 wounded. The Washington Post calculated earlier this month that in schools alone, in the years since Columbine, more than 223,000 children have been exposed to gun violence during classroom hours. Over the last 50 years, more Americans have been killed by guns (about 1.6 million through homicide or suicide) than in all United States wars combined (about 1.4 million).

By now, mass shootings are so ingrained in the national character that they come with their own well-worn script. Political and religious leaders dutifully send “thoughts and prayers.” News organizations deconstruct the killers’ lives, investigations that invariably boil down to the painfully obvious: these people had come unglued. Television anchors debate whether the shooters should be publicly identified. And the National Rifle Association stays calculatedly quiet for a day or two, then truculently reasserts its absolutist opposition to any form of gun regulation.

There was a time when federal lawmakers were sufficiently sickened by the violence to act. In 1994, Congress passed a law banning assault weapons. But that statute expired 10 years later. Since then, the government has done nothing but gladden the N.R.A.’s heart. Federal law now largely protects the firearms industry from lawsuits, though Sandy Hook families are trying to test the extent and depth of that shield. For its part, the United States Supreme Court has strengthened gun owners’ rights under the Second Amendment.

And through it all, death keeps calling. Last month, two teenage Parkland survivors psychically scarred by their ordeal took their own lives , as did the father of a Sandy Hook first-grader who was killed. “He was a brokenhearted person,” said another father who lost a child in the massacre. “As we all are.”

The video with this article is part of a documentary series presented by The New York Times. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report, led by Kyra Darnton, is a nonprofit media organization examining the history and context behind today’s news. To watch more, subscribe to the Retro Report newsletter , and follow Retro Report on YouTube and Twitter .

Gun Violence in America

A Grieving Mother’s Hope: Katy Dieckhaus, whose daughter was killed in the 2023 Covent School shooting in Nashville, is pleading for compromise with those who see gun rights as sacred .

A Historic Case: On Feb. 6, an American jury convicted a parent for a mass shooting carried out by their child for the first time. Lisa Miller, a reporter who has been following the case since its beginning, explains what the verdict really means .

Echoing Through School Grounds: In a Rhode Island city, gunshots from AR-15-style weapons have become the daily soundtrack for a school within 500 yards of a police shooting range. Parents are terrified, and children have grown accustomed to the threat of violence .

The Emotional Toll: We asked Times readers how the threat of gun violence has affected the way they lead their lives. Here’s what they told us .

Gun Control: U.S. gun laws are at the center of heated exchanges between those in favor and against tougher regulations. Here’s what to know about that debate .

I survived Columbine 23 years ago. Is America finally tired of all this death?

In April 1999, I survived the Columbine shooting . At just 17 years old, I was forced to process the murder of my friends, the trauma of my community, and the unique attention the world paid to my experience. At the time, Columbine was considered a once-in-a-generation type of tragedy — one that few other people in our country would ever have to contend with. 

If only that were true.

At the time, Columbine was considered a once-in-a-generation type of tragedy.

The phrase “mass shooting” (most often defined as four or more firearm deaths in one incident) was barely a part of our vocabulary 23 years ago. When I hid with dozens of classmates in a choir teacher’s office at Columbine High School, I would never have dreamed my nightmare would become America’s new normal. But now mass gun violence in the United States happens with breathtaking frequency. 

According to the organization Everytown for Gun Safety, the U.S. has experienced 274 mass shootings since 2009 alone. Thousands of survivors are now part of a club that nobody wants to join . Many are plagued with anxiety that they or their loved ones will become part of it next. As a father of four kids, the eldest of whom just finished his first year of college, I share those fears. Why assume “it won’t happen to me” when guns are now the No. 1 killer of children and adolescents in the United States ? It very well could happen to you. 

I think about how we vowed to “never forget” Columbine. How we would make sure the next generation would be safer. The opposite has happened. Virginia Tech. Aurora . Newtown . Orlando . Las Vegas . Parkland . El Paso . Buffalo . Uvalde . It is a burden too heavy. 

You likely have memories associated with some of these shootings. What you were doing when you heard. Who you were with. How it affected you. When the headlines break, I often hear from friends, family, and colleagues: “I’m so sorry you have to relive this again.” The truth is, we are all reliving it again on some level. The steady cadence of shock, grief and pain is our collective story.

This is America: According to one recent study, 71 percent of us view gun violence as a major issue facing the country, and 45 percent believe it is at a crisis level . Nearly half of our nation today is in a posture of crisis response. 

So now that the “thoughts and prayers” have been shared, what can we do together? 

So now that the “thoughts and prayers” have been shared, what can we do together?

First, politicize it. Politicians love to tell us not to “politicize these tragedies” following mass shootings. But that statement itself is a political demand — one that protects the status quo. We should expect political solutions from our leaders immediately. We should demand that evidence-based policies are heard. We should march for our lives. 

Not getting political on mass gun violence only risks more of the same. Ask a parent who lost a child to gun violence a simple question: Would you care if an earlier tragedy was politicized if it meant getting your son or daughter back? Of course not. Grief doesn’t have a political affiliation. 

Survivors like me are interested in the possibility of politics (or more accurately, policy ) to change the narrative. So let’s make it our expectation. In a country where more than 110 people reportedly die of gun violence every day, it’s time to contact your elected officials. Ask them what they’re doing to prevent and end gun violence in your community. And demand answers.

Then, change the culture. It’s impossible to ignore the role white supremacy , misogyny and extremism plays in so many mass gun violence events. In many mass shootings, the shooter has exhibited dangerous warning signs before the shooting. These known risk factors for shooters have found plenty of space to take root and flourish in our democracy. It’s a reality we must acknowledge and then challenge. 

How do we do it? Dismantling complex systems like racism and toxic masculinity is long-term work. But we all have a role to play right now. Seek out successful violence prevention programs in your city and volunteer. Look for established leaders who are setting the pace and ask how you can get involved. Consider supporting youth programs that mentor boys or young men in under-resourced communities. Donate to community-led organizations that are leading the charge on these parallel issues. 

Because it’s about the guns. The United States has roughly 5 percent of the world’s population and over 30 percent of the world’s mass shootings . We are the only country with more civilian-owned firearms than people. The data make it clear: Our longtime love affair with firearms plays a leading role in our gun violence epidemic. We’ve largely ignored that factor and it has only perpetuated the problem.

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And while politicians love to act like this is an impossibly polarizing issue, perhaps we’re not as divided as we think. The majority of Americans actually believe Congress should pass more extensive gun legislation. According to a 2015 Public Policy Polling survey , 83 percent of gun owners support expanded background checks. In a nation where an estimated 4.6 million children live in a home with at least one gun that is loaded and unlocked, secure storage requirements would be a game changer. Let’s promote and advocate for these consensus positions and save lives together.

A new generation has grown up since Columbine ; 310,000 more students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence since that day in 1999 when I escaped with my life. They deserved better. But it’s not too late to change the story for the next generation. No American should have to experience the trauma I went through. This time can be different, but it takes the participation of us all. Will we as a society be complicit? Or will we say, finally, enough death. The time for action is now.

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Craig Nason is a school shooting survivor who graduated from Columbine High School in 2000. He still lives in Littleton, Colorado, with his wife and four children. He works with the Denver-based nonprofit organization the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking .

Newspaper Article Analysis

A Community ‘Surrounded by love’: With poems and prayers, Denver residents give support after Columbine High shooting:

The article, from The Christian Science Monitor published on April 23, 1999, serves to illustrate the community response following the Columbine High School shooting. It further sheds light on the strength and resilience present within the community. The article begins by highlighting a note someone wrote, reading “‘You have been shattered by their hate. But you are surrounded by our love.”’ This emphasizes the strong sense of community felt by those in Littleton following the disaster. The article states how thousands of Coloradans are gathered on a lawn adjacent to Columbine High School, all sharing “the compelling need to be present here, to help in any way they can”. Further, residents from suburbs on the opposite side of the Denver area came to show their support, showing how the strong sense of community extends beyond Littleton and into neighboring communities. 

Further, the article emphasizes the impact of personal connections within the community response. This is seen through Columbine High School Alumni Sarah Tomicih, whose younger brother was a student at the school at the time of the shooting. Tomicih drove home from her school immediately after hearing the news, and though her brother was safe, she wanted to stay home to be able to help in any way she could. Tomicih emphasized that she wanted to be able to be there and ‘“just listen to anyone who needs to talk about this.”’ This personal connection reflects the strong presence of empathy and solidarity within the community. 

Columbine Tragedy Claims Another Victim

The article ‘Columbine Tragedy Claims Another Victim’ from the Washington Post serves to illustrate the lasting effects of Columbine not only on the survivor’s themselves, but additionally the survivor’s family members, shedding light on the impact the events have had on individuals mental health. The article focuses on Carla Hochhalter, the mother of survivor Anne Marie Hochhlater, who was severely injured in the shooting. Carla Hochhalter committed suicide six months following the shooting, and was “declared dead at the same hospital where her daughter was saved by the heroic work of emergency room doctors.” 

According to friend Connie Michalik regarding Hochhlater’s suicide, “First you’re devastated, then you’re angry, and then you move on to deal with it. She never really left the devastation stage. She was just stuck there.” This illustrates the indirect impacts of Columbine. As Hochhlater’s daughter Anne Marie was severely injured in the shooting and was paralyzed in both her legs, it took an immense toll on Hochhalter, with her constantly worrying about Anne Marie. Michalik further stated “She was just so worried about Anne Marie. How she was going to get around school, how she was going to be able to go to college, how she would be able to drive. She was just so focused on Anne Marie.” 

Hochhlater’s anxiety regarding Anne Marie is representative of the harshly distorted realities many survivors and their families had to face, suggesting how the most difficult aspect of disasters is not the survival of the events, but living and coping with the aftermath of it. Hochhlater’s suicide is just one example of the importance of recognizing and prioritizing mental health awareness and treatment in this disaster. The article does not explicitly mention anything regarding mental health or mental illness, though in an interview done several years later, Anne Marie stated her mother had been struggling with depression prior to Columbine, and that the shooting was not the sole cause of her suicide. The article’s lack of explicit discussion of mental illness serves to illustrate the underlying stigma surrounding mental health, further exhibiting the need for awareness and education surrounding mental health and illness.

May 25, 2022

What We Know about Mass School Shootings—and Shooters—in the U.S.

Criminologists explain what the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., and other deadly assaults have in common

By James Densley , Jillian Peterson & The Conversation US

Law enforcement officers speak together outside of Robb Elementary School following the mass shooting on May 24, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. According to reports, 19 students and 2 adults were killed, with the gunman fatally shot by law enforcement.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation , an online publication covering the latest research.

When the Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999 it was seen as a watershed moment in the United States – the worst mass shooting at a school in the country’s history.

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Now, it ranks fourth. The three school shootings to surpass its death toll of 13 – 12 students, one teacher – have all taken place within the last decade: 2012’s Sandy Hook Elementary attack , in which a gunman killed 26 children and school staff; the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of 17 people ; and now the Robb Elementary School assault in Uvalde, Texas, where on May 24, 2022, at least 19 children and two adults were murdered.

We are criminologists who study the life histories of public mass shooters in the U.S. As part of that research, we built a comprehensive database of mass public shootings using public data, with the shooters coded on over 200 different variables, including location and racial profile. For the purposes of our database, mass public shootings are defined as incidents in which four or more victims are murdered with at least one of those homicides taking place in a public location and with no connection to underlying criminal activity, such as gangs or drugs.

Our database shows that since 1966, when our database timeline begins, there have been 13 such shootings at schools across the U.S – the first in Stockton, California , in 1989.

Four of those shootings – including the one at Robb Elementary School – involved a killing at another location, always a family member at a residence. There have been reports the most recent perpetrator shot his grandmother prior to going to the school in Uvalde, although that has yet to be officially confirmed.

The majority of mass school shootings were carried out by a lone gunman, with just two – Columbine and the 1998 shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro, Arkansas – carried out by two gunmen. In all, some 146 people were killed in the attacks and at least 182 victims injured.*

The choice of “gunmen” to describe the perpetrators is accurate – all of the mass school shootings in our database were carried out by men or boys . And the average age of those involved in carrying out the attacks was 18.

This fits with the picture that has emerged of the shooter in the Robb Elementary School attack . He turned 18 just days ago and purchased two military-style weapons thought to be the ones used in the attack.

Police have yet to release key information on the shooter, including what motivated him to kill the children and adults at Robb Elementary School. The picture of the shooter that has emerged conforms to the profile we have built up from past perpetrators in some ways, but diverges in others.

We know that most school shooters have a connection to the school they target. Twelve of the 14 school shooters in our database prior to the most recent attack in Texas were either current or former students of the school. Any prior connection between the latest shooter and Robb Elementary School has not been released to the public.

Our research and dozens of interviews with incarcerated perpetrators of mass shootings suggests that for most perpetrators, the mass shooting event is intended to be a final act. The majority of school mass shooters die in the attack. Of the 15 mass school shooters in our database, just seven were apprehended. The rest died on the scene, nearly all by suicide – the lone exception being the Robb Elementary shooter, who was shot dead by police.

And school shooters tend to preempt their attacks by leaving posts, messages or videos warning of their intent.

Inspired by past school shooters, some perpetrators are seeking fame and notoriety . However, most school shooters are motivated by a generalized anger. Their path to violence involves self-hate and despair turned outward at the world, and our research finds they often communicate their intent to do harm in advance as a final, desperate cry for help . The key to stopping these tragedies is for society to be alert to these warning signs and act on them immediately.

This article was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

*Editor’s Note (5/25/22): Our partners at The Conversation have edited this sentence after posting to correct the date of the shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro, Ark.

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• v.1(2); Apr-Dec 2013

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as tipping point

James m shultz.

1 Center for Disaster & Extreme Event Preparedness (DEEP Center); University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; Miami, FL USA

Glenn W Muschert

2 Department of Sociology and Gerontology; Miami University; Oxford, OH USA

Alison Dingwall

3 Social, Behavioral, and Linguistic Sciences Department; The MITRE Corporation; McLean, VA USA

Alyssa M Cohen

4 Cooper City, FL USA

Among rampage shooting massacres, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14, 2012 galvanized public attention. In this Commentary we examine the features of this episode of gun violence that has sparked strong reactions and energized discourse that may ultimately lead toward constructive solutions to diminish high rates of firearm deaths and injuries in the United States.

Introduction

On December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut became the unlikely scene of the second-deadliest school-based shooting massacre in US history. 1 , 2 Twenty first-grade school children and six school staff were gunned down in the space of 12 min. The rampage was cut short by the rapid deployment of law enforcement personnel whose arrival on-scene prompted the shooter, Adam Lanza, to drop his assault rifle and commit suicide with a handgun. 1

In the aftermath, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting has been described as a “tipping point” (a direct reference to Malcolm Gladwell’s formulation of this concept 3 , 4 ) in a national discussion regarding a broad array of potential solutions to curb gun violence. 5 In this commentary, we examine several interrelated features that contribute to Sandy Hook’s potential for catalyzing the national conversation on firearm homicides. We will describe how the prominence of this mass shooting is related to: 1) the rarity and extremity of this event; 2) the strong identification of the American population with the affected community of Newtown; 3) the active involvement of high-visibility leaders of influence (and “connectors” 3 , 4 ) in maintaining the salience of the gun violence issue; 4) the multiple tiers of psychological impact, ultimately extending nationwide; 5) the evolution of the media “framing” of the incident as the extensive coverage unfolded; and 6) the proliferation of social media communications about the shooting, providing an inclusive platform for broad public discourse ( Table 1 ).

Sandy Hook Rampage Shooting: Rare and Extreme Event

Sandy Hook stands out because of the large number of deaths in a single incident; the nihilistic nature of this intentional, premeditated act; and the characteristics of the victims: young, innocent, defenseless children and the heroic teachers and school staff who died shielding them. 1 , 2 The Newtown shooting was immediately labeled as a “fundamentally different” episode of gun violence. 6 , 7

Indeed, while firearm deaths are common, rampage school shooting deaths are sporadic and few. 2 Today in the United States, midnight to midnight, more than 85 persons will die by firearm. 2 , 8 More than half of these deaths will be self-inflicted suicides and more than 40% will be homicides. The “counter” resets every midnight and the death toll repeats each day.

Providing a counterpoint, our research indicates that shooting deaths that occur in school settings represent only 0.12% of national firearm homicides and most of these incidents are “targeted” shootings in which the perpetrator intentionally seeks out and kills one or more specific individuals. 2 School-based “rampage” or mass murder shooting incidents, as exemplified by Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, or Sandy Hook Elementary School, account for only about one-eighth of school shooting episodes and 0.04% of national firearm homicides. 2 , 9

Despite the reality that the United States has the highest firearm suicide, homicide, and total firearm mortality rates in the developed world, 2 most days the public is oblivious to the steady daily drumbeat of gun deaths. However, on December 14, 2012, the shooting massacre in Newtown abruptly brought the nation to alert attention on this issue. Indicative of the “tipping point” nature of Sandy Hook, Slate.com initiated, and continuously maintains, a website displaying a running tally of United States gun deaths post-Newtown. 10 In the aftermath, as the focus remained riveted on the 28 deaths in Newtown on that day (20 children, 6 school staff, the shooter’s mother, and the shooter), the number of firearm deaths across America has steadily accumulated and has surpassed 27,477 fatalities in ten months as this commentary goes to press. Sandy Hook was rare, extreme, and got the nation talking.

Public Identification with Newtown, Connecticut

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred in the self-described “scenic small town” of Newtown, Connecticut. 11 As a quintessentially safe community (the violent crime rate at 0.47 crimes/1,000 residents–is one-eighth of the US average), 12 Newtown attracts an inflow of new residents who transplant their families in order to avail themselves of the fine schools and wholesome milieu. Given this exemplary community identity, the brutal events of December 14, 2012 are all the more incongruous. In part, the forceful and immediate public reaction may have been triggered by the powerful identification with the desirable qualities of the community where the shooting occurred. Many Americans live in communities like Newtown; many more aspire to do so.

In the public’s mind, mass violence came to be associated with distressed inner city neighborhoods, not places like Newtown. Sociologist J. William Spencer 10 described the evolution of the public framing of youth violence as follows: From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, widespread concerns led to predictions of the emergence of a generation of young “superpredators” who would transform urban, impoverished neighborhoods into war zones. Youth violence was understood as endemic not only to the schools but to the surrounding poverty-stricken environs. In other words, schools were interpreted as violent because they were located in violent neighborhoods. Unspoken, but by extension, this also meant that schools in the suburbs should be relatively exempt from violence.

Contrary to forecasts, the rate of urban violence actually started to decline in the early 1990s. The trend continues to this day. Nevertheless, there remains relatively high fear about school violence, but with an important distinction. In the late 1990s, a rash of school shootings in such geographically dispersed small towns and rural locales as Bethel, AK (1997); Pearl, MS (1997); Paducah, KY (1997); Jonesboro, AR (1998); Edinboro, PA (1998); and Springfield, OR (1998), jolted the public’s concern from an exclusive focus on violent urban youth to accommodate the reality of shooting rampages occurring in rural and suburban schools. These events became amalgamated as a unified phenomenon with the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Colorado. 14 The feared 1980s urban youth superpredator never materialized; instead, the school shooter emerged as the late-1990s exemplar of youth violence. The enduring legacy of the Columbine shooters was that they became the “poster children” for young violent offenders in schools, the contemporary superpredators, if you will. 15 The Columbine shooting was the supreme “tipping point” school shooting of its time and America has existed in the “post-Columbine era” thereafter. 16

On the theme of public identification with Newtown, while many Americans may have dismissed the pertinence of school shootings occurring in urban distressed neighborhoods - or even in rural locales - using “them-not-us” logic, the relevancy of Columbine in 1999 and Sandy Hook in 2012 is undeniable. Mainstream America has been confronted with the reality that school shootings are not a problem that happens to other people; such attacks can happen in any school. The risk is shared universally. 17

Involvement from Influence Leaders at the Highest Levels

The Sandy Hook massacre commanded attention from the very top. Just hours after the shooting, Newtown First Selectman E. Patricia Llodra, the town’s highest-ranking official, appeared before the news cameras, quickly followed by the arrival of Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy. However it was President Barack Obama who elevated the Sandy Hook chronicle to national priority status. In fact, a distinguishing feature of Sandy Hook was the direct and personal involvement of a sitting President.

Two days following the shooting on December 16, 2012, the President arrived in Newtown to meet with the victims’ family members. At the close of a nationally broadcasted ecumenical prayer service, the President called upon the entire nation to provide solace and support for the grieving Newtown community.

The President empaneled a group of national experts as members of the Gun Violence Task Force who were asked to identify a comprehensive portfolio of possible remedies to address the nation’s public health crisis of gun violence – within four weeks. On January 16, 2013, the President addressed the nation, presenting the wide-ranging options generated by the Task Force and signing a set of 23 Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions on camera. 18 , 19 Concurrently, the White House website launched a page of resources under the banner, “Now is the Time: The President’s Plan to Protect Our Children and Our Communities by Reducing Gun Violence.” 20

On February 12, 2013, two months after the Newtown massacre, President Obama delivered his State of the Union address, with family members of the Newtown victims seated in the galleries. In his remarks, the President spoke directly to the “tipping point” nature of Newtown when he said, “I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence, but this time is different .” 21 Taking a page from the Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point ) playbook, the President facilitated the direct participation of victims’ family members, as “connectors,” to lobby Congressional leaders and the general public in support of proposed legislation for diminishing the rate and consequences of firearm violence in the United States.

Pervasive Psychological Impact in Relation to Levels of Exposure

School massacres not only kill and injure, they also psychologically traumatize. The expansive nationwide “psychological footprint” of Newtown is a unique characteristic of this event. 23 The deadliest school shooting in the US occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007. 24 In the immediate aftermath, Norris 25 reviewed the literature on the psychological impact of mass shootings on survivors, families, and communities. Among persons who directly experienced or witnessed a mass shooting incident, the prevalence of a post-event diagnosis of psychological disorder (PTSD was most commonly studied) was 10–36%. Norris noted that even higher proportions of the exposed population experienced distress and “subthreshold PTSD.” Compared with direct exposure to a broad spectrum of natural and human-generated disaster events, 26 , 27 the psychological consequences of onsite exposure to a mass shooting incident is on the “severe” end of the continuum. This finding was underscored by the fact that almost all direct victims or witnesses reported psychological symptoms.

Mass shooting events have served as the basis for pioneering studies that examined the proximity of exposure to the shooting event in relation to psychological outcomes. Pynoos and colleagues studied a sniper attack at an elementary school playground that occurred while some of the children were outside for recess. 28 - 30 Following a dose-response pattern, children who were on the playground had higher rates and greater severity of PTSD symptoms compared with children who were inside the school during the shooting episode and children who were not on school premises during the shooting were minimally affected. Similarly, for Newtown, we can identify multiple “tiers” of exposure intensity.

Population Exposure Model

The manner in which a highly-focalized act of mass violence such as the Sandy Hook mass shooting becomes amplified to create community-wide, or even nationwide, psychological consequences has been intuitively formulated with the “Population Exposure Model” (PEM) developed by Deborah DeWolfe for the Department of Health and Human Services. 31 , 32 Simply stated, “The model’s underlying principle is that the individuals who are most personally, physically, and psychologically exposed to trauma and the disaster scene are likely to be affected the most.” 31 Applying the PEM, we provide a detailed presentation of the widespread and pervasive psychological effects specific to the Newtown shooting in narrative ( Box 1 ) and graphic ( Fig. 1 ) 32 formats to both describe and display the event’s psychological “ripple effects.”

Box 1. Population Exposure Model (PEM) applied to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre

The widespread and pervasive psychological consequences emanating from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting can be described in terms of the PEM. We will review the tiers of persons affected by the shooting massacre, beginning from the center (most intense exposure) and extending outward. In the absence of knowledge of the specific exposures, and the precise degree of social connection for each individual, this classification presents an approximation of the psychological “reach” of this event.

Deceased victims killed in the attack . The killings form the basis for most of the psychological trauma and the starting point for defining psychological effects. The shooter, Mr. Lanza, lived with his mother at her home. After killing his mother, Nancy Lanza, in her bed, Mr. Lanza drove five miles across town to Sandy Hook Elementary School where his shooting rampage claimed the lives of 26 victims. Shooting victims at the school were 20 first-grade children (all children in one classroom except for a single survivor and additional children in a second classroom) and six school staff (Principal Dawn Hochsprung, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, first grade teachers Victoria Leigh Soto and Lauren Rousseau (substitute), and teacher’s aides Anne Marie Murphy and Rachel D’Avino). As Police entered the school, responding to an “active shooter” scenario, the perpetrator committed suicide. Adding the out-of-school matricide of Nancy Lanza and the in-school suicide of the shooter, Adam Lanza, to the 26 shooting victims on school premises, there were 28 total deaths.

Because these 28 individuals were killed, they are not depicted on the PEM diagram of survivors, but their deaths largely define where others appear on the continuum of multiple “tiers.”

Tier 1. Directly-threatened and intensely-exposed survivors. Primary family members of the deceased victims. The most intensely exposed survivors included the two wounded school staff, the surviving children who were in the two classrooms where classmates and teachers were killed, and the bereaved primary family members of the victims who were killed. Two teachers were wounded and survived the attack. Having been directly accosted by the shooter, and having sustained firearm injury, these two school staff members could be considered to be among the most intensely exposed survivors.

Primary family members of the deceased victims . In addition to Nancy Lanza’s surviving son (brother of the shooter), more than 150 primary family members of the 26 who were killed at the school (parents and siblings of the 20 slain children; parents, siblings, spouses, and children of the six slain staff members) are dealing with bereavement, the “fact of loss through death.” Because of the unpredicted, unanticipated, premature, and “unthinkable” nature of these deaths, exacerbated by the fact that these killings were intentional, premeditated acts of murder, it is likely that many first-line relatives will experience varying combinations of traumatic bereavement, complicated grief, depression, and in substantial proportion, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression.

Surviving children in the classrooms where killings occurred. Among the children, the lone survivor in Ms. Rousseau’s class was spared death by lying perfectly still in the pile of fallen classmates until the shooter exited the classroom. A cluster of children escaped from Ms. Soto’s class, running past the shooter as their teacher was gunned down attempting to physically shield her students who burst out of the closet where they were hidden. These were the most intensely exposed children on that day.

Tier 2: Surviving school children and staff who were in the school (but not in the line of fire) during the shooting and their primary family members. At the next level of exposure intensity are the remainder of the surviving school children, teachers, and staff who were in the school during the incident but not in the classrooms where the killings took place. Nevertheless, the remainder of the 400 children who attended school that day - and all school administrators, teachers, and staff - were exposed to the grotesque carnage in the hallways and classrooms, the pandemonium, and the frantic efforts to hide and escape from the line of deadly fire. They experienced various gradations of exposure as they co-habited the school premises with the shooter who was methodically stalking and killing.

Also included here would be the primary family members of these children and staff members who waited with extreme distress to see who would emerge alive. Parents and close relatives of the 400 children and dozens of staff members who ultimately emerged alive maintained an anguishing vigil until their families were reunited. The hours of uncertainty, without proof of life, prior to reunification were agonizing and potentially traumatizing. Media coverage focused on the visibly distressed parents hovering at the periphery of the school, talking animatedly on their cell phones, and bunched in small groups for mutual support. Mixed with relief and gratitude, a powerful variation of survivor guilt played out for families whose children survived. Parents whose children, once released, sprinted toward their waiting embrace came together to support families less fortunate whose child was shot dead in a classroom just yards away from where there children had been spared.

Tier 3: Bereaved extended family members. Intensely-involved emergency responders. The third level of exposure intensity merges two categories of persons, the extended family members of those who were killed and the frontline responders. With more than 150 primary family members acutely bereaved by the shooting, the inclusion of extended family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, other household members) certainly amplifies this number to more than 1,000.

The most dedicated, involved – and exposed – professionals who were on scene in their respective roles included the Newtown community government leaders; law enforcement, fire/rescue, and emergency medical services professionals who entered the school; medical examiners and their staff; and service providers who provided death notification and psychosocial support for the bereaved families. Hundreds of Newtown and State of Connecticut first responders arrived at the Sandy Hook Elementary School scene. As a small community, some of these personnel were part-time responders from a variety of professions. For all, the slaughter they witnessed had to be very troubling.

Tier 4: Care providers. Media personnel. Psychological impact was also felt by the mental health providers, clergy, chaplains, and spiritual leaders. School district personnel were tasked with providing support to Sandy Hook Elementary School students and staff who were relocated to continue their education in other schools. Media personnel were camped out in Newtown for weeks, witnessing and absorbing the effects of the shooting on the community.

Tier 5: Community of Newtown. Persons involved off-scene in the response. Stakeholders on issues of violence and mental health. Expanding beyond those with direct ties to Sandy Hook Elementary School, the entire community of Newtown has been forever affected. A strong, cohesive community, they were showcased in their grief and heroism in the nationally televised prayer service and with grassroots organizations such as the Sandy Hook Promise ( www.sandyhookpromise.org/ ), the community has determined to be known for its indomitable resilience.

Also potentially affected psychologically, though at a more peripheral level, were government officials involved in response off-scene, public health professionals dealing with firearm violence, US stakeholders on issues of violence and mental health, and groups that identify professionally with the target victims such as teachers who work in school systems that regularly experience high risks for interpersonal violence.

Tier 6: The Nation at large. The Newtown shooting was extensively televised and promulgated explosively through traditional and social media. The event, unfolding during the year-end family holiday season, was riveting for the nation at large and provoked strong emotional reaction in addition to energized rhetoric, debate, and dialog.

Figure 1. Population Exposure Model. 31 , 32

The PEM diagram consists of a set of concentric circles expanding outward from the point of maximum impact, inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the epicenter of the event. 32 In the PEM diagram the degree of exposure is portrayed using a color gradient. The inner rings, representing intense exposure are presented in shades of bright red and orange. Expanding from the center is a sequence of progressively larger rings, representing increasingly larger numbers of affected persons, but with diminishing intensities of exposure. Also to portray decreasing severity of exposure, the colors of the largest and most populated rings are portrayed in “cooler” shades of green and blue.

From the PEM model, it is apparent that while the physical harm was concentrated and confined inside a single building, the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the psychological impact radiated outward to the farthest reaches of the nation.

Extensive Media Exposure and Media Framing of Sandy Hook

The media focus was instrumental in elevating the profile of the Sandy Hook shooting to “tipping point” status. School shootings are highly “mass-mediated” events. Mass media provide the conduits for propelling the story to the public. Although extremely rare, rampage shootings are closely watched and loom large as examples in the public consciousness of larger social issues, such as school and gun violence. Indeed, the development of the social discourse and problem awareness surrounding the issue of school shootings cannot be seen apart from media processes. Mass media portrayals serve as an integral and inseparable part of the events themselves. 33 , 34

When a Columbine- or Sandy Hook-style incident takes place, the intensity and constancy of the mass media bombardment contributes to the public’s widely held misperception that school shooting massacres are high-frequency, high-probability events. Despite the fact that very few persons, schools, and towns will ever experience school rampage incidents, these intermittent events but well-publicized events exert a high degree of leverage on the public’s perception of the problem. 14 , 15 This is an example of a cognitive bias called the availability bias . People tend to unconsciously rely on the sheer volume of available event information to help them made judgments about event frequency; well-publicized events are incorrectly judged to occur more frequently than events that are not as well-publicized. 42

The misguided notion that school shooting massacres are likely to occur in many communities across America is an example of how the availability bias can lead to a seemingly media-driven distortion of risk. Gun deaths are indeed common but not mass shooting episodes. Consider that 30 gun homicides occur every day, equivalent to more than 11,000 per year. 2 Compare this “11,000” figure to the average annual number of school shooting deaths: 16 per year - and most are “targeted” shootings. The average number of school rampage shooting deaths is just 6 per year. 2

As one indicator of the disproportionate news coverage accorded to school mass shootings, Slate.com’s continuous tally of gun deaths post-Newtown (mentioned earlier) has exceeded 27,477 fatalities over ten months. 10 Yet only 9,388 (34.2%) of these deaths have been mentioned in any form of coverage, and usually just once while the remaining two-thirds of firearm deaths have not received a jot of media publicity. 10 Clearly the mass murder of children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School is extraordinarily compelling, and the symbolic and visceral reality of these deaths should never be discounted. However, operating from a public health vantage, we point out that the prominent media play given to shooting massacres may obscure the fact that most gun deaths are suicides and single-victim homicides. 2 While Sandy Hook, as “tipping point,” vaults the issue of gun violence to the forefront, the development of a comprehensive set of remedies to address the total population burden of gun violence will not be optimally served by a singular focus on mitigating mass shootings.

Proliferation of Social Media Communications

The four deadliest school shootings in United States history occurred in distinctly different eras of mass media evolution. The story of the 1966 Texas Tower sniper was conveyed to the public through the traditional channels of network television, radio, and print media. The 1999 Columbine High School shooting took place as 24-h cable television and Internet news sources were gaining popularity but these modalities maintained the conventional top-down, “few-to-many” model of news delivery. At the time of the 2007 Virginia Tech University shooting, the use of social networking sites was an emerging trend but effective applications of social media in emergencies was yet to be developed. In contrast, by the time of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, social media had expanded to become a dominant force for citizen communications about the event.

The proliferation of social media sites has lowered the technological threshold for citizen participation in the digital sphere, thus catapulting many times more participants into the public discourse on current events. The Pew Internet and American Life Project 35 indicated that 65% of United States adult Internet users were participating in one or more forms of Internet social networking services 36 (SNSs; e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram) in 2011, with 89% of the age 18–29 demographic using SNSs in 2012.

The availability and adoption of social media has transformed information sharing from a “one-to-many” format to a “many-to-many” conversation. SNSs provide a vast and inclusive platform for immediate, multi-directional communication and social connection. SNS users can convey their own story about the event and share their personal thoughts, feelings and perspectives. This creates a wealth of information and data that can be analyzed to understand the salient themes, reactions, and sentiments related to the event.

Based on the fact that online and SNS technology provides an ideologically neutral context for networking and communications, and a mechanism to instantly spread news reports worldwide, researchers are beginning to explore the role that online and social media play in events such as Sandy Hook. 37 Rampage school shootings provide an interesting case to examine this approach, given the small number of incidents relative to the impact of these events and large amounts of data generated.

Not all internet and SNS users engage with online and social media the same way or for the same purpose. For instance, Hoffman and Novak have developed a framework which categorizes four objectives for social media use - create, connect, consume, and control – the “4 C’s.” 38 With traditional top-down news delivery, a few producers “create” information for the many to “consume,” but social media engages all “4 C’s” in a complex dance of multi-way interactions. Not only is information shared quickly, but social media also brings people together. It allows people to be connected instantly while simultaneously creating, consuming, and controlling the media event.

To better understand the conversations happening in online and social media sites and how these conversations travel, researchers have developed new tools and technologies for collecting and analyzing the data generated. Using these tools, it is possible to sort and analyze the Tweets of interest related to the Newtown shooting. Using a word cloud to represent Twitter data, in which prominent hash tags are depicted in larger font, Figure 2 illustrates relevant hash tags related to the word “gun” for the month of December 2012, thus highlighting the emphasis social media placed on the Newtown shooting (#newtown) and a National call to action (#demandaplan and #guncontrol).

Figure 2. Relevant Twitter hash tags related to the word “gun” for the month of December 2012.

An unpublished analysis performed by one of this article’s authors revealed that, on the day of the shooting, and the following week (December 14–21, 2012). there were three million Tweets worldwide containing the keywords: “school shooting,” “newtown,” or “sandyhook” (or the corresponding hashtags: #schoolshooting, #newtown, #sandyhook) as shown in Figure 3 . One million of these Tweets originated from a media source, whereas 2 million Tweets originated from non-media sources. The geographic view of these Tweets shows an intense concentration of Tweets from inside Newtown and surrounding Fairfield County, with elevated levels for the entire State of Connecticut. Yet the expansive national and global diffusion of Tweets on this incident highlights that online and social media have the power not only to disseminate information, but also to connect individuals instantly and without physical – or geographical – limitations.

Figure 3. Tweets from December 13, 2012–February 20, 2013. “School Shooting,” “Gun,” “Newtown.” Non-media only.

While the volume of Tweets related to the Newtown shooting dropped slightly over time, the public renewed social media conversations at times when President Obama made public statements about the event and demanded a call to action. The spikes in Figure 4 represent an increase in the volume of Tweets with hash tags “schoolshooting,” “gun,” and “mental health” correlating with significant events. To be expected, these hash tags caused a spike on the day of the event, December 14, 2012. Of interest, the spikes returned on January 16, 2013 when the Obama administration unveiled their new gun control polices, 43 and then again following President Obama’s State of the Union address. 21

Figure 4. Twitter coverage: 09/2012–02/2013. “School Shooting,” “Gun,” “Mental Health.”

Concluding Discussion

When multiple concurrent events vie for attention, each with powerful public health, public safety, and public policy implications, how does a single incident emerge that compels and commands the focus of the American public? How does an event achieve “the moment of critical mass?” 3 We have examined the case of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a singular event, just 12 min in duration, that became instantly iconic in the history of gun violence in the United States. The memory of Sandy Hook has been reactivated with each subsequent episode of firearm violence including the rampant, multiple-victim shooting escapades in Chicago (the nation’s new “murder capital”) 39 and the Washington Naval Yard shooting 40 on September 16, 2013. Sandy Hook also provided the “what-if” counterpoint during the reporting of the Decatur, Georgia school shooting threat that was thwarted by the stunning courage of Antoinette Tuff, as she talked down the would-be killer. 41

We have described six hallmarks of the Sandy Hook shooting massacre that coalesced into a riveting story and a call for action. The event was random and extreme. Americans identified closely with Newtown. A sitting President made this rampage shooting his personal mission. Powerful psychological reactions spread nationwide. The mass media “framing” brought unrelenting focus to this episode. Social media messaging reverberated throughout the digital sphere, keeping individuals engaged in multi-way conversation. Collectively, these elements created a “tipping point” moment.

However, a call to action neither guarantees immediate change nor necessarily predicts the direction that change may take. As a tipping point, Newtown has acted as a fulcrum for action. Yet the leverage for action has been applied in opposite directions by competing factions. The most significant federal legislation brought forward as a direct result of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a bill to require background checks prior to authorizing a gun purchase. Family members of the Newtown victims were in Washington to actively lobby in favor of this legislation. Despite public acclaim and broad consensus for this legislation, with as many as 90% of Americans endorsing background checks, the bill went down to defeat in the Senate by a vote of 54–46 on April 17, 2013. 44 Meanwhile, action was also taking place at the state level. By June 2013, six months after the shooting, 86 state gun laws had been passed post-Newtown. 45 At least five states, including Connecticut where the shooting occurred, enacted tougher gun control legislation, but more than one dozen states loosened their gun laws. 46 As one of the most extreme examples of the contentiousness of the issues raised by Sandy Hook, The Second Amendment Foundation, a gun owners’ rights organization based in Washington just announced plans to declare the one-year anniversary of the Newtown shooting, December 14, 2013, “Guns Save Lives Day,” drawing swift reaction from the community that will be mourning its losses on that day. 47

From a balanced perspective, hopefully, going forward, the momentum of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting will be channeled into an earnest search, and dedicated research, to identify a set of acceptable solutions to diminish the population burden, and the individualized horror, of gun violence in America.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

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Passage to Siberia: Exploring historic Tyumen

Tyumen. View up the Tura River. From left: Church of the Elevation of the Cross, School of Commerce, Trinity Monastery with Church of Sts. Peter and Paul and Trinity Cathedral. September 4, 1999

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian chemist and photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky developed a complex process for vivid color photography. His vision of photography as a form of education and enlightenment was demonstrated with special clarity through his images of architectural monuments in the historic sites throughout the Russian heartland.

Tyumen. View up the Tura River. From left: Annunciation Cathedral (demolished); Church of Elevation of the Cross; Church of the Ascension & St. George; Trinity Monastery. Summer 1912

In June 1912, Prokudin-Gorsky ventured into western Siberia as part of a commission to document the Kama-Tobolsk Waterway, a link between the European and Asian sides of the Ural Mountains. The town of Tyumen served as his launching point for the journey north to Tobolsk, on the Irtysh River.

Cathedral of Icon of Virgin of the Sign, south view. August 29, 1999

During his journey, Prokudin-Gorsky took several extraordinarily valuable photographs of both Tyumen and Tobolsk . My photographs of Tyumen and Tobolsk were taken in the late Summer of 1999.

Humble beginnings

Cathedral of Icon of Virgin of the Sign, southwest view. August 29, 1999

Considered the earliest permanent Russian settlement in Siberia, Tyumen was founded in 1586 on the site of a Tatar encampment at the confluence of the Tura and Tiumenka Rivers. The initiative for its creation came from Boris Godunov, the power behind the throne of Tsar Fedor (son of Ivan the Terrible) and, eventually, to become tsar himself in 1598. 

Cathedral of Icon of Virgin of the Sign, south facade. August 29, 1999

Godunov was closely allied with the Stroganovs, who from their commercial center at the northern town of Solvychegodsk had sent a detachment of Cossacks commanded by a certain Yermak deep into Siberia to challenge the power of the ruler of Siberian Tatars, Khan Kuchum. Although the precise dates are open to question, it appears that, in the Fall of 1581, Yermak captured Chingi-Tura (later Tyumen), but abandoned his conquest, in order to proceed straight to Kashlyk, capital of Khan Kuchum, whom Yermak defeated in 1582 during a battle near the Irtysh River. 

Church of the Miraculous Image of the Savior, southwest view. Originally built in 1794-1819, this is an excellent example of "Siberian Baroque" architecture. August 29, 1999

Following Yermak’s death in a surprise Tatar raid in 1584, his conquests remained temporarily unconsolidated after his death. Nonetheless, Boris Godunov was aware of the enormous significance of Siberia and launched a campaign to found settlements, as he did in other border areas of the medieval Muscovite state.

Church of the Ascension & St. George, south view. Originally built in 1770-89, defaced during the 1930s & restored after 2003 with rebuilding of bell tower. September 4, 1999

Like other early Russian Siberian towns, Tyumen originally served as a garrison fortress for Cossacks and other troops, who protected newly developing trade routes in all directions. The eastern connections with China gained particular importance during the 17th century. 

Location, Location, Location

Church of the Elevation of the Cross, southeast view. Built in 1774-91. August 29, 1999

Tyumen’s location on the Tura River also provided a direct link westward with the gateway town of Verkhoturye founded by Boris Godunov on the Asian side of the Ural Mountains in 1598. And to the east and north of Tyumen, the Tura River merges with the Tobol, which in turn joins the great Irtysh near Tobolsk. By virtue of its location, Tyumen was destined from the beginning to play a significant role in the Russian development of Siberia.

City Council Building. Originally built in 1828-33 in a simplified neoclassical style. Chiming clock was added in 1857. August 29, 1999

The opening of Siberia for Russian colonization during the late 16th and 17th centuries was an epic confrontation between the vast distances of this severe land and the enterprise of Russian merchants, whose commercial interests coincided with the tsars’ appetite for eastern expansion. Although its rivers were only tributaries of the Irtysh (itself a tributary of the great Ob River), Tyumen was well situated to utilize Siberia’s vast water network.      

Kolokolnikov house, corner of Republic Street 18 & Turgenev Street. Originally built in 1804 by the merchant Ivan Ikonnikov, this superb example of classical wooden architecture was acquired in 1888 by the merchant Ivan Kolokolnikov, who modified the original design. August 29, 1999

Like most early Russian towns in Siberia, Tyumen originally served as a fortified settlement for Cossacks and other troops, who in the 17th century protected newly developing trade routes, particularly with China. 

Nikolai Masharov mansion, Lenin Street 24. Built in the late 19th century by the founder of the Tyumen Ironworks. August 29, 1999

When the southern boundary of Moscow’s Asian territory became more settled during the 18th century, Tyumen’s importance increased for the development of transportation as well as small commercial and industrial enterprises. Its status as a transportation nexus also involved the exile system, which sent convicts and political exiles throughout Siberia.

Orthodox Church HQ

Commercial building (corner of Republic & Kirov Streets) built by the merchant Nikolai Yadryshnikov in 1897. Example of highly decorated "brick style" favored for commercial buildings in late 19th century. August 29, 1999

As a regional administrative point for western Siberia, Tyumen rapidly became a center of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its Trinity Monastery was founded in 1616 on the high right bank of the Tura River. Originally dedicated to the Transfiguration, the monastery was a modest collection of log buildings until its transformation in the early part of the 18th century by an energetic Ukrainian prelate, Bishop Fyodor Leshchinsky.          

School of Commerce (now Engineering Institute). Completed in 1914 during a Siberian building boom stimulated by development of commerce along the TransSiberian Railway. August 29, 1999

As an ally of Peter the Great, Bishop Fyodor saw architecture as a reflection of a broad cultural transformation and the Church of the Trinity that he built at the monastery in 1709-1715 is Tyumen’s earliest surviving building. Gutted during the Soviet era, the Trinity Church has been renovated (with modifications) together with its neighbor, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, built in 1741-1755. Fortunately, Prokudin-Gorsky photographed both shrines in 1912. 

Tekutyev Crafts School, Dzerzhinsky Street 2. Completed in 1914, the building is a fine example of provincial "style moderne". August 29, 1999

These early examples of a provincial baroque style served as a model for other 18th-century churches in Tyumen, culminating with the lavish Cathedral of the Icon of the Virgin of the Sign (Znamensky), which has recently been splendidly refurbished. Built in several phases between 1768 and 1891, the cathedral displays the florid decoration typical of much of Siberian church architecture.            

Submitting Siberia

Shaichik mansion, Lenin Street 47. Built in 1914 by Yankel Shaichik, major store owner & trader in dry goods. August 29, 1999

The daunting vastness of Siberia’s reaches gradually submitted in the 19th century to new forms of transportation. The first steamboat to ply a Siberian river was constructed here in 1838. 

Burkov house, Dzerzhinsky Street 30. Built at turn of 20th century by Vasily Burkov, trader in Siberian grain on an international level (China, Japan). August 29, 1999

The greatest impulse for economic growth came with the completion of a railroad from Yekaterinburg, on the east slope of the Ural Mountains in 1885. This line ultimately became an important segment of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, transporting the wealth of Siberia’s forests, mines and new agricultural regions, as well as leather and other products of local factories. 

Kozlov house, Turgenev Street 9. Built at end of 19th century by Ivan & Maria Kozlov, local merchants. August 29, 1999

At the turn of the 20th century, over half a million settlers passed through the town toward Siberia’s open, fertile lands. Fortunately, remnants of this period have survived in the central part of the city. 

Nikolaevskoe (Nicholas) Primary School, Lenin Street 5. Wooden building constructed in 1897 as part of a public schools network. August 29, 1999

This memory of the past is especially evident in the city’s remarkable wooden houses, with elaborate framed and carved window surrounds in a style specific to Tyumen. These massive window constructions often include carved panels below the sill as an additional decorative and protective device.

Wooden houses. L:eft: Volodarsky Street. Built at end of 19th century, the house has exuberant carved decorative window frames. Right: Komsomol Street. Built around 1900 as a wing of the A. G. Andreev estate, this small structure displays remarkable examples of decorative fretwork. August, 1999

Their solid construction allowed rows of large windows in wooden houses even in this harsh climate, thus bringing maximum available light to interiors during the long Siberian winters.

The present & future  

Log apartment house, no. 57 (street unknown; house may have been demolished). Fine example of carved window frames on typical log structure. August 29, 1999

Tyumen today is the capital of an enormous province - stretching from Kazakhstan in Central Asia north to the Arctic Ocean - that is one of the world’s richest energy producing regions. Tyumen has benefited from this bounty of natural resources and is at present one of the few Siberian cities to show major population growth: from slightly over half a million in the 2002 census to some 850,000 in the latest estimate. As usual in Siberian cities, most residents live beyond the historic center in Soviet-era housing developments.           

Minshutin house, Vodoprovodnaia Street 43. Built in 1891, the house was restored in 1998 by architect A. Klimchenko with decorative window frames carved by Vadim Sheetov. September 4, 1999

A walk through the historic center of town shows vivid contrasts of modest pre-revolutionary brick and wooden buildings, rarely more than two stories in height, with ponderous Soviet buildings and sleek new commercial centers. Some of the new structures are private apartment houses, others are banks and office buildings and still others form a part of the expanding Tyumen State University. 

Minshutin house, detail of decorative carving by Vadim Sheetov. September 4, 1999

In the early 20th century, Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky developed a complex process for color photography. Between 1903 and 1916, he traveled through the Russian Empire and took over 2,000 photographs with the process, which involved three exposures on a glass plate. In August 1918, he left Russia and ultimately resettled in France where he was reunited with a large part of his collection of glass negatives, as well as 13 albums of contact prints. After his death in Paris in 1944, his heirs sold the collection to the Library of Congress. In the early 21st century, the Library digitized the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection and made it freely available to the global public. A few Russian websites now have versions of the collection. In 1986, architectural historian and photographer William Brumfield organized the first exhibit of Prokudin-Gorsky photographs at the Library of Congress. Over a period of work in Russia beginning in 1970, Brumfield has photographed most of the sites visited by Prokudin-Gorsky. This series of articles juxtaposes Prokudin-Gorsky’s views of architectural monuments with photographs taken by Brumfield decades later.

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