Related articles and links |  1 of 3

Why? Two of the major news weeklies emblazoned that three-letter word across their covers the week following the massacre at Columbine High. Seven weeks later, we have been overwhelmed by simplistic explanations and quick-fix remedies, many of them ignoring a dark reality: evil always manages to thwart the best human programs and philosophies.

This is not to say that "simple" can't also be right and good. We heard some helpful ideas that can at least help us minimize the incidence of such evils.

Home alone. In the days following the tragedy, David Thomas, the district attorney investigating the case, seemed reluctant to discuss the circumstances surrounding the shootings or the current state of the investigation. Instead, he said, "We are not doing a very good job of communicating with our kids." And communication requires time spent with our kids. As Harvard's Deborah Prothow-Stith puts it: "Children figure out how to get adults' attention, time, and resources. We decide how we are going to give it to them."

The case of Cassie Bernall, one of the girls killed in the shootings and now celebrated as a martyr, points up the importance of not only parental attention, but of parental intervention. Because Cassie was fascinated with witchcraft and suicide, her parents insisted she attend church and change her circle of friends. In a culture of personal autonomy, parents often feel that they are transgressing when they enter a teenager's room or insist on standards of behavior. But parents risk far more by engaging in denial or in hands-off loving. Over time, the Bernalls' intervention worked, Cassie found Christ, and her life was turned around for the good.

Natural born killers? In our August 1998 issue, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman argued persuasively that the media are desensitizing youth to violence, conditioning them to associate violence with pleasure, and through simulator-type video games, even giving them the skills to kill with guns.

It was no surprise to Grossman that the two young killers in Colorado were fans of violent movies such as Natural Born Killers and The Basketball Diaries, as well as skilled players at shoot-'em-up video games. Grossman had told CT he had also been predicting "for almost a year now that the next 'big one' would include bombs. Why? Because that is how you rack up a real 'high score' in the upper levels of the video games."

Lethal weapons. In 1995 the leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds was firearms. Every day about 13 children die from firearms in the United States. As three trauma-unit professionals noted in the Chicago Tribune, if a children's toy causes 13 deaths a year, that product is pulled from the market. True, some angry or deranged person must pull the trigger. But, they ask, what would have been the outcome in Littleton if these boys had been armed with only fists or knives instead? Certainly not 15 dead.

The common view, still held by the firearms lobby, has maintained that gun-control laws won't be effective because most criminals steal their weapons or otherwise get them illegally. According to violence expert Fox Butterfield, that view is being overturned by data collected in recent years by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Because ATF has been tracing guns used in crimes, we now know that most guns used in crimes come from legitimate dealers, and about half of guns acquired by young offenders were acquired either by friends or others who were old enough to buy on their behalf. Just such a "straw purchaser," Dylan Klebold's 18-year-old girlfriend, was involved in supplying three of the four guns used in the Columbine massacre.

next page... |  1 of 3

June 14 1999, Vol. 43, No. 7