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Clamping down on "straw purchasers" and lax gun dealers is not enough, but some cities (including Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Los Angeles) have been helped by targeting the illegal sales of handguns and assault weapons in much the same way they have cracked down on drugs. Those cities have been rewarded with sharp drops in violent crime. Nevertheless, the deeper problem is a cultural obsession with firepower manufactured for reasons other than hunting or marksmanship. And laws can never cure an obsession.

Trading places. After two years of violence in suburban and rural schools, white, middle-class folk can no longer think that violence in America is someone else's problem—poor minorities in inner-city neighborhoods. This violent culture is our problem. It is not just a matter of entertainment media, but of cultural myth: It is a small step from our celebration of the valiant individual to our fascination with violent outlaws. Whether on the open frontier (Jesse James) or the dense cityscape (Al Capone), we have romanticized thugs and their violent, independent ways. The bright side of independence is freedom; the shadow side is disorder. The bright side of economic liberty is abundance; the shadow side is thievery. We can market $100 athletic shoes to our youth, and those who can't afford them can simply take them from others.

Our churches need to remythologize believers' mental make-ups. Jesus, not Jesse James, needs to be our hero. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Martin de Porres, not Martin Scorsese, should be forming our imaginations.

Filling the God-shaped hole
Newsweek supported its oversized Why? cover line with the subhead "the science of teen violence." But fighting teen violence takes more than understanding (and possibly treating) bad brain chemistry. Violence is a disease of the soul as much as it is of the brain.

Much has been made of Klebold and Harris's fascination with the nihilism of shock rocker Marilyn Manson, "Goth" culture, and Hitler. This fascination no doubt revealed something deeper. These boys were looking for something: perhaps for God, for meaning, or perhaps for something to drown out a still, small voice.

As Luther once said, Man hat Gott oder abgott, that is, we either have God in our lives or we have false gods.

When one of the killers encountered Cassie Bernall in the library where much of the killing took place, he asked her if she believed in God. Avoiding the easy way out, she reportedly replied: "There is a God, and you need to follow along God's path." Then the youth replied, "There is no God," and he shot Cassie in the head, making her pay the ultimate price for her faith.

We should avoid funeral pieties about God bringing tragedies like this for the greater good. Nevertheless, because of the Cross, Christians look for signs of God at work in the aftermath of tragedies. God can and does bring good out of the most horrendous evil.

Many of the kids who were killed were churchgoers, and Denver television repeatedly broadcast images of kids praying and singing together. "For the first time in a long time," one Denver Christian said, "it's not politically in correct to talk about God and religion. Too bad it took something like this to see it."

At the funeral of Rachel Joy Scott, time was allowed for people to share reflections about her life. One heavyset youth, with bleached hair and tattoos on his neck, said, "All my life I prayed that someone would love me and make me feel wanted. God sent me an angel," he said, nodding toward Scott's coffin as he broke into tears. Would that those two other young men from Columbine High had seen and felt God's unconditional love filling the voids in their lives. Who knows what could have happened or what awful deeds might have been averted.

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June 14 1999, Vol. 43, No. 7