The other 4/20

In a marijuana-and-church-induced haze Sunday, you may have forgotten that something other than bong hits happened on April 20 only 15 years ago — the mass shooting at Columbine.

High school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 13 people and injured 24 others before turning the guns on themselves April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colo.

One would assume that such a tragic event would incite annual candlelight vigils and moments of silence or at least some kinds of yearly remembrance. But in nearby Denver, as this was the first “legal” 4/20 in American history, the scene was anything but silent.

Yes, things were being lit. But they weren’t candles. And nobody was remembering much of anything.

Now, this is nothing against marijuana or the legal marijuana industry in Colorado, which is doing wonders for their economy. And let’s just say I wouldn’t mind Indiana following suit.

For the economy, of course. Yeah, that’s it, the economy.

But this speaks to something deeply troubling about American culture when it comes to gun violence. We just expect it. And after it happens, we just shrug it off.
I realize it’s much worse in many other countries, but that doesn’t change the fact that we live in a society where mass shootings like this happen so often that we
forget about them faster than the death of a D-list celebrity.

After Columbine, we were saying “never again.” Now we’re saying “oh, that again.” Mass shootings are still devastating, most definitely, and we take notice when they happen. But our focus is more on what to do after they happen rather than preventing them from happening in the first place.

We want to arm teachers and school officials — “give guns to the good guys.” Which is like putting a condom on after sex or getting a flu vaccine after you already have the flu.

Of course there’s no simple solution to stop a mass shooting from happening, but don’t you think we ought to try by, I don’t know, adapting our attitudes on guns a little?

Let’s stop worrying about being able to hold on to our precious AK-47s, machines that were not around when the Second Amendment was written, and start worrying about the safety of our children before it’s too late.

How many more kids are going to have to get shot in the head walking to math class for us to learn? How many more grieving parents do we have to watch sobbing on television for us to see that something is wrong?

I don’t have the solution. I can’t even fathom what the solution might be. Maybe it’s installing metal detectors everywhere. Maybe it’s banning all guns. Who knows.
Let’s start off by recognizing 420 as a day not only for smoking insane amounts of weed but also a day for remembrance and memorial. And hope. Hope for a day when parents don’t have to worry if their child is going to live through science class.

And hope for a day when the memory of something as devastating as Columbine doesn’t go — dare I say it — up in smoke.

ziperr@indiana.edu
@rileyezipper