At 11:19 a.m. on April 20, 1999, the first shots rang out at a high-school campus in Columbine, Colo., forever changing the way students view their safety.
Two teenage shooters, wearing floor-length trench coats and carrying semiautomatic weapons, entered Columbine High School grounds and began a rampage that ended with 12 students and one teacher dead and 23 wounded.
The national media was consumed by coverage of the shootings, and the video clips are still devastating to watch.
Images of parents searching for their children’s names on posted lists, students huddled crying on the lawn and the actual security footage of the shooters moving through the school’s cafeteria are iconic remnants of that day.
A quick YouTube search is all you need to be transported back to that initial reactionary feeling of helplessness, anger and fear.
In the aftermath of the shootings, students were terrified. No longer was a geometry test the sole worry in a freshman’s mind when dressing for school.
Parents started rethinking the decision to enroll their children in public schools, and bomb threats were taken even more seriously by administrations as fears of a copycat shooting kept some students from their classes.
Today is the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine shootings, and since then we have taken remarkable strides toward making our campuses safe again.
Almost immediately after the shooting, parents, news outlets and legislators started asking questions about what could have been done to stop the shooting, and what could be done to keep it from happening again.
But just two years ago, on April 16, 2007, it did happen again. The images of the Virginia Tech massacre, eerily reminiscent of those of the Columbine shootings, were plastered on TV screens and newspaper front pages across the U.S., including The State Press.
At a University as large as ASU, it was impossible to walk around campus afterward without at least a nagging feeling of fear. In our minds, classrooms started to look like the possible scene of a brush with death. As news reports told of Virginia Tech students barricading classroom doors with their bodies, we saw ourselves in similar situations and wondered just how we would react.
Last spring, a bill was proposed in the Arizona Legislature to allow the concealed carry of weapons on college campuses — reigniting the debate over how best to protect the safety of students.
The bill was blocked in the state Senate, but the fact that it was discussed was in itself a victory. It is essential that we not just remember, but learn from Columbine, learn from Virginia Tech, and do what it takes to keep them from happening again.
When we become reactive rather than proactive and allow campus safety to be put on the backburner, the shooters win. If we just assume security and stop ensuring it, we expose ourselves to another tragedy.
Only a few days in our lifetimes will be as significant and have as lasting an impact as the day of the Columbine shootings. Some of the older State Press staffers have specific memories of where we were at the time, but others of us weren’t old enough to remember the day, at least not firsthand.
But all of us know well what Columbine meant, and that is what matters.
