Columbine high school
A woman walks across an empty parking lot a Columbine High School, Wednesday, April 17, 2019, in Littleton, Colo., where two student killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999. The school was closed along with hundreds of others in Colorado after an armed young Florida woman who was allegedly "infatuated" with Columbine threatened violence just days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the attack. (AP Photo/Joe Mahoney)
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As was widely publicized at the time, the Columbine shooting took place 20 years ago in April. It attracted much media attention and was the source of endless tweeting and other blather from the anti-gun community as a supposed our America’s sick gun culture.

But the shooting spawned a cottage industry of people who are obsessed with the tragedy, so much so that the school has had to deal with a sick kind of tourist, people who interested/infatuated with what happened there to the extent that they visit the school unannounced, creating potential security issues.

As an NPR report describes the phenomenon . . .

“Columbine High School has a gravitational-pull for these sorts of individuals,” (Jefferson County Public Schools superintendent Jason) Glass wrote. “Most of them are there to satisfy curiosity or a macabre, but harmless, interest in the school. For a small group of others, there is a potential intent to do harm.”

Case in point, Sol Pais. She was the Florida woman who traveled to Colorado for the twentieth anniversary of the shooting, made threats and bought a shotgun before committing suicide.

Now, as a result of the continued interest and the magnetic attraction the building seems to have for a certain type of individual, the Jefferson County School District is considering demolishing the building and rebuilding it.

The idea has sparked a backlash from some survivors of the shooting who say part of their healing process involves revisiting the site, whereas some longtime faculty, including the former principal, are leading the charge for the school’s destruction.

The debate has launched searching questions in Columbine that communities across the country have wrestled with regarding what to do with a place that induces such horrific memories.

Here’s the Associated Press’s report . . .

Authorities in a Colorado community are gauging support for demolishing Columbine High School and rebuilding it nearby.

In a letter Thursday, Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Jason Glass says the school building has remained “a source of inspiration” for people with a dark interest in the 1999 shooting that killed 12 students and a teacher. In April, a Florida teenager who authorities say was obsessed with the shooting and may have been planning an attack in Colorado just ahead of the 20th anniversary was found dead in an apparent suicide.

The district also released an online survey to assess community support for a ballot measure earmarking $60 million to $70 million for a Columbine construction project. Preliminary ideas include preserving the library built after the 1999 shooting and incorporating it into a new school building.

Glass says the number of people trying to enter the school or trespassing on its grounds reached record levels this year as the community marked the 20th anniversary of the massacre.

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58 COMMENTS

    • It was the moment American culture shifted for the youth. Prior to that, mass shootings like that were workplace shootings by disgruntled adults. Now all kinds of people are committing those types of attacks. Soon it will be moving on to random terror attacks out in public.

      Republicans like to say it’s not the guns but the people. However, they really don’t offer though out solutions. So the average person, with the typical American level of intelligence, will go with Democrats’ “solutions” to the problem of America’s society/culture. Most of the time the Republican “solution” is to have people carry guns everywhere they go and an increase in the police state. To most people that doesn’t sound like a logical solution because it really isn’t a solution.

        • America has a cultural problem. It isn’t the guns fault. More police will not stop the crime. Even removing “gun free zones” won’t stop the act of mass shootings. Carrying a gun won’t stop a person from attempting to kill you and others, but if you are successful you could stop them from killing you.

          Are you still not getting it?

          In Mexico people took up arms against their corrupt government and the drug gangs. Although they get into firefights with those bad people and kill them, Mexico is still full of corruption and cartels. Sure, some areas are temporarily safer with men running around with ARs and AKs, but the narco culture continues regardless.

          Look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Numerous causalities, the displacement of million, constant killing of militant groups, physical destruction the entire country, yet there is ISIS and the countries are worse now than before. It’s like no matter how many bombs and soldiers you send they remain doing the same thing.

          Again. Making more laws, increasing the police state and carrying guns won’t stop the will of a mass murderer. You have to deal with the reasons that create the will to kill.

          It has become normalized in America to murder people you don’t like by using a gun. There is no respect, that includes respect for life, be it mass murder using guns or abortions to escape responsibility. Americans no longer have a respect for life, liberty and property.

          Additionally, there is disdain for a healthy family unit. Most black and white Americans do not have a properly functioning family unit. Parents don’t raise their children well or at all. They are told by society to separate from family once they turn 18 years of age and to create a new family on their own. Society says both parents should work while the kids are taken care of by the government or some stranger.

          In regards to extending the concept of family to society… Black and white Americans look at each other as the other rather than family like east Asians do. Black Americans call other blacks “sister” and “brother” but they don’t do the same for white people. A lot of white people don’t like to be around black people or want to help them. In the end, they are divided like their actual family is divided, thus they fight like dysfunctional families fight.

          So America has dysfunctional families and dysfunctional individuals therefore a dysfunctional society because of a bad culture. Culture precedes law. You can’t use laws to force change in the culture… Legislation doesn’t instill morality…

          Do you have a solution to change why a person would ever think to murder many innocent people because they feel bad about their situation or themselves? Do you have a solution to prevent teens from joining gangs and killing: as a past time, to show how tough/manly they are, to live a materialistic lifestyle without a hard days work? Is your solution to these various problems carrying a gun and wearing body armor everywhere all the time? You are going to have to put out a better “solution” because I am not giving up the right to own weapons and carry them, but I am also not going to accept America becoming like Mexico or Brazil.

        • let me help you with some edits

          “In Mexico VERY DAMN FEW people took up arms against their corrupt government and the drug gangs.”

          ” CERTAIN Americans (DEMS/LIBS) no longer have a respect for life, liberty and property.”

          ” You are going to have to put out a better “solution” because I am not giving up the right to own weapons and carry them, but I am also not going to accept America becoming like Mexico or Brazil BECAUSE I AM NOT WILLING TO FIGHT A FULLY OPEN BORDER and the reason for most of the issues you listed….”

          those little edits might help you to understand

        • @OBOB

          Very few Americans took up arms against the King.

          Republicans created Homeland Security and the NSA spy state we have now. They created the TSA and required a Real ID to travel. Republicans want red flag laws and the TAPS act. A Republican did the bump stock ban. The Republicans in Florida signed gun control. The Republicans in Texas refuse to sign “constitutional carry.” The Republicans are militarizing the police and training them to kill Americans. Republicans still want the drug war and the war on terror. On and on…

          Open borders isn’t the reason why a disproportionate amount of murder is done by black people. It isn’t the reason for high divorce rates of white and black Americans. It isn’t responsible for drugging up children instead of parenting them. It isn’t the cause of unprotected sex for pleasure and the abortions that come after to solve the consequences.

          Open borders exist because Republicans want cheap labor and Democrats want cheap votes. That’s why it hasn’t been fixed. That’s why it won’t be fixed.

          The problem isn’t even that the border is open. It’s the socialist state Republicans and Democrats created that make socialists want to live in America. Social security, public education, socialized police, public housing, unemployment, disability, welfare, etc.

          When is the last time you heard a Republican/conservative say we need to get rid of the public eduction system? Why don’t they want to do that anymore? Why do they complain that the communists have taken over the socialized educational system yet not point out that it’s only natural for communists to take over socialist entities? Why do they want to keep a system around that teaches Americans to be socialists? Why do they use the police state to force kids to go there?

        • “”” It isn’t the reason for high divorce rates of white and black Americans. It isn’t responsible for drugging up children instead of parenting them.””

          keep trying to tel yourself that…most marriages end because of fights over MONEY$$$…and mom or dad can’t stay home to watch over the kids because they need 2 jobs per adult to even keep up a little ALL becuse an illegal is stealing your job OR FUCKING UP the JOB market and sucking up vast sums of tax money from your wallet…all of the above happen…its called e-cono-my!

          “The problem isn’t even that the border is open. It’s the socialist state Republicans and Democrats created that make socialists want to live in America. Social security, public education, socialized police, public housing, unemployment, disability, welfare, etc.”

          you got the whole above part backwards..your egg gave birth to a chicken!

          Dems USED to want closed borders to keep black voters happy until FUCKING Reagan messed it all up and gave them 3 PLUS million instant voters and the thought, that in lass than 20 years a WHOLE new generation of DNC voters would be born from that one start…. 3 million have 3 kids EACH+++ anchor babies for 30 years…you do the math since the 80’s…and now you get it!

      • There are no solutions to a random equation. God, it’s depressing when you put it that way, but it’s the truth.

        Armed victims responding near-instantly is the closest we can get to squaring the circle, absent Minority Report.

        Banning guns as a “solution” is rooted in ignoring a handful of other inseparable issues beyond the tragedy in question. Like killing all cattle because someone choked on a steak or was stampeded.

      • There is only one way to “deter” crimes that involve firearms…. And that way is to MAXIMIZE THE PENALTIES for breaking the law with a firearm…. AND I MEAN SERIOUS PRISON TIME….
        INCREASE THE PENALTIES SO MUCH THAT CRIMINALS WILL THINK TWICE BEFORE COMMITTING CRIMES….
        It’s the only way beside going along with the demoncrat agenda…

        • Most people don’t think about getting caught and locked up before they commit a crime. Hard to blame them – there was 219 murders in Chicago so far this year. Whopping 12 suspects were charged for 8.6% homicide clearance rate. Not conviction, just some suspect charged.

          Why punish murderer who used a firearm harsher than one that used a knife, fire or a poker? What’s so much worse about getting shot to death than getting choked or beaten to death?

  1. I drove by there in 1999. It honestly looked like a prison except for the lack of concertina wire on top of the fences.

  2. Leave the school alone. Your just giving the perp exactly what he wanted, notoriety, then you wonder why we have copy cat crimes,,,

    • NORDNEG, you said a mouthful. The names and photos of these people should never be published. Including television. Deny them their 15 minutes of fame. I suggested this to a friend once. He said it just get out on social media. I replied Facebook, etc can block it. After all, they have no problem blocking anything else they don’t agree with.

    • There is an argument to be made for rebuilding. The school building itself is an inspiration to certain people planning to commit their own shootings. It’s a physical representation of the criminal act when looked at from the perspective of a future mass murderer. It’s a remnant. The only thing different is the people there now. It’s like a time capsule that inspires kids around the world especially in America.

      America has a mentally ill society…

      • You need to stop drinking the Kool aid.

        Hey everyone, this guy had all the answers. Nobody asked him shit, but he’s gonna answer.

      • Will tearing down the building change the fact that it did happen? Will it remove a persons fascination with the events? Will visiting the grounds suffice?

        It seems like we have this thought that if we remove the buildings, then we made the event never happen. If someone wants to fixate, then I don’t know that any change in building or name will have a real impact.

        As far as changes, I’d like to see schools move to a monitored single point of entrance. I’d like to see a panic lock system where should someone enter to cause a problem the people at the entry point can centrally lock all classrooms and set a notification light so that all teachers can handle their respective situations accordingly (Each room would have an ability to open the door from the inside to allow stragglers in). I would have a SRO on every campus.
        Next I’d allow concealed carry to those teachers who felt the call to protect. It wouldn’t be a license to be on offense and go get the bad guy, but the ability to protect those in their care, a defensive approach like any other concealed carrier. That would solely be up to the individual, as you can’t compel someone to defend themselves or others in this application.
        I would want the most intimidating looking SRO at the door, the type that the kids get to know and love, but makes others question how far they want to go.

        You want safety, but you don’t want the things that bring security. That is hard to understand. I think my ideas actually work to minimized the over all “police state,” while affording multiple action items to increase safety.

        In a free society, there exists the potential for people to violate that freedom, life, liberty… if we completely remove that possibility then we are not a free people at all. I’ll take freedom and do my best to protect against the threats.

        • It did happen. It was seared into American history. The videos will be on the internet forever. The names will be repeated year after year. That shooting has had a greater impact on America than 9/11 and it is talked about more than 9/11. Some kids know about the Columbine shooting and have no clue about 9/11.

          People can’t go to NY to see the twin towers, they are gone. Out of sight, out of mind. As time went on less imagery has the twin towers in them. The landscape has forever been changed, what people see now is something very different but they wouldn’t know that unless you told them.

          With Columbine you can go there to see the place you have seen in videos on the internet. That is powerful regardless of your perspective. The name is still there, the building where the killings happened is still there.

          Some countries keep the past alive by maintaining the physical areas where history was made, such as the torture and killing facilities in Cambodia. They do this so people don’t forget their history. It’s hard to miss the pile of human skulls and the pictures of the past while you stand in that same place in present time.

          When Europeans committed physical and cultural genocide in North America to the original population they made sure to erase everything so future generations will forget those people and what happened to them. This allowed the government to write their own history, even so, they still don’t like to teach it. The “out of sight, out of mind” strategy has worked very well seeing how Americans think all the “Indians” are dead — it’s not possible they might be standing right next to them in line to pay for their groceries. People don’t pay attention to American-Indians because almost everything was erased in North America, they do pay attention to black Americans because more physical remnants are still around. Hence why Democrats want to pull it all down.

          No, changing the name and building will not stop kids who are set on mass murder from committing a school shooting. As I said, the videos are on the internet forever and “fan clubs” are there too (for real, no BS). It could make it more difficult for the media and politicians to stand in front of the school every year on the day it happened… It could make it harder to propagandize a place that used to be there… Look what happened after the STEM school shooting in Colorado.

          Sandy Hook built a new school after the shooting there. They used it as both an opportunity to move on and make a “safer” place.

          We shouldn’t have to knock things down and change names, but American hasn’t progressed yet.

      • Mentally ill because we have allowed ILLEGAL INVADERS to infiltrate our country…. And the media has caused everyone to be schizo with their “diversity”garbage and cramming it down everyone’s throats with constant media “mind warp” subliminal messaging…. We have no national identity anymore….
        IT’S TIME TO TURN THAT AROUND…. THIS COUNTRY HAS PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIED TO PROTECT IT’S SOVEREIGNTY AND NOW THE DIRTY GOVERNMENT INFILTRATORS ARE UNDERMINING THEIR DEATHS EVERYDAY WITH THEIR DIVERSITY GARBAGE!!!!!
        #GTFO….. Or else;)

      • They’re announcing that a rebuild will cost 60 MILLION, and you think that would make for good visuals? Hey, just give me 30 million and I will inform the national press it was torn down, and put up a new nameplate into the bargain. All done! You’re welcome.

    • I agree.
      Not to start an economic discussion on here, but I’m not sure why this would need to involve earmarking.
      If this made national news (such as AP above), and a million people read about this and want to support it, that’s only a $60-$70 contribution each. Presumably more people would support this and give at least a few dollars.

      I’m not saying I do or don’t support it. I’m just saying that it seems like something that could easily be funded by charitable contributions.

    • This. 100$ says whoever’s bright idea this is, has had their job for less than 2 years and will be in charge of overseeing the budget/contractors.

  3. “Columbine High School May Be Torn Down to Deter Morbid Interest in the Massacre”

    And rebuilt, 20yrs after the fact…just like everything else, liberals think they can change history just by erasing the parts they don’t like…

    • Most likely the building’s a bit of an outdated dump by now, and they are cashing in on the infamy (ironic) to get a fatter bond package.

      After all who could ever say no to rebuilding Columbine, after they’ve been through /so/ much?

  4. Mischief is afoot my friends.
    The service life of a building is what, 30 -35 years? I wager the property is due for serious renovations and they are looking for creative ways to fund it.
    They should rename the Town, make the attendant renovations so the school displays the propriety of Education, rename the Building after Maxine Maxipad Waters – and move along.
    Only Democrats obsess and fixate on the past.

    • Exactly!!!!!
      “YESTERDAY DON’T MEAN SHIT”!!!!
      “TODAY’S THE DAY, YOU’LL HAVE TO PAY”

      -DIMEBAG DARYLL

  5. Say, the campus could be given a remodel and renamed something else. Maybe tear down only the most useless structure, remodel the rest, and christen the school with a new name and mascot for the 21st Century. Probably a lot cheaper than bulldozing and building it all over again.

    I should lend my consulting services.

  6. i cant believe this one of the articles from the truth about guns.com…pretty insulted I even read this crap. same argument every day…it isn’t the building that motivates these people, it isn’t the gun, it isn’t the time of day…it is the psycho…and most of these people have been flagged. good job APA…you are ruining this country….

  7. Do this in the name of the evil that took place there will only ecourage other unstable youth to do the same at other schools and they can then have the same fame of being so evil they they had to tear the building down. I too smell a remodel plan though…but it is for the children and they need to “feel” safe.

  8. If we destroy enough physical artifacts from our past, we can rewrite our history to be anything we want. George O. would be so proud.

  9. Do they say the same things about the USS Arizona memorial, or any other memorial for that matter? Seems like a lot of dough to spend on rewriting history rather on the education of the students.

    • Countless thousands have visited Auschwitz. They give tours. That’s how to make the millions needed to rebuild. Tour Columbine, have a memorial to the victims, and have exhibits to show what different security measures have come along since 99.

  10. There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday as well.

    It had the usual shite, especially that it was “easy access to guns”.

    Yup, straw purchases (@ $10K/10 years per offense) for the Columbine kids and the old murder your mum to steal her guns for the Sandy Hook murderer.

    Why, baby-killer guns are just falling off the trees.

    A$$holes.

    • Yeah, unless I misremember, the girl who bought the guns for Columbine was not even prosecuted, poor child had been punished enough or some such shit, she should be getting out of federal prison right about now.

  11. Tear it down and build a private school in it’s place, at least those that go there will get a real education.

    • Truer words have never been spoken regarding public “schroolzz”….fkn HUGE waste of tax payer dollars…. Let alone WELFARE for lazy ghetto trash….lol…. Pathetic

  12. Oh, I forgot to mention how quickly Sandy Hook was torn down. That didn’t happen at VA Tech, or in Bath, MI, or in Stockton, CA.

  13. So this is the price we all pay…..new buildings every time there is a tragedy? Where will it stop? When a shooting takes place in a revered historical location we are to tear down our churches, our museums, our capitol buildings? What if it is on private property? Do we force them to tear it down and put in a park bench with names all over it? It is easy to make these kinds of decisions when the financial outcome is so diluted or entirely missing that the whole argument seems absurd. Where is the investment?
    Why give the shooter more glory than he or she deserves?

  14. I dunno on this one. While it doesn’t immediately jump out to me as a rational solution the problem they’re trying to solve isn’t being driven by rational people.

    Back in 2012 or so two Australian girls in their 20’s, sisters, show up at the Family Shooting Center in Aurora and rent pistols. They shoot for a bit then suddenly turn, count down and shoot each other in the head. One dies, one survives and is treated and placed in the UCD mental health facility in Denver where my friend gets the unenviable job of interviewing her. She’s nuts, obvious, as obsessed with Columbine and the shooters.

    Further investigation reveals that both sisters were similarly obsessed, that they traveled from Aus specifically to visit the school, which they did, and that they had scrapbooks in their hotel full of news clippings, internet articles, pictures, maps etc.. The girl who survived alluded that they also had some sort of plan but declined to say what it was other than that they altered it and shot each other.

    So I’m sure that kinda shit scares the fuck out of the folks who run that school/district.

  15. If the county that the building is in and the residents are willing to pony up the $70mill. Knock it down.
    If the money has to come from the state or the Fed.
    Im not willing to pay a cent.
    Except to change the name and buy a can of paint.
    The same goes for Parkland. Not worth a penny of mine.

  16. the people that want to tear the school down tell them fine as long as they rise enough money to rebuild it without any tax money otherwise paint the thing do some upgrades and change the name of it. and as far as comparing this one to sandy hook is like comparing apples to oranges there is to many thing that did not line up there and never will just like Waco will never know what truly happened at either place. The only other thing to do is start teaching these kid that everything they want is not free and that life is precious and need to respect themselves and others and work for what they want

  17. 1) They already remodeled the school years ago. The old library, which used to be part of the public library system and was the location of some of the murders, isn’t there anymore.
    2) The reports I’ve heard say they want to call the new school “Columbine.” Idiots will continue to Google Maps CHS and wind up at the new location.
    3) Unless the building is unsuitable for use as a school, they could save millions and just give it a new name.

  18. “..Columbine High School has a gravitational-pull for these sorts of individuals,”

    I didn’t see in the article any kind of numbers…. are we talking tens of people? Dozens? How many people are we talking about that is going to be used as an excuse to spend a big pile of money?

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