A quote etched into the side of the Columbine Memorial reads: “It brought the nation to its knees, but now that we’ve gotten back up, how have things changed; what have we learned?”
The answer, tragically, seems to be “nothing.”
Moving on doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not something we demand of those left behind, but we don’t give them much of a choice either. It starts slowly: flowers dry, petals carried away by the wind; the news segments are shorter; questions like “Isn’t it just awful, what happened at Columbine?” are asked less and less. We move on, avert our eyes, and leave a principal to rebuild a shattered school community.
In the blink of an eye, 25 years have passed. Never again turned into again, and again, and again. Columbine turned into Sandy Hook Elementary, which turned into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, which turned into Robb Elementary.
Twenty-five years riddled with massacres, young lives ending as fast as it takes for a round to load in the chamber of an assault rifle. Twenty-five years of opportunities to implement change and save lives. Twenty-five years of “it’s not a gun problem; it’s a mental health problem.”
Imagine if those 25 years were actually marked by action. What if we had valued our children’s lives more than a firearm and passed legislation to protect them? What if those who pose a danger to themselves or others couldn’t easily access firearms? Imagine if the very weapon I carried in Afghanistan — a war zone — was never used to kill our children in their classrooms.
Last year, on the 24th anniversary, I stood on the House Floor and asked my colleagues,“What has changed since Columbine?” Since then, I have held numerous town halls at schools in my district, Colorado’s 6th, with kids as young as seven or as old as eighteen. Without fail, no matter what part of my district or a student’s background, the first question is always, “What are you doing about gun violence?”
Our children don’t want to hear about the political infighting preventing gun violence legislation from passing in Congress. They don’t want to hear about who in Congress the gun lobby has in their clutches. They get up every day and walk into their schools with legitimate fears about their safety. They endure one active shooter drill after the next. Why does our society accept this? School shootings are a uniquely American problem. In no other developed country is the number one cause of death for children gun violence. Seven-year-olds and seventeen-year-olds share the same fear, and it is our responsibility as parents to protect them and do everything we can to alleviate these fears.
It’s been 25 years since Daniel Mauser was shot and killed, two weeks after he expressed concern to his dad, Tom Mauser, about America’s gun laws. Daniel asked his dad about the loopholes in the Brady Bill that allow individuals to obtain guns online or at gun shows. Daniel’s life was taken by a gun purchased through one of those loopholes. The gun show loophole remains open.
When I think about where we are today, I think about Cassie Bernall, Steve Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matt Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Danny Rohrbough, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend, Kyle Velasquez, and Dave Sanders. I think of the people they would have become, the lives they would have led, their families and friends, the survivors, and the entire Columbine community.
Whenever there is a school shooting, we think of Columbine — because Columbine was the catalyst. Another tragedy occurs, and we ask ourselves what we should have learned from Columbine.
As a dad, I worry every day while my kids are at school. The nightmare of gun violence so many families have endured over the years is incomprehensible. How dare we look at them and think, “Thank God it wasn’t my children,” and then look away.
We have the power as Americans to incite change. Universal background checks, red flag laws, an assault weapons ban — these are simple, yet monumental ways for us to protect our children.
“Thoughts and prayers” will never be enough. They do not stop bullets or a gunman from taking aim at our schools.
Twenty-five years of inaction is unacceptable. We cannot allow another 25 years to pass before we say, “never again” and finally mean it.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow is an Army Ranger veteran, lawyer and represents Colorado’s 6th Congressional district, encompassing Aurora, Littleton and Centennial.
Quite a bit of melodrama in this letter, eh Mr. Crow. As a dad…. Thoughts and prayers will never be enough. Lead with authority not emotions.
It’s nice of Crow to admit that all these laws his fellow Democrats have passed in Colorado the last 24 years have been completely ineffectual, despite all their peacocking and big promises every time one gets signed off on.
There is nothing more devastating than loosing a child or a friend in an incident as a shooting. After working as a police officer for almost 50 years (military and civilian) I have seen quite a bit of violence but in all those years I have yet to see an inanimate object do the destruction, it has always been an individual that was used the object to hurt or kill a person. I cannot fathom why all the bleeding-heart people don’t see that the individual that took in those cases a weapon and hurt or killed another individual. I have investigated DUI accidents that took the life or lives of other people and yest no one does much about it. They did at first like M.A.D.D. voiced concerns about drunk drivers and over the years the only changes were that the legal age for drinking alcoholic beverages was raised and if convicted of multiple DUI’s over a period of time the punishment was longer time in jail. At one time, Colorado had an enhancer of 10 years added to a prison sentence if a weapon was involved but that went to the wayside a long time ago. Seems that now that Democrats are interested in violating the Constitution that they swore an oath to follow and instead of actually focusing on the real issue is the individual that used a weapon (usually a firearm) to kill or injure people. There was a recent news account of an individual in Australia that used a knife to injure/kill at least 7 people and there have been other incidents of others injured and/or killed by a variety of objects but the news media doesn’t cover that but let it be a firearm, the news is all over it and runs with the incident for as long as one person will listen. Many of the killings that occurred when I worked as a police officer involved mentally disabled individuals but many of them involved in robberies of the person was pushed to their limits that they fought back in the only way they could which was wrong in the long run by using a weapon on the person. The more laws that are enacted just to get votes I personally think is wrong, they only make people get upset and even mad wondering why I am being punished for something I had no involvement in. What happens when the rest of the country says “enough is enough” and it gets worse. The airport worker who was murdered in Arkansas, the government doesn’t seem to be concerned about it. This is only my opinion but as long as there is a means for anyone to obtain a weapon (a rock all the way to any weapon) something will push people to injure or kill someone else.
Placing armed guards/teachers would certainly deter most shooters, but you lefties dont want that.
Crow spoke on the House floor to honor Columbine massacre victims.
Are victims deserving of honor?
honor noun (1)
High respect, as that shown for special merit; recognition or esteem.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
The basic problem is the lack of teaching our children a basic moral based behavior. Our society has taken away the basic ability to allow parents, teachers, law enforcement officers etc to punish an offender of a rule, immorality, bad behavior, breaking a law, being rude and on the story goes. There is no longer a hurt for not behaving. The lack of requiring simple activities to be done by children ie,standing and pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. The idea of giving equal recognition to every one in a competitive activity has taken away the idea that if getting first means you have to do better, more correctly, etc. Guns don’t kill anyone, the people pulling the trigger that does the killing. Politicians have been responsible for the decline in the moral base of our country by eliminating many of factors that the founding fathers put in the CONSTITUTION. Now the politicians are trying to stop the terrible shootings by instigating laws that affect the law abiding citizens that have guns for multitudes of lawful activities rather than instigating measures to apply hurtful measures on the perpetrators An example of this is the millions of of dollars spent on the trial defending the Aurora theater shooter. There was absolutely no question he was guilty. Representative Crow thank you for your service in the military and the Congress
I’m speaking to you as a very concerned citizen of Colorado ( 5 generations since 1856 ). And where guns were very important to survival. Also early on horse and cattle thieves were dealt with severe consequences. As a result there was no doubt about those activities not being a part of their activities.