The horror that unfolded on a Montreal college campus last week as a 25-year-old gunman killed one and wounded 19 others is another distressing echo of the tragedy at Columbine High School.
Yet another disturbed young person armed with guns, a trench coat and a head full of hate opened fire in a cafeteria.
There are perils inherent in trying to make sense of senseless acts, but the shooting shows that despite seven years of well-intentioned efforts, society has yet to unravel and defuse the toxic combination of elements that lead people like Kimveer Gill to show up on campus locked and loaded.
Since the shootings at Columbine, school districts across the United States – and the world – have tried to protect students with metal detectors, zero tolerance and even trench coat profiling, but the attacks keep coming.
Just last week in Wisconsin, two 17-year-olds were arrested after a resource officer learned they had weapons and bombs at their homes. Police said the teens frequently talked about Columbine and attacking their own school.
“If someone hadn’t come forward, we’d be talking about funerals instead of charges,” local DA John Zakowski told The Associated Press.
In Nebraska in 2004, an agitated student wearing a black trench coat was arrested outside his high school. Police found his car filled with gasoline cans, a rifle and propane bottles with crude fuses. In this case, a friend of the young man told school authorities, who derailed the planned attack.
There is growing evidence that somebody typically knows and potentially can stop such attacks before they happen. The U.S. Secret Service did an in-depth study of 37 school shootings dating back to 1974 and found that in three-quarters of homicides, the attackers told someone of their plans. Almost always, that person was a peer – a friend, a schoolmate or a sibling. They almost never told an adult.
There was no shortage of indications that Gill was a bomb about to go off. For example, he went on to the Internet and posted a frightening picture of himself as a self-styled “Angel of Death.”
It’s incumbent upon all of us as parents, educators and citizens to make sure young people know they are key to stopping such tragedies. We need to teach them they are their brothers’ keepers.
