It has been 20 years since two heavily armed young men in dark trenchcoats entered a Colorado high school and launched a bloody attack that seared the word “Columbine” into the American psyche, forever transforming the debate on gun rights and school violence. As people on Saturday prepared to mark the anniversary of the massacre in Littleton, Colorado — in which teenaged shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 Columbine High School students and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves — there were words of grief and loss and anger. School shootings, once almost unheard of, have become a tragic feature of American life — requiring all schools to tighten security, forcing even six-year-olds to take part in traumatic “live-shooter” drills.
