School shooting

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“”'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

—The Onion

A school shooting is an attack at an educational institution that involves a firearm. While a school shooting can, technically speaking, encompass any kind of criminal event involving gun discharge at a school (including gang violence, etc), the term is most widely used to refer to a specific type of massacre involving few participants shooting a large number of innocent/unarmed people before turning the gun on themselves or being stopped by another person, typically law enforcement.

The number of school shootings in the United States is extraordinarily high, exceeding the quantity of other regions by orders of magnitude, and it has been called by some "a uniquely American issue." However, school shootings have happened in many countries around the world, notably Canada, Finland, Russia, and Brazil. Pundits will typically declare that school shootings are "on the rise,"^{[citation needed]} though it is questionable how accurate this statement is. In the fantasy-land of right-wing talking points, this violence is usually caused by heavy metal music, video games, and the absence of classroom prayer.^{[citation needed]}

School shooter profiling

Although nearly every reputable organization has said there is no reliable way to profile a potential school shooter, this has not stopped hundreds of politicians, news organizations, and media shows from developing stereotypes about what a shooter supposedly looks like or enjoys doing in their spare time. A major study, performed by the US Secret Service in 2002, found that not only is there no particular profile that school shooters meet, but that it is actually dangerous and counterproductive to focus on certain stereotypes.

The Secret Service report found five major questions that can be asked of educators and parents if they are worried about their teenager's mental health:

1. What has this child said?
2. Do they have grievances?
3. What do their friends know?
4. Do they have access to weapons?
5. Are they depressed or despondent?

The only reliable profiling indicator of school shooters is that almost every single one is male. Only two major attempts at a spree shooting by female students have ever been documented. The correlation between bullying and school shootings has also been widely discussed. The most well-known example of "bullying victims gone bad," the Columbine shooting, has helped cement the idea in the national consciousness of bullying victims bringing a gun to school. However, in the years since the massacre, numerous studies and former classmates of the shooters have challenged the idea that they were victims, with some even alleging the perpetrators were bullies themselves.^{[citation needed]} In another case of a claim that the shooter was bullied, one student at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School prior to the shootings claimed that while peer counseling, the gunman would disrespect her and even sexually harass her.

Things that cause school shootings (according to the media and politicians)

First-person shooters such as Doom (Screenshot of FreeDOOM, a free software clone of the 1993 game, shown) have been blamed for school shootings by politicians and sensationalist media alike.

• The existence of schools: It would be nigh impossible to perform school shootings if no school exists. So why don't we homeschool everybody by now?
• Video games, especially first-person shooters (Designing video games is a bonus)
• Heavy metal music
• Lack of classroom prayer, "secularism"
• Students and faculty not having their own guns for self-defense
• Antidepressants
• Goth clothing and culture
• The Internet
• Homosexuality
• Transgender women using bathrooms
• School curricula that allegedly teach children sex and how to rebel against parents and pastors
• The teaching of evolution.
• And, as a summary of several of the above points, teh anti-amurican Librulz.
• Girls who won't have sex with nerds, according to Return of Kings

All of the above are purely speculative and are merely the opinion of the media and/or politicians that support these views. While there may be some correlation evidence, none of the above should be considered to be a direct cause of school shootings.

Notable school shootings

University of Texas (1966)

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman, an engineering student and former marine, killed his wife and mother and then proceeded to fire at students on the campus from a large tower. Including his wife and mother, 16 people were murdered and another 32 were injured. Whitman himself was shot and killed by a police officer.

École Polytechnique (1989)

On December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine killed 14 women before killing himself at the École Polytechnique of Montreal. Ten more women and four men were also injured. This attack is also known as the "Montreal Massacre", since it is the deadliest mass shooting in Montreal's history, and the secondmost deadliest in Canada's history. Lépine's actions were motivated by his hatred of women in general and of feminists in particular. Unlike in the United States, this incident led to stricter gun control measures being passed.

Pearl High School (1997)

On October 1, 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham killed two students and injured seven others at Pearl High School, Mississippi. Before the shooting began, Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned his mother to death in his home.

This incident is often cited by lovers of teh gun as evidence that arming teachers is an effective deterrent to school violence. An assistant principal, Joel Myrick, fetched a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol from his truck and halted Woodham's rampage. This talking point would be more persuasive if easy access to the gun had not cost the lives of two young people.

Westside Middle School (1998)

On March 24, 1998, Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden killed four female students and a teacher at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, injuring ten others in the massacre. The two boys were known as the stereotypical bully-type and wannabe gangsters, though Johnson attributed his behaviors to prior child sexual abuse. The two have since served time, only to get into further trouble with the law.

The shooting inspired writers at The Onion to write a piece about a similar shooting which satirized both the students' motivations as well as the inevitable media responses to it.

Columbine High School (1999)

On April 20, 1999, two seniors named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher, injured 21 other students, and then shot themselves at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. They also unsuccessfully attempted to set off homemade bombs in the school cafeteria, which, had they worked, may have killed hundreds of students. The incident attracted international attention and ignited a heated controversy about gun control and the role of video games in the shooters' lives. Columbine was the first major tragedy to occur after the beginning of the 24-hour cable news cycle; as a result, news organizations reported a number of inaccurate statements about the shooters and the massacre itself that endure to this day. It is also the most well-known school shooting to which most others are compared and from which most stereotypes about shooter profiling have emerged.

Christian martyrs and "do you believe in God?"

Arguably the most well-known myth and controversy to emerge from the Columbine shooting is the idea that Harris and Klebold were specifically hunting devout Christian students. Even though all investigations and eyewitness testimonies confirm the fact that the shooters killed randomly and indiscriminately, conservative politicians and church advocacy groups wasted no time (or maybe wasted lots of time) in insisting that they had been the victims of an anti-Christian terror attack. Harris and Klebold were known to hate organized religion and wrote about the subject in their journals, but there is no evidence to suggest they specifically targeted devout Christians during the massacre.

One particularly controversial subject revolves around an alleged conversation the shooters had with two different students. The family of slain student Cassie Bernall has insisted for 13 years that their daughter had been asked "do you believe in God?" by the shooters; upon answering "yes," she was fatally shot. While bearing in mind that people can absolutely misremember events, especially traumatic events, all but two of the eyewitnesses to this event said this conversation actually happened with another student, Valeen Schnurr, who was not killed. The two eyewitnesses who claim Bernall was the participant in this conversation were asked to point to where they heard the discussion; both pointed to where Schnurr, not Bernall, was located. Despite this, Bernall's family has cashed in on their daughter's "martyrdom," as has the family of Rachel Scott, a Christian student who was killed by random gunfire and was clearly not a specific target. Some in Scott's family have insisted the "do you believe in God?" conversation happened with her as well, once again despite all eyewitness evidence to the contrary. Many Columbine students have expressed anger at the cashing-in by families of students who were killed and their desire to spread blatantly false myths about the day's events.

Legacy

Columbine had a major effect on the American sociopolitical landscape. Many school systems and districts passed reactionary policies in an attempt to prevent future incidents. Many school districts were given stereotypical traits to "watch out" for, and would encourage students to report their peers for any remotely suspicious behavior that fit these stereotypes, similar to other "If you see something, say something" profiling campaigns. These zero-tolerance campaigns have been widely criticized. Numerous attempted or successful school shooters, both in the US and abroad, have cited Harris and Klebold as being inspirations. The Michael Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine was inspired by the idea that lax gun control was responsible for the massacre. Eminem's heavily sarcastic lyric, "middle America, now it's a tragedy" - from his 2000 song "The Way I Am" - accused the American mainstream media of giving Columbine too much coverage compared to their downplaying of shootings in urban areas with much larger African-American populations.

Red Lake Senior High School (2005)

On March 21, 2005, 16-year-old student Jeffrey Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend, then drove to Red Lake Senior High School on the Red Lake reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota and killed five students, a teacher, and a security guard, and injured five other students before shooting himself. As with Columbine, most media attention focused on the role of video games and subcultures rather than mental illness or lax gun control as the culprit behind Weise's shooting.

Virginia Tech (2007)

On April 16, 2007, the Virginia Tech massacre involved Seung-Hui Cho, a student at the university who murdered 29 students and three professors, injured 23 others, and then killed himself. Much of the post-shooting controversy focused on the fact that Cho was severely mentally ill, but that privacy laws and gun ownership loopholes had prevented both the school and firearms background checks from detecting his instability. An additional controversy involved the school's poor communication with students, many of whom were unaware that a gunman was loose on the campus until the shootings had already concluded.

The Jokela and Kauhajoki school shootings in Finland (2007 and 2008)

Finnish police mobilized around the Kauhajoki School four hours after the shooting incident.

In late naughts, Finland was rocked by the two most publicized school shootings in the country's history. Before them, only one such incident had occurred in Rauma in 1989.

The first was the Jokela school killings (Finnish: Jokelan koulusurmat), which occuried at Jokela High School in the Finnish municipality of Tuusula on November 7, 2007. At approximately twelve o'clock local time, eighteen-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen (June 4, 1989 - November 7, 2007), armed with a SIG Sauer Mosquito chambered in .22 Long Rifle, opened fire at the Jokela school. Some students broke windows to get out and the police surrounded the school. According to reports, nine people, including the perpetrator, died in the shooting, six men and three women. Five of the victims were students, one was a student, one was a nurse and the eighth was the headmistress. According to the Finnish authorities, the perpetrator was hospitalized in critical condition after he tried to commit suicide with his own gun. He was arrested at approximately 14:30 local time. He later died of his injuries.

It is striking that Auvinen announced the act in a now-deleted video on YouTube shortly before the shooting. His ideas about natural selection could be read on his personal YouTube page. He wrote that "I am ready to fight and die for my act. I, as a natural selector, will eliminate anyone who does not look fit, who embarrasses the human race or who is a failure of natural selection." Finally, he writes that he alone is responsible for this act, and that he was not influenced by computer games, movies or books.

In the days following the shooting, police began investigating. Inside the school, 76 bullet casings and traces of flammable liquids were found on the walls and floors of the second floor, making it likely that Auvinen intended to set the school on fire. The investigation then turned to a letter Auvinen left behind before his suicide, as well as his YouTube page.

The Kauhajoki school killings (Finnish: Kauhajoen koulusurmat) then occurred on September 23, 2008 at a school in the town of Kauhajoki, Finland, less than a year following the prior attack. Matti Juhani Saari (age 22), a second-year culinary arts student, opened fire at Kauhajoki School of Hospitality (Kauhajoen palvelualojen oppilaitos) just before 11 a.m. local time. He was dressed in black and wore a balaclava. He also had a large bag with the pistol, ammunition and incendiary devices with him. The shooting started in a classroom where 20 people were taking an exam. There were approximately 150 students in the school at the time. Ten people were killed and one person was injured in the shooting. Among the ten people killed were nine classmates (eight women and one man) and a staff member (one man) Matti Juhani Saari also set fires in several places using Molotov cocktails. After his killing spree, he attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head at around 12:30 p.m. He died some time later at Tampere University Hospital. Two handwritten notes were found in the student quarters of the school stating that he had been planning the attack since 2002 and that he hated humanity and the human race. Saari had had a temporary permit for a Walther P22, a .22 Long Rifle pistol, since August 2008.

Much like the Jokela shooter, Saari had announced his plan a day before committing the attack. The police had spoken to the shooter about a video he had posted on YouTube under the username Wumpscut86. In this video, he shot the camera several times with the message "You will die next". Other videos showed him at a shooting range and his favorite videos included some about the murders at Columbine High School. The police decided there was insufficient evidence to arrest him or to take other measures, such as revoking his license or confiscating his weapon. He also had no criminal record. His account and the videos have since been removed from YouTube. His account on the Finnish social network site IRC-Galleria, where he had posted images from the videos and photos of himself, was also closed.

The police investigations following the attack focused on whether Saari had contact with Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the perpetrator of the 2007 Jokela School shooting. Both incidents had similarities: in both cases the incident took place at their school and the perpetrator had announced it in videos on YouTube. Both were also fascinated by the murders at Columbine High School and both died in hospital after shooting themselves in the head. According to his firearms license, he had bought the weapon in Jokela and therefore possibly in the same shop where Auvinen had bought his weapon.

This and the prior school shooting rekindled the discussion about handguns and gun control in Finland. In Finland, gun legislation is more flexible for hunting, making it easier to obtain a gun. Subsequently, the government implemented new measures. New procedures for obtaining a gun permit had already been developed after the Jokela school incident. Some of the proposed changes include: setting up a register so that the police have an overview of gun permits; an interview is held with at least two people who act as references for the person who has applied for a gun permit; the right to request medical records if the applicant has been taking medication - this is to gain insight into the applicant's mental and physical health.

Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012)

See the main article on this topic: Sandy Hook massacre

On December 14, 2012 , 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 students, all of whom were young children, as well as killing six adult staff members before committing suicide at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. It is currently the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history and the fifth deadliest mass shooting by a single person in U.S. history.

Umpqua Community College (2015)

On October 1, 2015, 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer went to his writing class and murdered 9 people (8 students and one assistant professor), and injured 9 others at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. He then killed himself after engaging in a two-minute confrontation with the police. Harper-Mercer's intent was apparently fame through the exact same fame and "immortality" he believed was given other mass shooters through media attention. The media was quick to jump on rumors that he only targeted Christians (Harper-Mercer appears to be an anti-theist based on his writings), however, eyewitnesses state that he only asked this to taunt the person before shooting them. He also left behind writings glorifying previous shooting massacres (specifically the 2014 Isla Vista killings), problems with his sex life (defining himself as an "involuntary virgin" and a "beta male"), his hatred towards black men, and hatred of having lived so isolated. He allegedly praised Vester Flanagan, a television newscaster who shot two of his former coworkers when they were broadcasting live in August. He belonged to a file sharing platform where he shared Nazi and Illuminati documentaries, as well as documentaries on the Sandy Hook, Columbine, and Virginia Tech shootings. Posts on 4chan's /r9k/ board were allegedly made by Harper-Mercer and warned others of his planned shooting spree, and where he was encouraged to go through with it.

Also the sheriff in charge of the investigation is a Sandy Hook truther.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (2018)

On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz used an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida; 12 of the victims died inside the school. After committing the crime, Cruz blended in with the fleeing students and then went to a Subway and a McDonald's before being taken into custody without incident. This school shooting was the deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook massacre. Prior to the shooting, students at the school described Cruz as an "outcast" and a "loner". He had an obsession with guns, knives, and hunting, and the students said that "everyone predicted" he would be a school shooter. Educators had long feared Cruz's capability for violence, and he had previously been expelled for disciplinary reasons. Five months prior to the shooting, the FBI was alerted to comment from a user named "nikolas cruz" on YouTube, who had said, "I’m going to be a professional school shooter." Investigators were unable to successfully identify the maker of that comment.

Unsurprisingly, a number of conspiracy theories were generated by the event. Some of the survivors of the massacre were accused of being crisis actors on behalf of a liberal agenda. David Hogg, a 17-year-old-survivor, was a particular target since he had advocated gun control and is the son of a former FBI agent. Facebook has pledged to remove posts spreading this claim. Marco Rubio, in a stopped clock moment, came to the student's defense on Twitter, tweeting, "Claiming some of the students on tv after #Parkland are actors is the work of a disgusting group of idiots with no sense of decency."

The children will lead them all

Following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the issue of Cruz being able to legally purchase guns became widely publicized. Specifically, he was able to purchase the AR-15 legally with no red flags being raised despite having a history of violence and mental issues, including being the subject of several 911 calls where he had put a gun to someone's head. He had also posted photos and videos of him dismembering small animals. Additionally there was a great deal made of how lenient Florida's gun laws were, as an eighteen-year old could purchase rifles legally but was not eligible to obtain alcohol.

Numerous right-wing talking heads parroted talking points of how guns don't kill people, people kill people. Figures such as Tomi Lahren and Mark Dice chimed in; the former blamed the liberal left for using a national tragedy to push their gun control agenda before families had a chance to grieve; the latter in a deleted tweet mocked survivors for using social media during the shooting. President Trump tweeted that authorities should have been on the lookout for warning signs before Cruz had the chance to commit the massacre. Donald Trump Jr. "liked" a tweet revealing that one of the survivors who criticized the president was the son of an FBI agent, as if that somehow undermined the student's credibility.

Not expected, however, was for the students to retaliate against such talk themselves, using social media platforms such as Twitter to protest the invective spat at them. Survivors and their families held a town hall meeting with right-wing lawmakers and spokespeople. Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the shooting, grilled Marco Rubio, wanting him to admit that semiautomatic weapons themselves were the problem as opposed to any gun laws. Cameron Kasky, a student at the school, also told Rubio that he should turn down NRA campaign donations. Rubio told Guttenberg that the problem runs deeper than anything related to guns and focused his remarks on raising the age at which one could purchase firearms; he also said he was open to reconsidering the size of gun magazines. He told Kasky that the influence of the NRA runs deeper than money, and refused to say that he would not accept NRA contributions, admitting that he and the organization shared a common agenda. Rubio made a cheap appeal to bothsiderism for both sides to come together and make a change as the only way to make effective change and proposed the wishy-washy idea of a gun restraining order (police could seize weapons from people whom the community had suspicions about), all the while refusing to pinpoint guns as the problem, which was booed by the audience. The only notion that everyone could agree on was news of President Trump's suggestion that arming teachers with guns as a remedy to school shootings being too grotesque for discussion.

Emma Gonzalez, another survivor of the shooting, questioned NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, saying she would protect Loesch's children in ways that [Loesch] would not. Loesch made no secrets about her loyalty to the NRA, claiming that the laws should be on the lookout for mentally ill people and there had been a call to stop bump stocks from modifying weapons to become fully automatic. During the debate, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel came to Gonzalez's defense, saying that Loesch stood up for the NRA and not for the best interests of the survivors, because if she did have any desire to prevent school shootings, she would have been advocating for fewer weapons, period.

The shooting inspired students to walk out of school to rally for gun control nationwide. Some schools threatened to punish their students if they went through with these marches, while other schools were supportive. Students were able to persuade Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to call for Congressional hearings. Many companies including United, Delta, Hertz, and Metz announced that they will sever ties with the NRA after NRA's response to the tragedy (the NRA has only doubled down to this, deflecting to failing mental health; law enforcement, even going far to call it "cruel failure"; and school security; and they have accused the companies of scapegoating their membership in "a shameful display of political and civic cowardice"). After a school shooting where a good number of the survivors were close to voting age, politically aware, and able to connect nationwide through social media with other students, there is a sense of unity not seen following previous school shootings, though survivors enduring an onslaught of vicious verbal attacks after becoming politically active is also unprecedented. The most action taken, however, is just "thoughts and prayers" taken to another level; let's just disregard our Constitution and slap "In God We Trust" on schools because surely that'll cause mass shootings to stop.

Santa Fe High School (2018)

When it seems that 2018 couldn't get a week without a school shooting, on May 18, 2018, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, used a legally owned (but illegally possessed, as he was underage and both guns were stolen) shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver to kill ten people — nine students and one teacher — at Santa Fe High School in Texas, and injure another 10 people. Additionally, officials found pipe bombs and pressure cookers installed around the school. Prior to the shooting, Pagourtzis was suicidal and he had posted "Dangerous Days" with a Pentagram prior to the shooting. His journal and notes on his cellphone were retrieved, both of which detailed his plans for the shooting. Pagourtzis turned himself to law enforcement and was charged with capital murder.

One of the victims of the school shooting was an underpaid teacher who was in medical debt working in two jobs.

Robb Elementary School (2022)

“”Two children, whose bodies had been so pulverized by the bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been so ripped apart, that the only clue as to their identities was the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them. Clinging for life and finding none. I could only hope these two bodies were a tragic exception to the list of survivors. But as I waited there with my fellow Uvalde doctors, nurses, first responders and hospital staff for other casualties we hoped to save, they never arrived.

—Dr. Roy Guerrero, Insider.

A shooting in May 24 of 2022 at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, broke out and killed two teachers and 19 students before the police killed the shooter at the scene. The police response had been severely criticized as the police were unable to properly and timely respond in the situation and were apparently obstructing efforts by panicked parents to rescue their children. The response by the district’s own department was so botched that the Border Patrol and US Marshals had to respond, sadly as if the district’s Barney Fife department looks to Grand Theft Auto IV as a simulator of how to respond to incidents in real life. I This eventually led to police chief resigning from the city council. Though details on the massacre are usually withheld from public eyes, some descriptions of what people saw were revolting.

The AR-15 is designed for self-defense from children to blow apart targets, decapitate their victims, and leaving their remains appearing as if they were destroyed by a grenade. The police saw piles of dead children. The coroner, despite being trained in dealing with blood, could never adequately prepare for the sight. He knew some of the parents of these children. One person was an old classmate who was a killed teacher. The pediatrician saw that some remains of children were so horribly mutilated, their faces so horrifically disfigured, that he couldn't identify the corpses and tried to look at the blood-stained cartoon characters on their shirts. One student was identified only by her green Converse sneakers. Some survivors, which some survived by playing dead, described accounts of the shooter killing their teacher and several kids, such as one account allegedly recalling that she and her classmates were watching Lilo & Stitch before the shooter killed their teacher.

The Republican response was nearly equally revolting. They predictably resisted proposed gun control measures, with Ted Cruz pathetically appealing to "constitutional rights" (even when it's leading to kids getting killed), pleading people to not "politicize" an event that was a result of abysmal policy from abysmal politics. Other Republicans called for more armed teachers and guards, like a school should be built like a prison. Republicans like Paul Gosar were also more interested that the shooter was "transgendering" (he was not; a trans woman had her photos associated with the shooter, and this mislabeled photo was spread through social media) and didn't have a lily-white name (a.k.a. an "illegal alien") rather than the fact that American kids had been literally blown apart by native-born American citizens.

Unsurprisingly, Activision's flagship shooter franchise Call of Duty was implicated in the shooting, particularly when riflemaker and GOPher gun nut Daniel Defense used the series to promote the very same gun used in the massacre. While us here at RationalWiki typically don't agree with the supposed connection between video games and real-world violence, the Call of Duty series has been known for its themes of jingoism, simultaneously condemning (e.g. the Russian ultranationalist faction in the Modern Warfare arc) and condoning it as in the case of Oliver North acting as a consultant and making a cameo appearance in Black Ops II while by the same token blaming the very same video games he's on for school shootings.

The Covenant School (2023)

On March 27, 2023, Aiden Hale, a 28 year old transgender alumnus of the private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee entered the school heavily armed with assault rifles, a handgun, and highly detailed plans to unleash carnage on his former school. He killed three students and three employees. President Biden and others called for more gun control, as is common following mass shootings, while those on the right blamed the transgender community. What is interestingly absent is right wing conspiracy theorists claiming that the shooting was a false flag, the left wing conspiracy theorists claiming that it was a hate crime, and the religious right blaming secularism and the removal of prayer from schools, all three of which are probably due to it being a Christian school.

This article isn't getting any smaller.

Conspiracy theories

“”Consider the recent attacks on one of the young Parkland shooting survivors. A teenager who had just witnessed classmates being gunned down at his own school quickly discovered that speaking up for common-sense gun regulation resulted in vicious trolling and the viral lie that he was a paid "crisis actor". This was similar to what befell the grieving families of the small children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Imagine waking one morning in a state of searing grief over the death of your baby to discover that some odious prankster like Alex Jones is telling his gullible audience that the whole tragic incident was staged, that your child was actually a paid performer doused in artificial gore and posed in a gruesome tableaux of death.

—Ron Reagan

Many wingnutty conspiracy theorists believe that most, if not all, acts of mass murder committed with guns in the US are actually false flag operations committed by the US government to increase public support for stricter gun control and even confiscation. Conspiracy theorists typically focus their (f)ire on the fact that the shooters in these incidents have access to extremely deadly semi-automatic weapons which, they believe, could only have been obtained through the government. This ignores the more disturbing fact that these weapons actually can be obtained, often with ease, in many parts of the country — in large part because of precisely the sort of loose gun laws that they advocate for.

Since these theories date back at least to Columbine, the fact that there has been no confiscation and no appreciable restrictions on weaponry rather undermines the theorists.

Columbine theories

To this day, rumors of a third Columbine shooter persist. These rumors typically claim the third shooter was wearing elaborate paramilitary gear or was using more powerful weapons than Harris and Klebold. However, the autopsy reports and investigations have shown that all victims of the attacks were shot using the weapons wielded by Harris and Klebold.

Some theorists have linked the Columbine shooting to the sixth anniversary of the attack on the Branch Davidians or the fourth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, despite that these events happened on April 19th and not April 20th. This is one of those theories that turned out to be true; in home videos, Harris and Klebold mentioned that they wanted their actions to overshadow what had happened in 1993 and 1995. The shooting happened on the 20th because they were unable to get all of their ammunition and supplies ready on the 19th.

Other theorists try to make a connection to April 20 instead. Some have suggested that they struck on "4/20" because that was the day when many of the school's stoners, whom they had little issue with, would be cutting class, while others have pointed out that April 20 was Adolf Hitler's birthday and tried to connect that to a neo-Nazi motivation. While it is known that Eric Harris held a disturbingly high regard for the Nazis, it seems to have amounted mainly to an admiration of the efficiency of their killing machine and a fetishization of authoritarianism and violence for their own sake; while the latter is a classic hallmark of fascism, Harris didn't seem to particularly care about ideology. Either way, given that the shooting was planned for April 19th but later delayed, both of these hypotheses can be written off.

A few idiots, such as Gene Ray, jumped on the fact that Harris and Klebold, being nerds and outcasts, had been described as fans of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, and for a short time the game received the same kind of unwarranted attention that role-playing games had received in the early 1980s. Still others blamed video games, as Harris and Klebold were fans of the first-person shooter games Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. Some of the victims' parents tried to sue the video game makers, but were (rightly) unsuccessful. When it came out that Harris had made a number of game mods for Doom II: Hell on Earth, speculation immediately erupted that they were maps of the school that he and Klebold used to practice and plan their massacre. The actual "Harris levels" turned out to be more mundane; only one of them, a multiplayer map set in a hockey arena, even remotely resembled a location that could exist in real life, and if he did create a Columbine map, it is likely lost to history. Fittingly enough, somebody did go on to create a Columbine-themed level for Doom.

Not even a day after the shooting occurred, some news programs tried to make a connection to the 1995 film Basketball Diaries, which features a dream sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio's character, clad in a trench coat and wielding a shotgun, kicks down the classroom door and shoots his classmates and his teacher. Harris and Klebold were, however, definitely fans of the 1994 Oliver Stone film Natural Born Killers, having given their plan the codename "NBK" in videos and journals. Columbine was hardly the only high-profile crime that Natural Born Killers was attached to, the film being accused of inspiring a laundry list of copycat murders. Given that the film, about a Bonnie & Clyde-esque outlaw couple who become celebrities and cult icons thanks to an unscrupulous, ratings-hungry tabloid hack, was made as a satire of how the news media treats real-life violence and glamorizes criminals, the fact that life seemingly imitated art so dramatically makes for a bitter irony.

Sandy Hook theories

That cockroach Alex Jones called the Sandy Hook shooting a hoax. Not just wackjob explanations or scapegoating, but that the entire thing never happened at all. This wasn't the first or last time he had claimed a school shooting was a false flag, but it might just be the most egregious. As a result, many of his listeners tormented the families of the victims, who were already dealing with a shattering tragedy. It was truly ghoulish behavior.

If there's an upside to this, Jones was actually sued for this, and lost big time. The resulting damages, over $1 billion, bankrupted him.

See also

• Aurora shootings
• Bowling for Columbine
• False flag operation
• Gun control
• Mass shooting
• Security theater#School security theater

External links

• Speaking is Difficult, a short film by the Intercept that documents America's mass shootings from the Tulsa (2011) shooting to San Bernadino (2015) using 911 responder calls.