Columbine: Twenty Years Later

Two decades later, the massacre at Columbine High School is still painful for our country.

On April 20, 1999, the world turned its eyes to a suburban high school outside of Denver, Colorado. Our worst nightmare was unfolding. We watched as students ran in fear, climbed out of windows, and sobbed. The unimaginable had happened. When the massacre was over, 12 students and one teacher were dead. Our nation was forever changed.

There had been school shootings before Columbine. But for the most part, they were isolated and categorized as unique incidents. Students and parents thought of these shootings as unusual tragedies that could never happen in their schools. But Columbine changed that. Suddenly, no school seemed as safe as it did before April 20, 1999.

Since that tragic day, mass shootings seem to have become part of our daily routine. At the time, Columbine was earth-shattering — and yet today it is one of many horrific, similar tragedies. Like Columbine, the names of schools, places, towns, and communities where these massacres have unfolded have become synonymous with gun violence: Virginia Tech, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, Sutherland Springs, and far too many others. Though these communities are resilient, they continue to cope with extreme loss and pain — a pain we felt 20 years ago in Littleton…