Recently the Washington Post published a column entitled ‘If guns had been harder for my son to buy, Columbine might not have happened’ by Sue Klebold, the mother of Columbine coward Dylan Klebold. No doubt this was done to coincide with the release of her book.
In the opinion piece she talks a good game about mental health issues but still tries to deflect the blame from her murdering spawn.
There were the deep depression and suicidal thoughts that he had been living with and that I was unaware of. There was his distorted belief that he was unloved and unlovable. There was the bullying that made him feel like an outsider at Columbine to an extent I will never know. There was his friendship with Eric and the ways each reinforced the anger and pain of the other.
But let’s just gloss over Dylan Klebold’s criminal behavior prior to the murders and the fact that he was bullying a special needs student.
However mostly in the piece she blames the ease of access to guns as a main factor of the Columbine shootings…
Having said that, I still cannot help but believe that Dylan and Eric would not have been able to take the lives of so many if they had not had such easy access to guns. As I later learned, Dylan and Eric — both of whom were minors — secretly attended a gun show where they bought the shotguns they would use in the massacre and met a young man who sold them a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol.
She seems to be giving the impression that Klebold and Harris walked into a gun show and some how purchased the shotguns legally but that’s not how it happened.
Robyn Anderson, a friend of Klebold and Harris, bought the shotguns and the Hi-Point 9mm Carbine at The Tanner Gun Show in December of 1998 from unlicensed sellers. Because Anderson purchased the guns for someone else, the transition constituted an illegal “straw purchase.” Klebold and Harris bought the TEC-DC9 from a pizza shop employee named Mark Manes, who knew they were too young to purchase the assault pistol, but nevertheless sold it to them for $500.
So in effect they bought the guns illegally off the street, you know, like criminals. The gun control laws you’re imagining only effect gun dealers and do nothing to stop people from selling guns illegally and no gun control law will. As I’ve said before it’s harder than ever to procure guns but school shootings still continue not because of the supposed ease of access if guns but because of entitled and selfish kids who emotionally can’t handle life and their lax parents who are more concerned with being a friend rather than being a parent.
It seems she really hasn’t changed her tune from when she said that she had nothing to apologize for.