Honesty after Columbine

Twenty years ago today, two seniors walked into their high school in Littleton, Colo., armed to the teeth. Executing a detailed plan they had developed, they murdered 12 students and one teacher.

Most of us remember their names; we should forget them. What we should never let slip from our minds is how a seductive culture that leads angry young men to grab hold of guns, and, increasingly, highpowered assault rifles, has changed America for the worse.

In 2007, a young man shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. In 2012, a young man shot and killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Last year, a young man shot and killed 14 students and three teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

Those are just the massacres on school grounds. There have been countless incidents in which fewer boys and girls at a time have been exposed to gun violence

in schools. Scratch that: The Washington Post counted, finding 223,000 students so scarred since 1999, including 143 children, educators and others killed and 294 injured.

It is true that any given child faces infinitesimal risk of being cut down at the hands of a madman. But the persistence of the nightmare, no matter how rare, is an indictment of a society that seems incapable of wrestling effectively with the toxic mix of young men, their anger and instability, and high-powered weaponry.

Some say the only answer is making guns less available; others say the psychological pain of the perpetrators is the root problem; still others say the problem is a society that glorifies acts of violence.

The answer, quite obviously, is making guns harder to get while simultaneously zeroing in on those who might seek to harm others, while building a more compassionate culture.

Either-or thinking is the road to ruin.