A few weeks after the 20-year anniversary of the Columbine massacre, the nation is grappling with yet another school shooting. The Violence Project founders Jill Peterson and James Densley used their research into mass shootings to show the similarities between the recent tragedy and Columbine. The two shootings were both committed by two school insiders and occurred within a few miles of each other.
Using the Columbine shooting as a model is not a new phenomenon: in nearly half of the 46 school shootings since the 1999 tragedy the shooter purposely did so. Peterson and Densley are calling for us to rewrite the script for the aftermath of school shootings. Changing how we react could prevent copycats and slow the contagion of mass shootings.
Read Peterson and Densley’s full analysis in The Conversation here.