Commentary on Questions about Columbine

Bob Lochte

I've been following the Columbine High School massacre with amazement, sorrow, fear, and disgust. The media have fixed the people and events of Littleton, Colorado, permanently in our awareness. The coverage has ranged from sensitive and intelligent to cheap and exploitative. Yet with all the text, audio, video, and digital images that have flowed into my consciousness the last few weeks, there are still two questions about Columbine that I ponder.

Both the New York Times and National Public Radio had lengthy, compelling interviews with the woman down the street who warned the police about Eric Harris more than a year ago. Why didn't she also tell his parents? That's what would have happened in my old neighborhood. Littleton seems to be a fairly typical suburban community populated by folks who moved there from somewhere else. It takes a while for newcomers to get to know each other, and it's easier to rely on familiar mass media rather than other people for communication links. In communities with rapid growth and high transience, people are often acquaintances not friends. They have neighborhoods but no neighbors.

Hurricane Andrew devastated part of South Florida then crossed the Gulf of Mexico to do the same in the bayous of Louisiana. In Florida, where most of the population is transplanted, the victims waited in desperation for the National Guard to restore order. Meanwhile, slick opportunists showed up hawking ice, fresh water, and basic necessities at outrageous prices. In Cajun country where most everybody is a native because no one wants to move there, neighbors were out within hours wielding chainsaws to clear debris, providing food and water, and generally helping each other try to reclaim their lives. Without this basic humanitarian infrastructure, the people in South Florida, like the woman in Littleton, had to turn to public institutions. Too often these institutions are ineffective because they were not designed to solve the social problems inherent in such demands.

The second question is outwardly more simplistic. Where did these kids get the money to buy all those weapons? You can find anything you think you need on the Internet, but don't forget your Visa card. And assembling a vast arsenal requires more cash flow than you get from two minimum wage jobs at a pizza joint. For that matter, so do the wardrobe of overpriced sneakers and professional team logos, the requisite cell phone and AOL account, and the $30 Friday night dates. Somewhere allowances allow kids this much purchasing power.

We Americans are affluent or at least have good credit. Nowadays, poor folks, the chronically bankrupt, and even college students can get enough plastic money to enslave themselves for years to come. We've always been conspicuous consumers, but lately we seem to be on a spending binge. Look around you at all the pricey SUV's, houses the size of branch libraries, and gated communities. Likewise, we try to purchase a better life for our children. But instead of buying a piece of the American dream, we are fortifying ourselves against a lonely and threatening environment. It's no wonder that kids pick up on this and feel tense. Most of them have enough sense to know that money can't buy everything.

So long as we harbor the delusions that casual conversation is human interaction, that the government we want to pay less for can respond to social emergencies, and that if all else fails, a better life is only a click of the mouse or a trip to the mall away, I'm afraid that Columbine will repeat itself.