The Columbine High School Massacre

The Columbine High School Massacre took place on April 20, 1999. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were behind the horrible act. While what they did was one of the worst shootings to ever take place in America, it was a well thought-out plan. The two had planted a small bomb about 3 miles from the school as a diversion so they could go through with their heinous crime a little smoother. The bomb went off at 11:14 AM and started a small fire which was quickly extinguished by the fire department. At 11:19 AM, Harris entered the school equipped with a 12-gauge Savage-Springfield 67H pump-action shotgun, which he fired 25 times, and a High-Point 995 Carbine 9mm carbine with 13 10-round magazines, which was fired a total of 96 times. Klebold was armed

By 12:00 PM, both teens had shot themselves. It was speculated that the boys mainly targeted minorities, Christians, and athletes after killing a girl after she was asked if she believed in God. It was believed that the two were part of a group fascinated called “the Trenchcoat Mafia.” Harris and Klebold’s reason for shooting up Columbine were unknown, but some believed it was because they were bullied, a theory that was never proven. Columbine was only one of the most publicized attacks on a school. Definitely not the largest. The largest school shooting took place at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. The shooter’s name was Seung Hui Cho, a 23 year old male born in South Korea and a senior and an English Major at the college. He killed 32 students and a teacher. Cho was armed with a 9mm handgun, a 22-caliber handgun, and had hundreds of rounds of ammunition. At 7:35 AM, the violence began with Cho shooting a freshmen and a resident assistant. Police showed up not long after, but had no idea who the gunman was. The freshmen’s boyfriend was immediately a suspect because the police assumed this was a domestic violence incident. At 9:40 AM, Cho entered a classroom building, blocked some of the main doors, and began his attack. He went from room to room, killing as many students as possible. Nearly 10 minutes after he finished, he killed himself and left a total of 32 people dead

Cho actually had no specific people he wanted to kill, but he had a history of mental illnesses. His classmates said he almost never spoke to anyone. The writing assignments he did in his English classes had been radiating hate, which left people concerned about what was going through Cho’s head. In 2011, Virginia Tech was fined for not releasing a warning to all students after the first 2 shots had been fired at 7:35 AM on April 16, 2007. An email was sent out at 9:26 AM to all students and faculty, but the message was incredibly vague and failed to point out that the gunman was still around and ready to kill.

Columbine and Virginia Tech were definitely two of the biggest, but not one of the first mass shootings on school grounds. On August 1, 1966, a mass shooting took place at the University of Texas. A 25 ex-marine named Charles Whitman who majored in architectural engineering murdered his mother and wife that morning. Whitman climbed on top of the