ABSTRACT
When two high school students opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, at 11:21 a.m. on April 20, 1999, they ignited an intense, unprecedented, nationwide outpouring of public anguish. Entering the school with an arsenal of shotguns, automatic weapons, grenades, and homemade bombs, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 classmates and a teacher, wounded 24 others, some permanently, and then took their own lives in 15 minutes of mayhem that reverberated around the world. The killers also planted homemade pipe bombs in and around the school, which failed to detonate but would have multiplied the killing manyfold.
