CNN Insight

The Legacy of Columbine

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MARINA KOLBE, INSIGHT (voice-over): Remembering the victims of a school rampage. A suburban community in the Rocky Mountains pauses to pay tribute to a dozen students and a teacher. One year on, the Columbine school shooting still reverberates through the United States.

(on camera): Hello, and welcome to INSIGHT. I'm Marina Kolbe, standing in for Jonathan Mann.

To most Americans, the Columbine killings were an act of random violence that will never be understood. The two teenaged gunmen killed themselves after the shooting. It was just one of several attacks in schools and raised questions about what can be done to prevent these incidents.

On our program today - the legacy of Columbine. CNN's Rusty Dornin is covering the anniversary in Littleton, Colorado. She filed this report a short time ago.

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RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A day almost too painful to remember, but too horrific to forget. An ongoing struggle for many here, whether to deal with their grief privately or share it with the world. Inside Columbine, students, family and alumni gathered to remember, far from prying eyes.

RICK KAUFMAN, COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL SPOKESMAN: Very difficult, very -- it's a very difficult day for them as well as staff. Obviously, there's a lot of crying, a lot of hugging, and students are solemnly remembering.

DORNIN: For Brooks Brown, who was once threatened by the killers but whose life was spared that day when he met them coming onto the campus, it's a time for private reflection.

BROOKS BROWN, FORMER COLUMBINE STUDENT: Be alone with my friends that I care about, that I'm glad I'm still here to be alive with, and pay our respects in our own way.

DORNIN: The way the people of Colorado paid their respects was with silence on the steps of the capitol, precisely at 11:21, the time when the killing began last year.

In a park behind the school, the community thanked the world for its outpouring of sympathy. There is still shock, grief, and for some victims' families, there is anger. Nine lawsuits have been filed against the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, alleging officers did not do enough to protect students - and a startling allegation.

JIM ROUSE, ATTORNEY: ...is that the parents believe that a sheriff's deputy's bullet was the fatal shot for Daniel Rohrbough.

DORNIN: Something the sheriff's department adamantly denies. Conflicting emotions over a tragedy that inspired a flurry of gun control proposals nationwide.

The father of Rachel Scott, the first person murdered at Columbine, says it's not the point.

DARRELL SCOTT, VICTIM'S FATHER: But sometimes I think we're focusing so much of our attention on legislation and gun control that we're missing other aspects that could give us even better answers. For example, the moral and spiritual side of things needs to be addressed.

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DORNIN (on camera): It's been a beautiful spring day here in Littleton, Colorado, full of hope and promise, which was really the theme for most of today's memorial service at a park adjacent to Columbine High School. Some of the titles of the speeches were "Letting Go," "Courage," :Moving Forward," and "What I've Learned."

One of the teachers, Patti Nielson, who was in the library where most of the killing occurred that day, spoke of letting go of her anger and her acceptance and her forgiveness about what happened. Others spoke and thanked the world for their outpouring of sympathy and empathy during their moments of horrible tragedy here in Littleton.

Now, as the memorial service here was over, about a half hour ago - there were about 2,000 or 3,000 people here - much smaller crowds than they had expected. However, it seemed a very unified crowd. There were students. There were families. There were members of the community here to give support on the first anniversary of the massacre.

Now, as often happens, this tragedy really did bring this community closer together in ways never thought possible, but at an enormous cost. Marina?

KOLBE: Rusty, are there any plans for building a longer lasting memorial?

DORNIN: Yes, the victims' families have put together a fund called Healing of People Everywhere, HOPE. They've already raised more than $1.6 million towards turning the library actually into an atrium. Right now, it's closed. It's sealed off. There are lockers in front of the library. Students are not allowed to go in there.

They want to see it closed permanently and have an atrium put there and then build a new library. That apparently will cost a little over $3 million, so they're a little over half way to that goal.

KOLBE: CNN's Rusty Dornin reporting from Littleton, Colorado.

Valeen Schnurr was a Columbine student who survived the attack. But as CNN's Dave Mattingly found out, the shooting has altered her family's world forever.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have heard shots. We took cover behind our patrol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do have one female student brought in with nine gunshot wounds to the chest.

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VALEEN SCHNURR: I was under the table in the library on April 20 at Columbine, and I was studying with a bunch of my friends, like, during lunch like we'd always done, and then a teacher came in the library. She told us all to get under the tables, and that's kind of when everything happened, and that's how I got hurt.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A year ago, Valeen Schnurr, "Val" to her friends and family, had just turned 18, turned heads at the prom, and was turning her sights to graduation and a world full of possibilities. She had no way of knowing that the world she knew was about to change violently.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have heard shots, and we know that we definitely have victims here.

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MATTINGLY: When she and her friends in the Columbine library found themselves at the center of the worst school shooting in U.S. history.

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BREE PASQUALE, COLUMBINE STUDENT: And then he came into the library and shot everyone around me, then put a gun to my head and said -- asked if we all wanted to die.

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MATTINGLY: Val was shot at close range with a shotgun, as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed the school with guns and homemade bombs. But in a strange twist, after pulling the trigger, one gunman paused to ask Val a question.

(on camera): And as you were there wounded, the gunman asked you, "Do you believe in God?"

SCHNURR: That's true. And I said "yes." And they asked me why, and I said because I believe and my parents brought me up that way.

MATTINGLY: That question and her answer proved to be a rare moment of inspiration in a day of mayhem and murder.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, please, let him be on this bus.

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MATTINGLY: And what followed, according to her family, was a series of blessings. Instead of killing her, after their exchange, Klebold and Harris moved on in their rampage and Val, though wounded, escaped. Val's parents Shari and Mark Schnurr vividly recall the chaos that followed and those awful first hours at the hospital.

SHARI SCHNURR: The fog just kind of settled over me at that point, and that's the shock of it.

MATTINGLY (on camera): How bad off was she?

MARK SCHNURR: There was no question in the doctors' mind, they thought, based on her look, that she wasn't going to make it. In fact, a couple of people had gotten a call that she'd died.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But to almost everyone's surprise, Val survived. The nine shots that entered her body narrowly missed her vital organs.

M. SCHNURR: We had a priest there and he -- she asked me if -- she said, "Daddy, am I dying?" And I said, "No, you're not going to die."

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Val Schnurr, 18 years old, is in fair condition.

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MATTINGLY: News of her survival prompted an outpouring of love and support. Val's room filled with flowers and gifts from all over the country. And to express their gratitude, her parents stepped into what would become an almost constant glare of media attention.

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S. SCHNURR: Val said to make sure that her friends and her family and her teachers know that she's there, that she cares for them.

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MATTINGLY: Val left the hospital in just six days, a recovery the family says is nothing short of a miracle. And Val continued to amaze, when just a few weeks later, she stood up at graduation to accept her diploma.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Valeen Marie Schnurr.

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V. SCHNURR: I refused to let Eric and Dylan take something that precious away from me, and I was going to get there, you know; no matter what it took, I was going to get there.

MATTINGLY: Val's determination set the tone for the entire family. And looking back at the happiness of the moment, Val and her parents say they had every reason to believe that the horror of April 20 would soon be behind them. But now, a year later, the Schnurrs say they were only beginning to realize then just how deep the wounds were for all of them and how much the shooting had cost them.

(on camera): What did you lose?

S. SCHNURR: I guess security, and knowing security and knowing that your kids are safe.

Look at the columbines coming back.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): In the months that followed, Shari and her younger daughters became unusually sensitive to sirens and the noise of helicopters - symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Mark had trouble sleeping and became anxious in crowds and in traffic. For Val, early on, there were nightmares. Later, loud noises became a problem.

V. SCHNURR: I just, I jump, and you just kind of shake your head, you know. You just tell yourself that everything's OK, and just go about your business as best you can. You know, your heart races, and it's scary, but you got to know that I'm in a safe place, and what happened is in the past, and it needs to stay there.

MATTINGLY: When Val wears short sleeves, her scars are clearly visible. She faces five more years of reconstructive and cosmetic surgery.

The whole family tries to avoid media reports of the shooting, deciding instead to immerse themselves in the official findings of the case in order to answer their own lingering questions. Val and her father were among the families who attended a private briefing by police, which included school surveillance tapes and disturbing videotapes left behind by Harris and Klebold.

(on camera): What did you see?

M. SCHNURR: We saw some kids that were really, really dysfunctional. And there was some -- they -- this was not just some magic that happened overnight in some warped video game. This was a process that set in for a long, long time.

MATTINGLY: Do you blame anyone today?

M. SCHNURR: There's a blame for their parents, the society that they lived in, and there are people who should have recognized a lot of red flags along the way.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): The Schnurrs say they would like nothing more than to go back to living the life of a normal family. But the times they've actually been able to do that in the past year have been few and far between. The shootings at Columbine left behind too many unanswered questions and too many painful memories.

M. SCHNURR: How could I know that by lunchtime that she would be riddled by gunshot blasts, screaming for her life, a shrill scream that I have heard on tape, and I will never, ever forget.

MATTINGLY: Each of the Schnurrs is recovering in his or her own way. Mark lobbies the state legislature for passage of a fund benefiting school-aged victims of violent crime. As for Shari, she recently gave birth to her fourth child, a new baby boy, and with him, a new outlook.

S. SCHNURR: It's the second miracle, I guess, that God has shown us.

MATTINGLY: The first miracle, of course, is Val, whose remarkable physical and emotional recovery continues with the help of family, friends and faith.

(on camera): Was there any time during your recovery when you thought, I can't do this?

V. SCHNURR: No.

MATTINGLY: Not for a second.

V. SCHNURR: No. I knew the worst part was over. Nothing could be as bad as what happened on the 20th.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Now 19 and a freshman in college, Val recently wrote an article about her experience in "Teen People."

SCHNURR: I was saying, "Oh, my God, oh, my God, don't let me die. Don't let me die."

MATTINGLY: She also travels to speaking engagements with a message of hope. But in spite of the strides she's made, Val says she has a ways to go. One of her best friends, Lauren Townsend, was under the table with her that day in the library. She did not survive. There's still the unrelenting feeling of anger to deal with and the question "why" that may never go away.

V. SCHNURR: I've almost forgiven them for what they did to me. I will not forgive them - I have yet to forgive them for what they did to my friend Lauren.

MATTINGLY (on camera): What is it going to take?

V. SCHNURR: There's got to be a time -- I think forgiveness is a time where you find peace in yourself, and it gives you the chance to move on and leave everything behind and live your life, and I think that that's something that will happen over time. This can't ever drag me down forever. I won't let it. I've got to move on.

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KOLBE: In a moment - guns and the American psyche. We look at an emotional and political debate.

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KOLBE (voice-over): Locking out access. Earlier this month, Maryland became the first state in the U.S. to pass a law requiring trigger locks on all handguns sold in the state. An increasing number of states are tightening controls on guns in marked contrast to the absence of legislation at the national level.

(on camera): Welcome back.

Guns have been a part of the American psyche for centuries, but public sentiment has swung in favor of gun control after each high- profile shooting incident. While an Associated Press poll finds that three-fourths of Americans favor guns with locks of some kind, that is not reflected in U.S. laws.

The U.S. Congress has tried and failed to pass stricter regulations on guns. And now, with the help of President Bill Clinton, the battle over guns has shifted to the states.

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(voice-over): .made gun laws a top priority of his administration. But his biggest allies have not been in Washington.

JOE SUDBAY, HANDGUN CONTROL, INC.: The states certainly proved to be a very important incubator for ideas.

KOLBE: Massachusetts has echoed the Maryland initiative by using its consumer safety laws to regulate handguns.

TOM REILLY, MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL: This isn't about the rights of people to carry arms. Certainly people can have their arms and their weapons, handguns. It's just to make sure that they're safe.

KOLBE: Other gun control efforts across the country - ballots in Colorado and Oregon may include initiatives to close gun show loopholes. Utah voters face a possible referendum to ban concealed weapons in schools and churches. And child access prevention bills are before the legislatures in New Hampshire and Ohio.

PARRIS GLENDENING, MARYLAND GOVERNOR: I think what we are seeing is a whole series of experiments on what will work because Congress is not acting here.

KOLBE: The Clinton administration also struck a deal with Smith & Wesson. The handgun manufacturer agreed to child-proof its guns and run background checks on all gun buyers in return for not being sued by the federal government and several American cities.

Other gun makers have not gone along with Smith & Wesson. Now to mark the anniversary of the Columbine killings, the Clinton administration has unveiled a gun buyback program which would encourage city housing agencies to buy and destroy unwanted firearms.

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(on camera): Can these efforts succeed, and what do opponents of gun control say? Robert Spitzer is a professor of political science at State University of New York at Cortland. He is the author of "Politics of Gun Control," a comprehensive analysis of the gun issue from all perspectives.

Thank you, Professor Spitzer, for joining us.

ROBERT SPITZER, AUTHOR, "THE POLITICS OF GUN CONTROL": My pleasure to be with you.

KOLBE: It seems that critics, at least, say that after each type of massacre like this in the U.S., the cry for gun control comes up, and each cry has the same result - absolutely nothing gets done. Do you agree?

SPITZER: I agree to a certain extent. There have been some change that have taken place, most notably in the early 1990s, that were partly a response to some gun violence that shocked the nation. But I would also say that the Columbine incident, I think, has been different, perhaps even transformative for American politics, although I do not think that means that the Congress is going to react this year by passing stronger gun laws.

But it's had three effects. The post-Columbine gun environment is different in three respects. The first is that the public is paying more attention to the gun issue. Yes, to some extent, the public's attention turned away after Columbine when the summer came on. But nevertheless, the issue is more in the minds of the public, and people I think are talking more about the gun issue.

The second is that political leaders and candidates running for office are talking about the gun issue to an unprecedented degree. If you compare this presidential election year with past presidential election years, there is no election year, certainly not in modern times, where gun control has received this much attention from candidates in both political parties as well, of course, as President Clinton has launched really a political offensive to try to get Congress to respond to his gun initiatives before he leaves office.

And the third thing is the item you mentioned in your report, which is that many states around the union are moving quite aggressively now with a pro-gun control agenda. That's significant because the states traditionally are where the anti-gun control forces have been strongest. And although the anti-gun control forces have logged and continue to log some successes in the states, it's also interesting to note that many of the governors and state leaders around the country who are supporting stronger gun laws are Republicans as well as Democratic governors.

So the gun control agenda and gun control issues seems to now have become a bipartisan issue that leaders around the country at the state level believe that they can advance.

KOLBE: Now, to advance such a cause, it seems that other countries have had more success in doing it quicker. For example, in Canada, about a decade ago, there was a Montreal massacre, where 14 people were shot and the gunman killed himself. And then, in 1996, in Dunblane, Scotland, we had the man that killed 16 children, and there seemed to be a lot of progress in Britain on gun control there.

Why is it that some other countries are able to progress so much faster on gun control?

SPITZER: Well, I would say a couple of reasons. One is that the sheer numbers of guns that are owned by people in European nations, in Canada, Australia as well and New Zealand and other places is far lower than the United States. The sheer number of guns is fewer, so the regulatory problems are fewer.

The other thing is that America does have a romantic and romanticized attachment to what's called the gun culture - the hunting and sporting tradition that extends back in our history to the colonial era. And even though fewer Americans actually owned and used guns than most people think, and when Europeans and others think about the United States and guns, they think about John Wayne and shoot-out at OK Corral and that kind of thing. In fact, that's not a true reflection of what the frontier era in the United States was like.

Nevertheless, that image, that imagery, that emotional attachment to the gun tradition is an important one for some Americans, and it continues to be held very strongly by those who oppose gun controls today, and they feel very strongly about that emotional attachment.

KOLBE: Some people who oppose gun control, they argue that reducing guns doesn't really effectively reduce violence. What are the statistics on that?

SPITZER: Well, the connections between guns and violence is complex. If you took away all guns tomorrow, violence certainly would not end. There would certainly continue to be crime. There are many crimes that are committed without guns. But it is also true that when you introduce a gun into a crime situation, you increase the likelihood that somebody will be hurt. You increase the likelihood that people will be killed.

It's referred to as the lethality effect. And it's not too hard to figure. If you imagine yourself, let's say, being robbed. The threat of robbery from a person pointing a gun at you certainly is more severe than a person who, let's say, points a knife at you, although, of course, a knife can kill a person as well.

So when you introduce guns into a situation, it escalates the likelihood that people will be injured and killed, and that's part of the concern in connection with guns and crime.

KOLBE: The people who support the right to carry arms would say, "Well, if the criminal has a gun, then I should have one to defend myself." What do you say to that?

SPITZER: Well, there are those who argue that effective self- defense by honest citizens can be helped by honest citizens getting firearms, especially handguns. The problem is that when you increase the flow of guns in society, it also has the effect of increasing guns to the criminal element because some criminals get their guns by taking them from honest citizens.

And in general, we as a society are supposed to be leaving law enforcement primarily to professionals - that is, to the police forces. And the question is, is society's interests best protected by arming other citizens where guns might also increase the likelihood of accidents, gun accidents caused by children and others, and also increase the likelihood of gun suicides.

More Americans die from gun suicide every year than from gun homicide. And that's a statistic that is not much mentioned, that if you made guns more available, suicide rates and accident rates are likely to rise as well. So the overall degree of destructiveness that guns are related to is likely to rise, not fall.

KOLBE: What do you see for the future in the United States? Do you see that, in fact, effective gun control will be achieved?

SPITZER: Well, I'm thinking long-term stronger gun laws are in the books, and there's a couple of reasons for that. One is because of the rising tide of public opinion. The public in America has long supporter stronger gun laws, and that number has sort of gradually been rising.

The other factor is that people who use guns, people who own guns, people who engage in hunting and sporting activities, which is the core group of people who oppose stronger gun laws, is declining. It's been declining since the 1960s, and if current trend lines continue, those activities will have all but disappeared by about the middle of the 21st century.

Now, other factors may intervene, but the point is that that is a downward trend in the United States, and more Americans I think are suspicious of guns and more Americans have come to the conclusion that regulations can be effectively imposed without denying every American who wants to have a gun for a legitimate purpose to have a gun.

That is, in other words, that some regulation does not mean confiscation, even though that is the rhetoric that is used by the anti- gun control forces to block stronger gun laws. So I think in the long term, stronger gun laws at the national level are in the cards, although I do not believe that Congress will be responding this summer. It will be sitting on its hands and watching the election returns in November.

KOLBE: Professor Robert Spitzer, thank you very much for your insights.

SPITZER: Thank you for inviting me.

KOLBE: And that's all the time we have on INSIGHT. I'm Marina Kolbe. There's more news just ahead.

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