Still Neglected Lessons from the Columbine Tragedy
Note: In the 26 years since the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, there have been 428 school shootings exposing some 400,000 students to violence.
—Per 4/20/25 episode of CBS Sunday Morning
Sunday’s Easter celebration was surely bittersweet for the holiday’s observing survivors from the Columbine tragedy that occurred 26 years prior on April 20, 1999.
Based on the book A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy in which Sue Klebold wrestles with her son’s involvement, this is likely as true for her as for a loved one of the 13 victims who lost their lives that day, and countless more who’ve experienced physical or emotional hurt as a result of the tragic event.
With the epidemic of school mass shootings still mostly unsolved in 2025, are there lessons to be learned from the 17 years of internal examination poured into the 2016 book by the author?
Klebold’s observations on brain health and the role of video gaming suggest this is so.
Of the numerous risk factors for rampage shootings spelled out by youth violence field experts in the last 2 1/2 decades, 3 of them could arguably be described as being highest on the volatility index— not only for the outsized effect they may have had on the behavior of specific perpetrators, but also for the controversy they’ve garnered in the public arena.
These are: (1) access to firearms (2) mental health and (3) exposure to media violence.
Generally Accepted Factor
Within this group, access to firearms is the most widely accepted as a common denominator across the now decades-long sequence of mass shooter events.
This is evidenced by the central premise of a “Statement on Gun Violence Crisis from 60 National Organizations” [1] issued two weeks after the Uvalde, TX tragedy. In June of 2022, this statement, in referencing the continuing epidemic of mass violence, read:
”These shootings have one thing in common— easy access to weapons that can kill with terrifying efficiency on a massive scale.”
While not everyone agrees that the scale of weaponry being used in many school attacks needs regulating, it is likely the area most recognized for the allowance of mass violence.
Debated Factor #1: Mental Illness
On the question of ‘mental illness’ however, the same group denied any potential connection to the all too common mass shootings:
”Our organizations write to express our deep concerns about false and harmful attempts to link mental illness and gun violence … Attempts to connect mental illness are a distraction that inflicts enormous damage by taking attention from solutions that could actually prevent such events.”
If there is one aspect— in Sue Klebold’s judgment— most fundamental to the unfortunate transformation of her son from being a kind, fun-loving, talented & normal kid into a troubled young man capable of harming others and himself, it was his unseen battle with depression.
During the 17 years that elapsed between the Columbine Tragedy and publication of A Mother’s Reckoning, Klebold continuously worked to square the positive image she had held of her son with the reality of what he did in April 1999.
One element of that work involved Klebold reading her son’s journals for the first time posthumously, which revealed he had harbored suicidal thoughts a full 2 years prior to his death. Within that span, both Sue and her husband Tom had observed but not decoded Dylan’s outward signals of depression, which meant they lacked the basis to even consider obtaining a clinical diagnosis for their son.
Andrew Solomon— a clinical psychologist and author of Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity who wrote the preface to A Mother’s Reckoning— subscribed to Klebold’s son having an undiagnosed case of depression. According to Solomon, the idea to commit mass atrocities doesn’t cross healthy minds:
”Though he (Klebold’s son) was depressed, he did not have schizophrenia, PTSD, bipolar illness, or any other condition that fits the neat parameters of psychiatric diagnosis,” Solomon asserted.
Both Klebold and Solomon acknowledged that most people with mental illnesses do not commit crimes, but that is not to say a mental condition wasn’t an intrinsic part of her son’s participation in the school massacre:
”While there is likely not a single answer, there is one piece of the puzzle that reveals more for me of the overall picture than any other: that Dylan was experiencing depression or another brain health crisis that contributed to his desire to die by suicide,” Klebold observed.
Beyond the single case of her son, when it comes to brain health issues for the broader youth population, Klebold believes “many of our children are as vulnerable today as children 100 years ago were to infectious diseases.”
As a society, she maintains, far too often children’s “susceptibility goes undetected,” and that if we don’t wake up to these vulnerabilities, “the terrible toll will continue to rise.”
Debated Factor #2: Violent Video Gaming
In the view of Sue Klebold, exposure to media violence— consisting of violent video gaming and ultra-aggressive movies— was an influence that “exacerbated” the previously addressed brain health condition her son had. Klebold wished she had curtailed his participation in the first-person shooter game Doom, particularly since the game seemed to be so all consuming to his criminal conspirator, Eric Harris.
In fact, Harris was so engrossed in the game he once wrote: “I have been playing Doom since November of 1994, so it is basically my life” …. and …. “Doom is so burned into my head my thoughts usually have something to do with the game.”
Retroactive admission of a deceased shooter aside, the notion that violent video game play breeds lethal violence could well be the most highly contested topic in school shooter debates.
Specific studies searching for “strict causality” typically try to determine which members in a control group will become violent under particular circumstances (yielding mixed results), while examination of actual school shooter backgrounds regularly indicate violent video game activity to be part of their profile (indicating correlation as a contributing factor).
A February 2020 American Psychological Association Resolution on Violent Video Games gives no credence to violent video gaming activity being a significant part of the real-life violence equation, however.
It opens:
The following resolution should not be misinterpreted or misused by attributing violence, such as mass shootings, to violent video game use. Violence is a complex social problem that likely stems from many factors that warrant attention from researchers, policy makers and the public. Attributing violence to violent video gaming is not scientifically sound and draws attention away from other factors.
Experts like Dr. Dewey Cornell are not so quick to dismiss the potential influence of violent video game activity. As a forensic psychologist who also led a team in developing the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines at the University of Virginia -- he provided this take on entertainment violence:
“One cigarette won't give you lung cancer, and some people smoke their whole lives without getting lung cancer,” Cornell wrote. “That doesn't mean there's no correlation. Entertainment violence may not be sufficient cause for a rampage, but it is a toxic factor.”
”Just as the most vulnerable people will get lung cancer after smoking when other factors and predispositions come into play,” contends Cornell, “The same thing can be said about violent entertainment and acts of violence: the most vulnerable are at special risk.”
Conclusion
Not only did mentally vulnerable individuals and practiced virtual violence figure heavily into the Columbine tragedy, but this combination could well have been an integral part of the many school shooters’ backstories for 25+ years.
Although the exact degrees to which perpetrators’ brain health and violent video gaming lay behind their actions are unquantifiable, to categorically deny that either factor area has not materially affected the behavior of school shooters in 428 separate incidents since 1999 is out-of-touch, neglectful, and denies reality.
[1] Statement on Gun Violence Crisis from 60 National Organizations issued June 6, 2022 by:
2020 Mom, A New Path, All4Ed, Alliance for Quality Education, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists, American Council for School Social Work, American Counseling Association, American Federation of Teachers, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Group Psychotherapy Association, American Nurses Association, American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American School Counselor Association, American Society of Addiction Medicine, Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness, Autism Society of America, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Clinical Social Work Association, Council of Administrators of Special Education, Crisis Residential Association, Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, EDGE Consulting Partners, Global Alliance on Behavioral Health and Social Justice, Inseparable, International OCD Foundation, Learning Heroes, Mental Health America, MENTOR National, N.A.P.S., NAADAC- the Association for Addiction Professionals, National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Association for Rural Mental Health, National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Disorders, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, National Center for Learning Disabilities, National Council for Mental Wellbeing, National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, National Eating Disorders Association, National Health Care for the Homeless Council, National Health Law Program, National League for Nursing, National Register of Health Service Psychologists, Partnership to End Addiction, Psychotherapy Action Network, RI International, School Social Work Association of America, The Advocacy Institute, The Jed Foundation, The Kennedy Forum, Well Being Trust.