{"id":139136,"date":"2019-06-09T01:46:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T07:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=139136"},"modified":"2019-06-09T01:46:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T07:46:37","slug":"on-demolishing-columbine-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/09\/on-demolishing-columbine-high-school.html","title":{"rendered":"On demolishing Columbine High School"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There is apparently very serious talk about tearing down Columbine HS, not all that far away from where I live. Though it’s been twenty years (!) since the mass shooting at the campus, it remains an icon of … admiration? … among some disturbed folk, and the idea is that tearing down the school will break that cycle by, um, removing it as a focal point, a pilgrimage site for folk unhealthily obsessed and admiring of the killings by the Klebold kids.<\/p>\n

Except … yeah, not so much.<\/p>\n

First, while the 1999 killings placed an indelible stain upon the name and site, the school itself has been in operation since 1973. That’s nearly a half-century (!) of students, whose heritage would be torn down — including the heritage of the last two decades of community coming back<\/em> from something so awful.<\/p>\n

Second … the proposal is acting by half-measures. The idea is to tear down almost all of the school, but leave the library, and then build a new school adjacent to that on the property, but still call it Columbine … and still have the memorial at the site.<\/p>\n

Um … and this is going to somehow keep the whackadoodles from being attracted to the place … how now?<\/p>\n

It’s not like we’re Pharaoh, ordering all evidence of Columbine HS to be eradicated. I mean, if you’re going to do this, you raze the whole place, sell the property to a commercial developer, build a new school someplace nearby, call it something different … and, yeah, you probably want to get rid of the memorial, too. You erase\u00a0everything,<\/em> and so there’s nothing there for the disturbed to relate to.<\/p>\n

Conversely, third … why would you give the Klebold kids the final victory, destroying the place they wanted to make their violent heritage in shooting up?<\/p>\n

When terrorists took down the World Trace Center, proposals to leave the site in a flattened condition were roundly, and rightly, rejected. Tearing down Columbine HS, under the proposal, is a halfway measure at best, and sends precisely the wrong message.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it’s not my decision. It’s the decision of the people of and around the school. I hope they choose wisely.<\/p>\n

Do you want to know more?<\/em><\/p>\n