Even making allowances for hasty writing on deadline, the initial New York Times editorial on the Columbine High massacre was a revealingly lamebrained piece of work: "It is not too early to begin drawing lessons," the Times intoned, before proceeding to prove that, yes, it was a bit too early.
You can probably guess what lessons the Times was itching to draw: "One is that schools must become more adept at spotting potential troublemakers before they resort to gunfire. Another even more obvious lesson . . . is the urgent need for concerted action by Congress, state legislatures and gun manufacturers to keep guns out of the hands of troubled youngsters. School shootings had been in decline this year, but yesterday's blasts in Colorado are a grim reminder that guns are still too readily available."
Okay, let's take these lessons in order: The two murderous "troublemakers" had in fact been spotted, in a sense, as the Times and other news organizations would later report. They were arrested last year for what the Times would term "minor charges of criminal mischief, theft and trespass." The woebegone court officer who released them early from their juvenile diversion program (which included studying "anger management" and ethics) thought the boys to be "bright," "intelligent," and "very articulate." Well, yes, they were obviously articulate enough to con their probation officer.
Now, about the gun-control lesson: That phrase "troubled youngsters" is particularly rich. It may or may not be time for "concerted action by Congress, state legislatures and gun manufacturers" to do the Time's bidding, but unless the legislative plan envisaged includes downsizing the Bill of Rights and instituting a nationwide ban on private firearms, it's hard to see how suicidal killers like the two boys in Colorado would be much affected. Yes, they had guns; they also manufactured shrapnel-filled pipe bombs and propane explosives under their parents' noses.
Indeed, assuming that one should even try to draw lessons from such anomalous crimes, the most obvious lesson of all was conspicuously absent from the Times's list of action plans -- namely, that parents have an obligation to supervise their alienated teenagers.