David Kopel is a legal scholar, policy analyst, and research director at the Independence Institute, known for his extensive work on Second Amendment rights, firearms policy, and criminal justice. He contributed to The Weekly Standard in 2000, writing critical analyses of the policy and media responses to the Columbine High School shooting.
THE RECENT RELEASE of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office report on the Columbine High School murders provides a great deal of horrifying detail about the tragedy -- but carefully finesses the police inaction that gave the killers a free hand inside the school building.
Columbine may matter a lot politically, as attested to by the frenzy to exploit the anniversary of that day when two students slaughtered 12 classmates and a teacher, injuring 23 others. Yet the real lesson of Columbine is that very few people care enough about the horrible events of April 20,…