I’m part of the Columbine generation – nothing has changed 25 years on

Columbine marked a new era in America: one of normalised school shootings (Picture: AFP)

My first day of kindergarten was a hot August day in 2004, in Ms Lawson’s class.

I remember that my biggest concerns were making sure I had a My Little Pony glitter backpack, a 24 pack of crayons (with the built in sharpener, of course) and being able to tie my shoes.

Within two months of starting school in North Carolina, we had our first ‘code red’ drill. Schools hesitated to use the name for what the drill was really meant to prepare us for – active school shootings.

I was five-years-old.

Managing to get a classroom of two dozen tiny, clueless kids to remain quiet and sit still in the dark is no easy feat, but Ms Lawson managed to do it. 

‘Silent hide and seek,’ she explained to us.

These drills had become part of parcel of school life, ever since April 20, 1999.

That day, five years prior to my first ‘code red drill’, I was peacefully in my mother’s womb. By the time I was born, my future was confirmed: I was part of the Columbine generation. 

The tragedy which befell Columbine High School saw two boys – who don’t deserve to be named – walk into the Colorado school armed with sawed off shotguns to murder 13 people.

It’s been 25 years since, and the tragedies have continued, year after year, with no change.

Familiar condolences messages, thoughts and prayers are issued to families of children killed while in classrooms. But nothing is different. 

Blood was spattered on the floor of Columbine High School’s library (Picture: AP)

Images of parents waiting in fear to hear if their child was killed are all too familiar (Picture: Shutterstock)

I grew up running around in school hallways – namely, the preschool where my mother still works as a director. The school teaches kids as young as two and up to the age of five. They didn’t have ‘code red’ drills when I attended, but they do now.

‘The children don’t know what we’re doing,’ my mom tells me. ‘It’s like a game. “1, 2, 3, everyone down on the floor, be as quiet as you can! You did such a good job!’

‘But we never made it a point to talk to you kids about it because we didn’t want you to be sacred or live in fear,’ she says.

My parents have three children: my brother, Matthew, and sister, Emily, born in the early 1990s, – then me, who joined the party in 1999.

Emily’s first year of kindergarten coincided with the 1996 Dunblane Massacre, which saw 16 children and one teacher killed in a small Scottish town.

The UK passed legislation after Dunblane enacting stricter gun laws, including a ban on handguns. Since, there have been no similar incidents in the UK. The US, however, has had 404 school shootings since Columbine.

The entirety of my generation’s schooling years were formed on the assumption that events of Columbine or Dunblane could happen again, anywhere, anytime.

Yet nothing has been done.

The year I finished kindergarten, there were 11 school shootings (Picture: Family Handout/Sarah Hooper)

16 children were massacred in a Scottish primary school the year my sister began school (Picture: Getty)

While chatting with my mom about the subject, she recalls a time when I was around 16, and when we were talking about the Charleston church shooting and gun safety in general. I apparently mentioned to her, nonchalantly: ‘Whenever I go into a movie theatre, I check the exits so I know where to leave.’

‘That struck me,’ my mom says. ‘I hate that you felt like it was a normal thing to think.’

She’s right – it’s not normal. But it’s all my generation has seen as the norm. My parents wouldn’t have blinked twice at going into a crowded movie theatre, or looking for exit doors in a large lecture hall while in university.

As I went through school, the tragedies kept happening, increasing in number and violence.

32 people died in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting when I was eight years old in second grade, still learning about my times tables and obsessing over the then newly-minted stardom of Hannah Montana.

While baking Christmas cookies with my Grandma in eighth grade, a live news stream showed the press conference for the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which saw 20 students and six adults shot and killed. It was a stark backdrop against the messy dining table, dusted with powdered sugar.

I remember my grandpa sitting in silence and watching the TV intently, his hands folded beneath his chin, as I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on my snickerdoodles.

The youngest victims of Sandy Hook had likely just learned to tie their shoes, like I had (Picture: AP)

‘Red alert’ drills were a part of life growing up in America (Picture: Getty)

Even when we weren’t doing our drills the schools were always on high alert. When in middle school, at lunchtime in the cafeteria, students would often attempt to get a laugh out of their friends by loudly popping bags of crisps in their lunch boxes.

After the initial “bang” the cafeteria would fall silent. ‘Oooooh!’ the kids would jeer, knowing the culprit would get in trouble for the act.

We never knew why it was such a big deal. It wasn’t until years later that I realised the reason teachers were so upset over it was because the pop sounds like a gunshot. 

Shortly after I made the move to London in 2021, four students were killed in Oxford High School, Michigan.

That following spring, 21 students and teachers were shot and killed in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. 

The police officers who entered the building after the shooting vomited after seeing the carnage and uncrecognisable bodies of six and seven year olds.

Elianha Garcia was one of the victims in the Uvalde shooting (Picture: Shutterstock)

Columbine High School students in the aftermath of the 1999 school shooting (Picture: Reuters)

I don’t live in America anymore, but my loved ones do.

And while I don’t pray before going to a movie theatre anymore, I still jump when I hear a car backfire in central London. 

During the New Year celebrations in the UK, I don’t have to wonder whether or not the fireworks I’m hearing are actually gunshots. 

I didn’t grow up living in fear – my parents would have none of that. But I had a deep level of caution instilled in me since I was five years old. 

A training, of sorts. One that I didn’t even realise I had until I moved abroad. Phrases taught to me throughout my education and general tips about safety in mass shootings stick out to me.

Run, hide, fight.

Block the doors, avoid windows.

Turn off your phone.

Stay quiet.

If you’re being fired at, run in a zig zag.

Bullets are less likely to hit you.

My generation of Americans have grown up thinking school shootings are part of life. My parents never saw constant news coverage of school shooting alerts, and probably never thought their children would find it normal.

We’ve listened to politicians spout bull***t ‘thoughts and prayers’ after more and more children are mutilated by bullets each year.

I’m not a politician – I’m just a person who is tired of reading stories about children who went to school and never returned. It’s a narrative that makes me ill.

It’s not normal to grow up praying before each movie screening that a gunman doesn’t burst in.

I’m lucky – I have never been in an active shooting situation. I haven’t lost friends or watched my classmates slump over from gunshots, trying to stem the bleeding from their wounds.

But what I do know is that 25 years ago, two cowards walked into Columbine High School and opened fire.

And nothing has changed since.