The Patriot Post® · Notable Factors in the Colorado Attack

We deliberately waited a day to comment on Tuesday’s school shooting in Colorado, leaving one dead (Kendrick Castillo, 18) and eight wounded. Facts take time to come to light and the media is obsessed with these types of murders — while ignoring most other murders. Those two factors gave us reason for pause. Several elements of the Colorado attack, however, are worth noting.

The attack was perpetrated by two assailants, which is unusual except for the Columbine “model” the assault was meant to emulate almost exactly 20 years later. Indeed, one of the more troubling aspects of this is the fact that there is a dangerous subculture of disaffected sociopaths who idolize the two Columbine assailants.

There has been much media confusion regarding the second “boy” attacker — because “he” is actually a she who is “transitioning” to male. Yet the national media dutifully insists on using male pronouns to describe her. Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock got it right, saying, “We originally thought that we had a juvenile male in custody but through our interviews yesterday late afternoon determined that we had a juvenile female that is in custody.”

The two were both involved, as were the Columbine killers, in the “Goth” lifestyle. They were also virulently anti-American, anti-Trump, and anti-Christian, if not downright Satanist. The only dead student was Catholic.

Castillo, the only person killed in the assault, was three days from graduating. And he’s a hero, joining two other students (including a Marine recruit) in immediately trying to tackle one of the shooters, giving his life in the process. National Review’s David French notes that we’re seeing more of this. “I do wonder if the sheer number of mass killings has caused a psychological change in a segment of the American people. I do wonder if ‘fight’ is replacing ‘flight’ in enough American hearts that immediate and courageous resistance becomes the norm — and that killers will start to understand that they’ll have to instantly battle one or more raging, charging men before they can complete their terrible, deadly work.”

Gary Bauer sums up the real cultural issues: “We have spent decades telling impressionable young people, with increasing access to all kinds of drugs, that everything they see is a cosmic accident. They are told that it is foolish to believe in God, that it is a constitutional right to kill unborn children, that the country of their birth is evil. And yet we are still shocked and surprised when this sort of thing happens. Sadly, there will be more such senseless violence, and it has virtually nothing to do with guns.”

That doesn’t mean Democrats don’t keep trying to make it about guns. In fact, multiple students walked out of what was billed as a vigil for Castillo when two Democrats — Sen. Michael Bennet (who’s running for president) and Rep. Jason Crow — took turns calling for gun control. Such cynical political gamesmanship will always be unwelcome.

(Updated.)