On that day, two teenage gunmen roamed the halls of the Denver area school and gunned down 12 of their classmates and a teacher and then killed themselves. Children died at Columbine and children died in Oklahoma City. And 22 children died in the flames that erupted at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco on April 19, 1993. The eventual death toll was 84 people, including four federal agents. The three April tragedies have changed us.
Schools are now much more heavily guarded.
Places that should be centers of enlightenment and new horizons are now wary of the stranger and of the misfit. The people' s government now finds its buildings under heavy security. Fringe groups, once thought as no more than gatherings of the oddball and the marginal, are now eyed with suspicion. April has become a time of dread. But on this Easter Sunday, it is well to remember that April is also a time of renewal and rejoicing.