Nor has this instant platform been lost on our politicians. Newly minted political thinker Jesse Ventura suggested that if controls on concealed weapons were relaxed, the killings might not have occurred -- positing the novel concept that a well-armed student body is the best defense in a democracy. Gary Bauer opined that too few children have been told that they're created by God. A few, like Lamar Alexander and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, directly addressed the responsibility of parents, but stopped short of blaming these particular parents. Such specificity of guilt is uncomfortable for America, which prefers vague, generalized culprits less offensive to its smiley-face sensibilities -- and where tales of childhood beating are somehow supposed to sway the jury in the trial of Charles Ng, who tortured and murdered 11 people. Thus such intangibles as the Internet, Goth culture and "The Basketball Diaries" (which was pulled from video store shelves Thursday by MGM) will all take their lumps, as Ozzy Osbourne and "Natural Born Killers" did before. But at least two homes in Littleton will not be able to escape the terrible burden of being the exact place where such evil hatched, grew and finally took flight.
--JONATHAN GREGG