[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 50 (Thursday, April 27, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3014-S3015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES, DIFFERENT OUTCOMES

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, last week, as the one-year anniversary of 
the Columbine shooting approached, rumors of copycat violence prompted 
panic among teachers and students. Principals and administrators 
sensitive to such rumors heightened security by bringing in police 
protection and extra security guards. Other districts relied on parents 
and community volunteers to monitor school activity, and still others 
canceled classes altogether rather than suffer the fate of a school 
shooting, or even the threat of one.
  For the most part, on the day the nation remembered Columbine, the 
rumors turned out to be just that--rumors. But the day did not go by 
without an act of copycat violence. The tragedy occurred, not here in 
the United States, but in Ottawa in the province of Ontario, Canada.
  An article in the Ottawa Citizen describes the attack by a 15-year-
old boy as one directly linked to the Columbine killings. The teen-age 
boy was apparently obsessed with the school massacre, and reportedly 
had photographs of the Columbine killers posted in his school locker. 
Students remember the accused counting down the days in eager 
anticipation of the exact moment Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began 
their reign of terror.
  In many ways, the student in Ottawa had similar experiences to those 
of Harris and Klebold. Classmates teased him because of his appearance. 
He felt depressed and suicidal. He longed to be noticed, and perhaps 
thought this act of violence would give him the notoriety he craved. 
And so, exactly one year and a few minutes after the Columbine massacre 
began, a boy in Ottawa picked up his backpack and pulled out his 
weapon.
  Both scenarios seem similar but there is one critical difference 
between the now infamous April 20th act of violence in Littleton and 
the more recent one in Ottawa that garnered virtually no attention. 
That crucial, critical difference--the weapon.
  Despite the Canadian boy's obsession with Columbine, his copycat 
crime was not carried out with an arsenal of semiautomatic guns, but 
with a kitchen knife. The weapon he pulled from his backpack caused 
great pain and anguish, but in the end, none of the five people he 
stabbed sustained any life-threatening injuries. By comparison, the 
Columbine rampage left fifteen dead and more than two dozen injured, 
some of whom still have fragments of ammunition lodged deep in their 
bodies.
  The circumstances of these cases were similar, but the outcomes were 
different because one country successfully limits access to firearms 
among young people, and one does not. In Canada, citizens are subject 
to licensing and registration requirements and have limited access to 
handguns and certain assault weapons. In the United States, our gun 
laws are so riddled with loopholes a 15 year old can legally possess an 
assault rifle.
  I've often made the point that Canadian children, who watch the same 
movies and television programs, and play with the same toys and video 
games, are far safer than their American counterparts. The key 
difference between these children is not morals, religion or family, 
the difference is access to guns.
  How else can one explain that in 1997, the U.S. rate of death 
involving firearms was approximately 14 per 100,000, compared to 
Canada's rate of 4 per 100,000? In 1997, in my hometown of Detroit, 
there were 354 firearm homicides. In Windsor, the Canadian town that is 
across the river, there were only 4 firearm homicides for that same 
year. Accounting for population, Detroit's firearm homicide rate was 18 
times higher than Windsor's.

[[Page S3015]]

  Congress does not have to pass Canadian-style gun control laws to 
reduce the number of American firearm casualties, but surely we need to 
reduce access to firearms among minors.

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