Jeff Kass takes a more straightforward approach in “Columbine: A True Crime Story,” working backward from the events of the fateful day.
The Denver Post

Mr. Cullen insists that the killers enjoyed “far more friends than the average adolescent,” with Harris in particular being a regular Casanova who “on the ultimate high school scorecard . . . outscored much of the football team.” The author’s footnotes do not reveal how he knows this; when I asked him about it while preparing this review, Mr. Cullen said he did not necessarily mean to imply that Harris was sexually active. But what else would such words mean?

“Eric and Dylan never had any girlfriends,” the more sober Mr. Kass writes, and were “probably virgins upon death.”
Wall Street Journal

@Doug: SOP has changed dramatically since Columbine–No more waiting to assemble the dream team while the shooting continues, current doctrine is use what you have as quickly as practical–even if that’s initially a single cop. You trade a relatively small risk of friendly fire for a near certain risk of more innocents being killed.

As for “fighting my way through a crowd to take the shot”–in that case, I’m probably not going to even try to take the shot, we’ll have to hope for someone closer to step in.

And confusing the police–the timing is unlikely. I’m not going to wander around waving my gun, it will stay holstered unless I’ve got a chance to do something useful with it. If I do engage the shooter it will be over in maybe 15 seconds, one way or another–either I get him, he gets me, or I’m out of ammo–I rarely carry more than 10 rounds. The chance that the police show up during that brief window of time and can’t distinguish between us before I surrender to them isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether I defend.

Still waiting for proof that this is more than your opinion.

One more point about the comment in my previous post: even if a licensed gun-carrier is present when someone begins shooting, how does that (typically untrained) person move through the crowd of terrified people in order to get a clear shot at the “bad guy”?

This is clearly selection bias on my part: I’ll take the opinion of someone I know, someone who has had special forces training and 10 years of military experience, over the thoughts of someone I’ve never met. That’s not a personal attack: it’s based on knowledge of the information source.

Actually, this supports the point I made earlier. The legitimate authorities will show up, and as you noted they will not immediately know who’s who. They will therefore be forced to assume that anyone with a gun is a threat, and act accordingly. So instead of being able to bring the situation under control they will, 1) waste time sorting through who’s who, and 2) potentially endanger the innocent, if they mistakenly use deadly force against them. This is one the reasons why first responders at Columbine did not immediately engage — they were instructed by SOP not to, to avoid these sorts of problems. I have heard that some police and SWAT teams have modified their SOPs to allow freer use of force in spree shooter situations, which to my mind means that if I were present in one of these cases, I would not want to have a weapon, or look like any kind of a threat. Unlike ‘law-abiding citizens’ SWAT personnel tend to be very well trained, excellent marksman, and therefore quite capable of taking someone out quickly and effectively, whether they are the right person or the wrong one. Regardless, I go back to my original point, the vast majority of people are simply bad with guns — even those that try to train or practice with them. There’s nothing wrong with this, except when they don’t realize how inadequate they are and try to use those guns in situations for which they have no training or experience. About forty years ago, I saw fairly extensive combat, and was pretty good under fire, but I would still not trust myself in a shooting situation now. I also don’t trust anyone else. Leave law enforcement to the professionals.

BTW, would still like to see references on the 1/5 statistic…

Maybe we’ve got to teach the kids some commie ideas like “civic responsibility” in school – now how can you teach kids so that they’re less likely to be so gung ho on bringing their guns to the movies and without the NRA besieging the school? We need people to understand it’s OK to own your gun, but if you’re in a large city and you carry it around like it was a part of you, you’re just a dick. That, however, doesn’t do much to address the whackos. Can anything be effective at preventing the whackos? That’s a really tough one.

Oh, and I wouldn’t advocate allowing people to carry arms in public in Canada – you can see the good it does here: teabaggers – obnoxious dickless shits with guns. I’d prefer people keep their guns locked away and with a crucial component locked away elsewhere unless they’re going out to the target range or going hunting, in which case it should be locked to a rack or locked in a box which is not easily removed (fastened with hidden security bolts or welded) from their vehicle – and with that crucial bit still not attached until they reach their destination. It would be even better if people do not allow anyone access to their weapons without their direct supervision. “Oh, I never imagined my son would take the gun to school and kill people” is a lame excuse. I have no problem with most people owning firearms, but they should accept the responsibilities that the community may demand of them and which the governments may impose on behalf of the community.

Let’s see how many African nations I can get without any books or Google then – would the Arabian peninsula count? OK, I’ll leave that out then.

Egypt, Libya, Ghana, Kenya, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Zaire, D.R. Congo, South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Djibhouti, Somalia, Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Sudan, Uganda, Eritrea, Chad – and gee I’m lucky because I can’t think of any more at the moment but that was 20 and I was really straining after Sudan (unless I repeated some in which case I missed out on 20 – or I named a few places which are not in Africa). Just don’t ask for the capital cities.

Now for your other checklist:
1. had gun pointed at me by lowlife: yes
2. pointed firearm at others? multiple occasions: check. Pulled trigger? one occasion: check
3. gunshots more or less daily? No, nowhere near that frequently; I certainly don’t envy my research colleagues who go to places like D.R. Congo.
4. been shot at: not directly, no, but had slugs rip through the roof and break a window when armed robbers being chased by the police started firing indiscriminately from their getaway vehicle. Had to describe firearms? Yeah, that was an interesting one – the gang involved in this one incident used galvanized pipes with a shotgun shell held in one end with tape; some splints held another short length of pipe to the end and that acted as a guide for the firing pin which was a small piece of wood with a nail in it. Whack the firing pin with a plank of wood and you get your single shot. I’m not sure what the hell model or manufacture of gun that was. I’d seen other interesting items in Papua New Guinea.

I would not hesitate to point a gun at lowlife and pull the trigger; I wouldn’t even have a twinge of regret in me (and I can say that from experience, this isn’t hypothetical bullshit).

A perfect illustration of why unrestricted firearm ownership scares certain of us.

This Columbine Anniversary gun nut show thing has been going on since the year after Columbine, is well documented, and always looks the same. No one has ever admitted what they are doing, and that is a lot like what gun nuts usually do … fail to take any responsibility at all for their juvenile hobby.

Do you have any evidence to support this belief? There’s already been one other event cited which would explain why such events take place this time of year, and you say that the people having the events don’t admit what you claim they’re doing, so how do you know Columbine is the impetus? Were there no gun rights events prior to 1999?

Have you ever pointed a loaded firearm at another human being with the expectation that you might have to pull the trigger?

Have you ever lived anywhere where you hear gunshots more or less daily? (And I’m not talking about hunting season!)

Have you ever had any one actually shoot at you? Have you ever had to hide behind something hefty because you thought it might stop the bullets? Have you ever had to describe a firearm to a law enforcement officer because they were making a report regarding something you saw?

I’m asking these questions because you talk like someone who’s never had a bullet fly close enough by you to feel the breeze, let alone actually engage in any of the activities you seem to know so much about.