Over 300 deaths have been attributed to copycat attacks inspired by the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre. A list below shows all confirmed attacks with roots from Columbine. List does not include the perpetrator unless the perpetrator is the sole victim. Foiled planned attacks with inspiration from the massacre, like the Halifax mass shooting plot and suicides of those with relation to the Columbine massacre, like Sol Pais, are not included in the list.
Analysis
Perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have become what the Napa Valley Register has called "cultural icons" for troubled youth. According to psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a legacy of the Columbine shootings is its "allure to disaffected youth".
Sociologist Ralph Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the US in the following eight years and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold". Larkin wrote that the Columbine massacre established a "script" for shootings. "Numerous post-Columbine rampage shooters referred directly to Columbine as their inspiration; others attempted to supersede the Columbine shootings in body count."
A 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people...charged with Columbine-style plots". A 2014 investigation by ABC News identified "at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre." Ties identified by ABC News included online research by the perpetrators into the Columbine shooting, clipping news coverage and images of Columbine, explicit statements of admiration of Harris and Klebold, such as writings in journals and on social media, in video posts, and in police interviews, timing planned to an anniversary of Columbine, plans to exceed the Columbine victim counts, and other ties.
In 2015, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before."
In February 2016, after Klebold's mother, Sue Klebold, spoke out on mental health and suicide prevention in an interview with Diane Sawyer, then-Attorney General of Colorado, Cynthia Coffman, tweeted that Klebold's interview had been "irresponsible and inflammatory, that Klebold had been "selfish", and that her interview could have "very negative consequences". Ted Zocco-Hochhalter, whose daughter Anne-Marie Hochhalter was a Columbine student paralyzed in the attack, countered that Klebold, as a remorseful mother, was productively sparking awareness on mental issues. Mental health organizations echoed Zocco-Hochhalter's remarks. The day before the interview, Anne-Marie Hochhalter had addressed a social media post to Sue Klebold, saying: "I have forgiven you".
List