Massacre at Columbine High School tops a year of bloody headlines

Police had no way of distinguishing suspects from students and ordered everyone away from Columbine High School with their hands in the air

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(CNN) -- It was the kind of bulletin that has become all too familiar in America: 15 dead, 23 wounded at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The gunmen, who killed themselves afterward, were two teen-aged students at the school.

Officials moved quickly to renovate Columbine and remove any scars of the April 20 attack. But emotional wounds linger. Carla June Hochhalter, whose daughter was shot during the attack and left partially paralyzed, killed herself in October. The parents of another slain student have sued the parents of both gunmen for allegedly failing to supervise their children.

The massacre at Columbine was only one of numerous shootings at schools and other public places that have taken place with frightening regularity since October 1997. At least 69 people died and 65 were wounded in 14 multiple shootings in 1999. At least one such incident grabbed headlines nearly every month.

Six students were wounded in the shooting on May 20 at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia

The second worst incident, after Columbine, took place on July 29, when 44-year-old stock trader Mark Barton stunned Atlanta in a shooting frenzy at two local brokerage firms, killing nine people and wounding 13 before killing himself. It was later discovered that Barton also had killed his wife and two children before the rampage.

The apparent surge of such horrific crimes is typically attributed to the easy availability of automatic weapons that are designed solely to lay down murderous volumes of fire. As federal and state lawmakers debate placing more restrictions on purchasing guns, the question society appears to be asking is whether something deeper is wrong with its collective psyche.

Atlantans mourn the loss of 20 people in three separate killings during July

Meanwhile, in the wake of Columbine and previous school shootings some schools have adopted tough-minded "zero tolerance" policies toward any violence whatsoever. One result of such a policy took place in Decatur, Illinois, in September when a school expelled several students for fighting at a football game.

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