They didn't really, though. Every chucklefuck with chemistry curiosity has built pipe bombs. Ain't no thang. Problem is, the way you build pipe bombs precludes going bigger than pipe bombs. Bomb squads hate pipe bombs because you can get grains of smokeless in the threads and opening them up makes them go bang. You're never going to commit mass murder with a pipe bomb. It's basically a grenade that sucks. The leap from a pipe bomb to their propane adventure was fantastical. They may have flirted with explosives and mass destruction, but they were about the guns. Which is something I didn't like about Columbine - there's an agenda to these things.

See, I was those kids. The Trenchcoat Mafia was my posse. Different school, but only a couple hundred miles away. We listened to the same bands. We shot the same guns. We wanted the same mass-destruction to befall our fellow students. Difference was, I didn't want to give the bastards the satisfaction of writing my story. I could have walked into my social studies class and fired a clip of 5.56 into the ceiling. Woulda been impressive. Woulda ended my academic career, though, and I cared. Was I going to kill a bunch of people? No. But I know I could have. And it kept me warm inside.

So you read a book. But you don't know. You've never done the calcs on what it would take to knock over a mason block wall. You don't know what 5 20-round clips in a bag feels like. You don't know what 30 quick rounds of chinese steelcore feels like under your index finger. You've never blown the harmonic balancer off a small block chevy with an assault rifle; "spall" is a triple word score to you, not a bullet going sideways through meat. You think that guns can be 3d printed, without understanding that a nail, a rubber band and a piece of brass tubing from the hobby store is more than enough while the cheez whiz available for 3d printing is really only useful for the grips and other shit that doesn't matter.

People that kill people with guns want their victims to know. They want to feel the effortless volley under their fingers, like Counterstrike but louder and with more recoil. They want to see blood and surprise and know that in that moment, they are godlike, life and death over the mere mortals assembled around them like so many Non Player Characters.

The "whole issue" with school shooters is they're willing to trade their futures for a few minutes of godhood. The reason they're willing to do that is they feel powerless and trapped and if they lose enough perspective, it's fuckin' over. If you can't relate to your fellow human being, and if you hold your fellow human being responsible for your lack of opportunity, you, a gun and a persistent slip of perspective can add up to tragedy.

There but for the grace of god go I.

I know you appreciate that book, but appreciate that you may not have gained a conclusive understanding of the issues simply by reading it.