When a gunman wearing a swastika on his T-shirt and a black balaclava burst into School No. 88 in the Russian city of Izhevsk on Sept. 26, panicked kids as young as 7 fled through the halls and stairwells or huddled in classrooms. The shooter killed 17 people — including 11 children — and wounded 24 before killing himself.
It's the same old story, I'm sorry to say, that is so familiar in our own country. And when police finally reached the body of the gunman, they encountered another recognizable trope of school shootings everywhere: a direct reference to the massacre 23 years ago at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
This time, they found braided cords labeled "Dylan" and "Eric" attached to two of the Izhevsk attacker's pistols.
