A Columbine survivor’s tragic battle to reveal the ‘ripple effect’ of gun violence: trauma, addiction, suicide

With 377 school shootings since Columbine, Americans are still reckoning with the real toll of these attacks

This story was originally published on 12 April 2023. The Guardian is sharing it again as the US marks the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting. Since this piece was first published, there have been more than a dozen additional school shootings across the US. The estimated number of US students exposed to violence at their schools has grown to 370,000, with more than 400 school shootings since Columbine.

On 18 May 2019, a 37-year-old man died of a heroin overdose in Colorado. Many of the overdose deaths that year - nearly 200 each day - did not receive much attention, but his was marked by a few news stories.