The shootings and the campaign

[Stranger in a strange land]

gun control is a dead issue, and I expect it to have no effect on the 2008 election.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Was Columbine the first of these shootings in USA? I mean a teenager with big guns who choose a place to shoot a maximum of peoples in it.

Do these shootings become "normal" in USA...?!?

Columbine wasn't the first, but it was the most-publicized up to that point.

I wouldn't say mass-shootings are "normal" in that it's unlikely that you or even anyone you know will ever be personally affected by one, but they do happen here more often than in other countries.