WI: Columbine happened after 9/11

I think the government would probably try to blame radicalisation for the incident.

You mean radicalization of Muslims?

I think that becomes less likely the further you get from Sept. 11 2001. If it happens in the early post-9/11 period, like say, around the same time as the anthrax attacks, yeah, a lot of people will somehow try to connect it to Islamic terrorism.

But I don't see that as being a long-lasting effect, since even the anthrax attacks themselves, in which the possibility of Islamic involvement has not been entirely ruled out, are not much talked about these days.

(edited punctuation error)
 
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Well right now, school shootings are a frequent subject on the news. If a Columbine massacre happened not long after 9/11, it's just not going to get a lot of media attention by comparison. But give it several years after the 9/11 shock wears off, then yes it will.
 
One thing that could help push it deeper onto the media's radar...

IOTL, the perpetrators shouted the N Word when killing black students, though this doesn't seem to have been motivated by any deeply-held racial ideology, but was probably just more in imitation of usage of that same word in violent pop-culture scenarios(eg. Tarantino's films).

If they decide to carry out their attack in the weeks after 9/11, and nihilistically shout stuff like "Al Qaeda Rules!!" while mowing down their victims, you can bet that the media is going to fixate on that for at least a moderate duration of time, even though it'll eventually turn out to be a blind alley. And there will be a few cranks on the Islamophobic far-right who will continue to insist, against all evidence, that Harris and Klebold were somehow in alliance with Al Qaeda, but THE LIBERAL MEDIA IS COVERING IT UP!!
 
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