Right, the article did such a fine job developing the point, it's really hard to sum it up. It's not exactly copycat, not exactly hero worship. And there is a social element, so strong that these guys are actually kind of going against their own norms when they end up in it. Like a slow-motion gang or a slow-motion riot.
One danger is that they go beyond guns. The article details this one shooter, caught before he could put everything into action. He had a storage locker with several pounds of ingredients to build powerful explosives. When they asked him about it:
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"Sometime before the end of the school year, my plan was to steal a recycling bin from the school and take one of the pressure cookers I made and put it in the hallway and blow it up during passing period time. . . . I would detonate when people were fleeing, just like the Boston bombings, and blow them up too. Then my plans were to enter and throw Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs and destroy everyone and then when the SWAT comes I would destroy myself.”
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One of his goals was to correct the mistakes Klebold and Harris made in building their explosives. But this kid also had guns:
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In his bedroom, he had an SKS assault rifle with sixty rounds of ammunition, a Beretta 9-mm. handgun, a gun safe with an additional firearm, and three ready-made explosive devices. On the day of the attack, he would start with a .22-calibre rifle and move on to a shotgun, in order to prove that high-capacity assault-style rifles were unnecessary for an effective school attack.
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