Girl who bought Columbine guns asks for gun control–she was niave, you see….
Girl Who Helped Columbine Gunmen Said She Was Naive
DENVER (Reuters) – The girl who bought weapons at a gun show for the two teens who carried out a massacre at Columbine High School said on Wednesday she was naive in not realizing what could happen.
“I had no idea what they were eventually going to do with the guns. When I look back at it, I think I was kind of naive,” Robyn Anderson said in a statement released by a state lawmaker. It was her first public statement since the April 20 shootings.
Anderson, who has not made any public appearances since the April 20 shooting, was scheduled to speak to lawmakers on Thursday on behalf of tougher gun laws, state House Minority Leader Ken Gordon said.
She has not been charged with a crime because it is not illegal in Colorado to give minors rifles. Two other young men who helped Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold get an assault weapon have been charged and one is serving a 6-year-prison term.
Lawmakers in the Republican controlled state house are considering several measures to tighten Colorado’s gun laws, but so far most of the measures have been voted down in committee.
Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, has come out for several measures, including background checks for all purchases at gun shows.
Anderson said she accompanied her friends Klebold and Harris to a gun show in late 1998 when both boys were 17 and not old enough to buy weapons.
She said the boys were told they needed to bring someone back with them who was at least 18 years old. She was 18 at the time.
She said Harris was interested in a gun from a licensed dealer, but when the dealer asked her to fill out some paperwork she said she did not feel comfortable.
“I didn’t want to put my name on something that I wasn’t going to have control of,” she said in the statement.
But she said she then bought the guns for the boys from private dealers who did not have to fill out the paperwork for the gun purchases.
“Dylan got a shotgun. Eric got a shotgun and a black rifle that he bought clips for,” Anderson said in her statement.
Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed along with 11 other students and a teacher, said those who oppose requiring background checks for all gun purchases at shows have said no one can be sure the stricter measure would have prevented the Columbine tragedy. The two gunmen shot themselves to death at the school.
“What her statement shows is that she did not want to create a paper trail,” said Mauser who now works for SAFE Colorado, a group seeking tougher gun laws.