In a couple of months, it will be a year since two enraged teenage boys in Littleton, Colo., raced through Columbine High School to gun to death 12 students, a teacher and then themselves in a 16-minute rampage. But Columbine does not yet matter.

Two individuals could not have killed so many people so fast, in nearly one a minute, without a very efficient, artificial means such as a bomb or gun. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had both, but with their bombs poorly constructed and detonating inconsistently, it was the guns that created the carnage.

It was a miracle that far more students did not die, given that Klebold fired 55 shots alone from his Tec-9 semi-automatic handgun. "It would have been worse than Oklahoma City," said Jefferson County Sheriff's Sgt. Randy West. "Much worse. I don't even want to think about that."

Klebold and Harris chose guns because they were so easy to get. All four guns used in the massacre were purchased for the two underage killers by friends at gun shows, the easiest place to purchase lethal weapons without having to undergo Brady Bill background checks. The guns were so easy to get that Littleton District Attorney David Thomas said, "Guns are everywhere. You can buy them on the street. You get them anywhere you want. You can steal them. They are readily available. You can go to gun shows. You can have your friends go to gun shows if you're underage. They're very easy to acquire."

After all the tears and presidential and vice presidential visits to Littleton and after all the decrying of the sources of violence, from entertainment to guns, you would think that we would have done something by now to decrease the chances of another Columbine happening again. Only in America could you have this much carnage only to have absolutely nothing happen.

Last year the Republican-led Senate, the shadow government of the National Rifle Association, which opposes virtually all restraints on gun ownership and gun proliferation, stalled any new meaningful gun control measures. Congress has yet to break a deadlock over waiting periods to purchase guns, let alone deal with proliferation in a nation where there is nearly a gun for every person and where gun violence far exceeds that of any other developed country in the world.

Last week Colorado, of all places, added a final insult. Despite the horror at its feet, despite pleas for compromise from Gov. Bill Owens, normally a pro-NRA Republican, and despite a Rocky Mountain News poll that showed that 94 percent of adults wanted to close the loophole on gun show background checks, the state Legislature's House Appropriations Committee killed a measure that would have closed that loophole.

Several Colorado gun shop owners candidly say they sell more guns at gun shows than in their own private shops. Nationally, 40 percent of guns are sold by unlicensed dealers and private sellers who need not do background checks.

Commenting on the popularity of gun shows, one federally licensed gun shop owner was quoted last week in the Denver Post as saying: "How many gun shops have 6,000 to 8,000 people come through their doors every day of the week?"

Gun control advocates in Colorado, including Tom Mauser, a parent of one of the students killed at Columbine, say they will try to put the loophole issue on a ballot initiative. "If they won't do it in the halls of the Legislature, we'll do it in the streets," Mauser said.

With the NRA having already lobbied successfully to get several state legislatures to pass laws preventing their cities from suing gun manufacturers, gun control indeed may have to be won in the streets. That we are still at this point in America speaks of an incredible, uninterrupted acceptance of gun violence and an unfathomable indifference to death.

Three days after the Colorado legislators kept open the loopholes, two Columbine High School sweethearts were shot to death at a subway shop within sight of the school. Last week in Washington, D.C., two more sweethearts, one an honor student and the other a star athlete, were murdered in a drive-by shooting that may have been related to a scuffle after a basketball game.

The deaths of those students were enough to move President Clinton to say Wednesday that "Guns in the wrong hands continue to claim too many lives." Of course, Clinton, in seven years in office, has done more handwringing than arm twisting on guns, wasting more time moaning about "senseless" acts instead of using his bully pulpit to force meaningful gun legislation.

In Washington, D.C., for instance, 15 public school students have been killed by gunfire this school year, the same body count as at Columbine last April. Yet there is no persistent political soul searching and no resolve on guns.

The deaths in D.C. do not yet matter. The deaths at Columbine do not yet matter. The right to make bullet holes is still more important than the need to close loopholes. We are tempting fate to indeed deliver us something worse than Oklahoma City. Much worse.

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