Val dropped to her knees, then her hands. Val was riddled with shotgun pellets up and down her arms and torso. Dylan pointed his shotgun under her table and fired several rapid bursts, killing Lauren Townsend and injuring Val and another girl. Val was shot before her exchange about God. I cringe to admit that I repeated the story in Salon that spring. The story was reported virtually everywhere, by every legitimate outlet. The biggest occurred at the Silverdome in Michigan, where Weekly Standard writer Josesph Bottum described how '73,000 teenagers wept along with sermon after sermon on her death.” Cassie's mother Misty Bernall wrote a bestseller: She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. Cassie rallies with fevered altar calls erupted around the globe. Cassie Bernall, a 17-year-old killed in the massacre, was an international sensation for about five months. “Sixteen years ago,” he said, “this country was tremendously inspired by a young woman who faced a gunman in Columbine and was challenged about her faith and she refused to deny God. Early in the Republican presidential undercard debate tonight, Rick Santorum dredged up a powerful old Columbine myth to defend Kim Davis, Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and to illustrate the steepness of America's moral decline.
