A secret tape made after Columbine shows the NRA’s evolution on school shootings – Tim Mak, NPR Investigations, November 9, 2021. Days after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, senior National Rifle Association leaders held a private conference call about canceling their upcoming annual convention in Denver, Colorado. Thirteen people lay dead, over were 20 injured, and TV looped students running from the school. NRA strategists, shaken and panicked, discussed a much more sympathetic posture toward mass shootings than its uncompromising stance in decades since, even considering a $1 million victims’ fund. NPR has obtained over 2 1/2 hours of recordings of those private meetings, offering unique insight into the NRA’s struggle to develop their standard response to school shootings.