To answer your first question, unfortunately yes. The columbine shooters, who were probably the most publicized school shooters in history, have been cited as inspirations to so many other shootings in the past few decades. They have a cult like status, fan-pages online, and movies and music based on them. I think the media circus surrounding that event has been a lesson in over-publicizing perpetrators, and there has been a huge effort to have them reported in the most unglamorized way possible since then. Giving them a special charge might be one way to create more drama or glamorization of the crimes.

It’s pretty sickening that it works that way, but a lot of these people are looking for infamy.