Nobody yet knows why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 classmates and a teacher before shooting themselves; and it's possible we never will know. Even more disturbing, nobody knows what we should do if we are to avoid further tragedies of this kind.

On the other hand, it does seem rather obvious to most people -- though not Charlton Heston or Bob Barr -- that TEC-9 pistols and sawed-off shotguns should not be available to children or to most adults. As for all the other prescriptions offered by preachers, pundits and sociologists in the tragedy's aftermath, let's just say that they will probably have as much effect as such exhortations usually do. It's tempting to leave the subject at that, move on to more intelligible phenomena and wait for the inevitable depressing sequel.

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But Klebold and Harris did leave behind a few tantalizing hints about their state of mind as they plotted to blow up their school and blow away their classmates, hints that we would be wise to consider. Documents seized from the suspects' homes by Jefferson County sheriff's investigators indicate that they were obsessed with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. They seem to have planned the assault to commemorate the Nazi dictator's 110th birthday. Eyewitnesses say that they purposely executed Isaiah Shoels, a diminutive black football player, as well as two girls who were known as devout Christians.

The killers' fascination with Hitler and their targeting of Christians and blacks, combined with their apparent preoccupation with "industrial" music, together suggest the possible influence of a fascistic youth subculture that has inspired horrific violence elsewhere. Clues about what appeals to the "Trench Coat Mafia" and other young alienated wannabes can be found in publications like Hit List, a zine that covers punk, metal and other categories of the counterculture. The first issue, featuring a burning church on its cover, came out last February with an almost eerily prescient theme: "The Politics of Black Metal." The lead article by Kevin Coogan, an expert investigator of the far right, plunges into the dank milieu where screeching, atonal bands with names like Mayhem, Morbid Angel, Deicide and Darkthrone exploit Satanic, pagan and Nazi imagery to create an atmosphere of shock.

Both the sound and the fascist fetishism date back to the early days of punk rock, when Malcolm McLaren marketed swastika accessories in his trendy London boutique, Sex. Coogan identifies the early post-punk group Throbbing Gristle, which glamorized the Nazi SS and Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda, as the precursor of certain ugly elements in today's "industrial" scene. A more current example is the suddenly infamous Marilyn Manson, whose stage name refers not only to the murders inspired by imprisoned maniac Charles Manson, but to Manson's ravings about race war and Satanic revolution, which have long enjoyed an audience on the countercultural fringe.

Offensive as this crap was (and is), most of it represented nothing more troublesome than a few twisted losers trying to outrage the liberal mainstream. Cultural transgression has gotten more and more difficult in recent decades, as material like the movies of John Waters and now "South Park" have become widely accepted. (The same problem is faced by radio personalities, visual and performance artists, from Howard Stern to Damien Hirst, who win attention by promoting scatological and sadistic themes.)

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