Reply #31: the Montreal massacre was for Canada

[iverglas]

It focused public attention on violence against women and firearms violence and generated wide discussion of both issues, and the victims continue to be remembered in ceremonies every year.

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-70-398/disasters_tragedies/montreal_massacre/

For 45 minutes on Dec. 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal's École Polytechnique and killed 14 women. Marc Lepine, 25, separated the men from the women and before opening fire on the classroom of female engineering students he screamed, "I hate feminists." Almost immediately, the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women.

The misogyny behind the VT murders is not widely acknowledged:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/04/virginia_tech_women.html

Of all the lessons contained in the horror at Virginia Tech, the one least likely to be learned has to do with the deadly danger posed by the dismissive way we still view violence against women.

I doubt that the VT murders will have a particularly defining effect on US society. Events such as those are all too common, even if not usually involving such large numbers. Firearms violence itself, of course, is now very certainly a defining factor in the lives of each new generation in the US.