WASHINGTON -- On a sunny, gusty morning in front of the Capitol, Patti Nielson's blond hair rippled in the wind as her prepared notes nearly blew away.

"I'm here today," said Nielson, a Littleton, Colo., art teacher shot in the shoulder nearly a year ago, "because I was wondering, why hasn't Congress done anything to prevent what happened at Columbine from happening again?"

The first anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School is April 20. Because 13 people were murdered and 23 wounded at a place considered safe, Columbine deeply shook students, parents, educators and the general public.

For many Americans, the single word, Columbine, still evokes images of panicked teen-agers fleeing their suburban school. It may be the most memorable tragedy of a decade, as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger was to the 1980s.

While Columbine has been an impetus for individuals -- prompting them to change their parenting styles and career paths, for instance -- it doesn't appear to have sparked any wide societal reform.

The event has been invoked to justify everything from posting the Ten Commandments in public schools to cracking down on violent video games to lowering taxes so that parents can afford to spend more time with their children. But Gallop polls show no significant shifts in attitudes about Patti Nielson's passion, gun control. Nor has Columbine produced significant change on any other major issue.

"I don't see Columbine, by itself, as having that profound of an effect," said Robert Schulzinger, professor of history at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "There has to be a variety of blues coming from different directions to really change people's opinions. People are back, not to euphoria, but certainly to a state of satisfaction."

Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said flatly: "Columbine wasn't a watershed for anything. That's because the economy has been so important."

Nielson, the wounded teacher who dialed 911 from the Columbine library, came to Washington this month to call for new federal gun control laws.

From a few days after the shooting to the present, President Clinton has cited Columbine as a reason for more federal gun control. He set April 20 as a deadline for Congress to pass legislation, but has recently conceded that's unlikely to happen.

On Wednesday, Clinton plans to go to a Denver rally for Colorado gun control laws. He'll hold a nationally televised town hall meeting afterward, then join NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw for a program at the University of Denver.

Generally, Democrats blame Columbine on the easy availability of guns, while Republicans point to a lack of values.

Three days after the shootings, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, said the massacre revealed "a virus loose within our culture," which he later described as moral decay.

Owens, who has supported some gun control initiatives, said in an interview this month that there is still "a sickness in the land." He added that "we've changed for the worse recently and I think we can change for the better, but it's a challenge."

As an example, Owens said he grew up with a choice of three television stations, all in black and white. He remembered "Ozzie and Harriet," "Bonanza" and "Father Knows Best," and said, "There are values transmitted through those shows -- values that are denigrated today, but values I'd love to see on TV."

If Columbine has had any widespread effect, it has been in the area of school safety. Schools nationwide have added conflict-resolution exercises, peer-mediation programs, video cameras and in some instances metal detectors.

Carlos Sundermann, program director for the National Resource Center for Safe Schools, based in Portland, Ore., said Columbine did focus attention on school safety. But he sees more "Band-Aid" fixes than recognition that school violence is a complex problem requiring coordination among schools, parents and communities.

Overall, school violence has not been worsening. Statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, which partially funds Sundermann's program, show that school violence in most categories actually decreased or stayed level between 1993 and 1997, the latest reporting period available.

"More kids die at home and in their community than at school," Sundermann said. "School is one of the safest places to be in our society. That's a fact. Unfortunately, when you have a highly publicized event like Columbine, people tend to think, `Oh my God, things are terrible."'

Television violence has also remained level. According to a study released last month by the Parents Television Council, incidents of TV violence occurred at about the same rate in 1999 as they did in 1989. But measured per hour, sexual material tripled in the last 10 years.

Those who see Columbine as a prime example of moral decay have had more receptive audiences this year. In social conservative circles, the problem is simply identified as "the culture."

"Two years ago, we had to define it," said Cherie S. Harder, policy director for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas. "People didn't realize what it meant. They thought the senator was talking about paintings or something. Columbine helped transform the debate, showing that the environment one grows up in shapes character."

If America woke up last April 20, it was to divergent realities, not consensus. And if Columbine exposed a virus, its name could not be agreed upon,much less its remedy. For the general public, Columbine was a tragedy in relative isolation.

It wasn't like 1968. That year, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a weeklong protest ended in 700 arrests at New York's Columbia University, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was murdered while campaigning for president and rioters nearly took over the 1968 Democratic Convention.

"All those things together really shook people, really convinced people society was falling apart," said Schlezinger, the Colorado professor who has written books about other attitude-shifting periods, particularly the Vietnam War and World War II.

Columbine was one in a string of school shootings that included Jonesboro, Ark., Springfield, Ore. and Paducah, Ky. -- but that still wasn't enough to alarm the general public.

"It's awful to say," Schlezinger said, "but there has to be an escalation of the violence. Columbine raised the bar for what was going to shock."

A handful of states, including California and Massachusetts, have passed stricter gun control laws since the Columbine shootings, and several others are considering legislation. Columbine helped those efforts, but there has been no sea change of public opinion.

Last summer, the Gallup Poll asked Americans, "What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?" For the first time since Gallup began asking that question in 1950, the top concern -- cited by 18 percent of respondents -- was ethics, morality and family decline.

Some linked that finding to lingering worries about Columbine. Other analysts said it reflected a lack of traditional concerns, such as war or the economy, during this period.

Guns and gun control were listed as the top concern by 10 percent of those surveyed.

In March of this year, Gallup asked the question again. The top concern, cited by 16 percent, was education, followed closely by ethics and morality at 15 percent. Guns and gun control came in eighth at 8 percent.

"Gun control attitudes did not significantly change because of Columbine," said Gallup's Newport.

While Columbine has failed to move the nation to concerted action, it has transformed individuals.

Kaela Austin, 61, decided not only to keep working, but to add a radio audience to the family and child counseling clients she's had in Los Angeles for 25 years.

"I would be playing golf twice a week, retired, if it weren't for Littleton," Austin said.

Her radio call-in show is called "License to Parent."

"The point connected to Columbine is that if you don't listen to children, there will be another Columbine," Austin said.

A consultant, writer and motivational speaker, Mitch Axelrod of West Orange, N.J., found a new mission and career through Columbine.

"For the last 20 years my livelihood was made helping companies improve their profitability and marketability," said Axelrod, 45, who has just finished a study of nearly 3,000 people in which he attempts to measure their values. "The next 20 years will be totally focused on values and values-based decisions."

Axelrod, who divorced four years ago and has joint custody of his 11-year-old son, Adam, now deliberately spends more time at home.

"I'm Mr. Mom now," he said. "We have justified our time away from our kids by saying they get quality time, even though they don't get quantity time. But quantity time is important. Having parents around gives kids a sense of security."

For Karen Anderson, 45, the Columbine shootings weren't a wake-up call, but validation that morals and values are plummeting.

Anderson, married 25 years, is editor of a home-based Internet newsletter on women and their families. Her 15-year-old daughter attends a private Christian school outside Nashville, Tenn. Another daughter is finishing her senior year with family friends in Fort Worth, Texas.

Last year, the Andersons decided to simplify their lives. They moved from Texas to a small house on five acres in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., where the cost-of-living is more manageable and they can pay off debt.

"For me, this tragedy reinforced that I'm doing the right thing," Anderson said.

Since Columbine, Anderson has been even more vigilant in monitoring her younger daughter's use of America Online, her attendance at PG- or R-rated movies and her purchase of popular music with potentially violent lyrics.

Anderson said she and her daughter have been inspired by Christian recording artist Michael W. Smith's album, "This is Your Time," which recounts the life and death of Cassie Bernall, a Columbine student who, according to a book written by her mother, was asked by one of the killers if she believed in God. When she said yes, Bernall was shot and killed.

While some have disputed what exactly happened in the Columbine library that day, Anderson said that it doesn't really matter, because "this is a story touching kid's hearts."

In Washington, meanwhile, others try to turn heartfelt concern into political action.

Nielson, on the blustery spring morning of the gun control news conference, stood next to Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. Redbook, the women's magazine and sponsor of the event, had filled bags with pledges of support for gun control from 11,000 readers.

"I have spent countless hours since that day a year ago, April 20, wondering how a thing like this could happen," said Nielson, who was shot by Eric Harris. (He and his accomplice, Dyland Klebold, died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.) "Many blame our society that promotes violence in movies, TV, video games and music. Others have pointed to poor parenting. People are blaming the school and the police for somehow not knowing what these boys were planning. ...

"The fact is all we know for sure is that if they hadn't gotten those guns, they would have never killed those innocent people."

Life has been difficult for Nielson since the shooting. She suffers from anxiety attacks, becomes frightened by firecrackers and other loud noises and has taken an open-ended leave of absence from Columbine High School.

With all that she has gone through personally, how does she regard the fact that there has been so little societal change?

"Change," she responded, "comes about slowly."