Youth violence? Let's call it what it is.

he headline re a d s , “ S chool Ya rd Assassins Gun Down 13 in Littleton, Colorado.” And everyone asks, “What turns kids into killers?” This is a compelling question. But it is the wrong question. Who are these kids? A “14-year-old shooter” in Paducah. Two “middle-school youth” in Jonesboro. An “expelled student” in Springfield. An “honor student” in Fayetteville. A “sophomore” in Pearl. These kids all have one thing in common. They are all boys. Why are they never referred to as boys? Instead, the media use euphemisms—“student,” “youth,” “killer.” Perhaps it is too painful for us as a society to acknowledge that we have allowed so many of our sons to grow up killing and maiming under our watch. But much as we may hate to admit it, the truth is undeniable. Girls and women seldom kill and maim. Boys and men do. They commit 95% of all violent criminal acts in the United States. S chool shootings get headlines. Yet the truth is that s chool shootings account for less than 1% of all homicides among sch o o l age ch i l d re n .2 E a ch day, 24 ch i l d ren and young adults aged 5 to 24 ye a rs are mu rd e re d, and 85% of them are boys or young men.3 A c c o rding to the Office of Ju venile Justice and Delinquency Preve n t i o n , b oy s account for 94% of all known juvenile killers .4 In a re c e n t 1 0 year peri o d, the number of ch i l d ren known to have committed mu rder has increased 211% among boys and 34% among gi rl s .4 The common denominator in teen homicides is boys killing boys with guns.5 More than half again as many boys as girls in the United States have access to guns.6 One in 10 high school boys carries guns to school—compared with only about 1 in 70 girls.7 Among college students nationally, more than 1 of 10 men carries a gun or other weapon, nearly three times the number of women who do8; 6% of college men have a working firearm at school, four times the number of college women.9 Among 15to 19-year-olds, nearly 90% of homicides are firearm related and nearly 4 out of 5 victims are boys.3,10 As a society, we talk about stricter gun-control laws. We talk about banning assault weapons. But if the problem is simply guns, why is it that girls so seldom carry them? And why do more boys than girls have access to guns? The truth is, we never ask these questions. We take it for granted that boys, not girls, use guns. As long as we take this fact for granted, we will never stop to ask, “Why boys?” Officially, we tell boys not to fight. And for good reason. Fighting precedes most teenage homicides and is often a necessary, if not a sufficient, cause.11 Yet on television, boys are 60% more likely than girls to be shown using violence—and to be showing that violence is an effective means for male characters to meet their objectives without consequences.12 Three out of 4 Americans believe that a boy should have a few fist fights while he is growing up.13 Not surprisingly, half of all boys in high school get into a fight each year,7 and nearly 1 in 7 college men in California has been in a physical fight in a recent year.14 The suicide mission at Columbine High School in Littleton was carried out by boys who were in pain. But in America, we do not teach boys how to talk about their pain. Instead, we teach them to manage their feelings through anger and aggression. It is acceptable for young men to feel angry; it is not acceptable for them to feel sad. When boys do need help, research shows that we actually discourage them from getting it.15 It is no wonder, then, that when they are depressed, boys and young men are more likely than girls and young women to withdraw from their Will H. Courtenay, a researcher and writer whose work focus es on men’s health, is director of Men’s Health Consulting in Berkeley, California.