The 16-year-old boy who opened fire at an Oregon elementary school on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher, has given America yet another reason to argue about guns. He has also given it a reason to ask a question that has received little attention in decades of arguments about school shootings: why are the killers so often teenage boys? There is an uncomfortable truth concealed inside one of the American gun lobby's most familiar slogans: guns don't kill people, people do.
The phrase is an inadequate explanation for gun violence and an even worse argument against gun regulation but it points toward a fact that is worth examining: according to research, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of targeted school violence are boys and young men. At the moment, the Second Amendment remains firmly embedded in American constitutional law. Whatever one's views on gun ownership, a country in which firearms are widely available must reckon with the people most likely to turn them against their classmates.
Perhaps, alongside the endless argument over guns and the Second Amendment, America should devote equal attention to understanding why boys and young men so disproportionately commit these attacks. The 16-year-old accused of carrying out Thursday's shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Oregon fits a disturbing pattern that has received far less attention than the weapons used in school attacks. In a 2019 study of 41 perpetrators of targeted school violence between 2008 and 2017, the U.S.
Secret Service found that 83 percent were male and their average age was just 15. The study included attacks involving weapons other than firearms, so its findings cannot be applied to every school shooting but the pattern is difficult to ignore. A deduction: millions of American teenagers grow up in a country where firearms are widely available, yet the perpetrators of targeted school attacks are overwhelmingly boys.
One possible explanation lies in how some adolescent boys experience rejection and perceived threats to their status, and in the ways they have learned to express anger. Researchers studying targeted school violence have repeatedly identified grievances, interpersonal conflicts and experiences of bullying among attackers. But those experiences are common among teenagers of both sexes and only an extraordinarily small minority become violent.
The harder question is why certain boys come to see violence as a way of answering those grievances. This suggests that alongside the debate over access to guns, America should devote more attention to understanding the boys who use them. Restricting access to firearms may prevent shootings, but understanding why certain boys become violent could help prevent the desire to carry them out in the first place.
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