Speculation into the reasons for the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado centered for some time around the video games played by the murderers that involved shooting opponents with a pistol which was an accessory to the games' play (Boal, 1999).
In Jonesboro, Arkansas, at least one of the boys accused in the attack "Mitchell Johnson "was a big fan of the genre of music called "gangsta rap- which depicts violent and deviant acts in the lyrics of the songs, (Kreiner, p. 75.) Often the media provides depictions of violence that blur the line between what is truly violent, and what is entertainment. Media's depictions of violence have clouded children's realizations about the true effects of violent acts they witness in the media today. Popyk (1998) states that, "Death is a difficult concept for any youngster, but one made even more complicated by the proliferation of quick and apparently painless deaths depicted on the TV, in the movies and on music videos. No one suffers and no one gets punished."" (p. 38). Signals that killing and violent acts are acceptable forms of expression in our society have then been seen in great numbers by America's youth. Kopka (1997) cites a 1993 estimate from the American Psychological Association that children watch as many as 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school (p. 14). Those numbers would most surely be higher if surveyed today. With so much violence being sold as entertainment, children have come to see violence as having a place in our society.
While the media may be seen as a contributing factor to school violence, another sinister element at work in our schools today is the prevalence of gangs and the culture of drugs and alcohol often affiliated with violent behavior (Kopka, 1997). Gangs have also spread to smaller communities and are not just a problem of the inner-city schools.