To turn on national news coverage this past Wednesday was to see an all too familiar sight: another school shooting, this time at a high school named "SuccessTech," no less. With the epidemic of school violence arising so frequently in the United States, it's hard to be surprised when another incident happens. It has become part of our news cycle, a regular occurrence in which young people are exposed to death. The obvious and repeated question is why? Thousands of scholars research the issue, spending millions of dollars in the search of what causes these people to commit such reprehensible acts. Psychologists point out the effect bullying has on the psyche, while sociologists point to the desperation caused by modern-societal structure. Others blame video games and an overly-aggressive media that thrives on broadcasting violence. The problem with each of these explanations is that similarities are rarely found among different school shooters; they have different backgrounds, motivations, social statuses, living situations, personalities and upbringings. What must be focused on is the one similarity that they all share — the United States, a nation that allows children easier access to murderous weapons than it does to health care. While the tragedy at Columbine High School stands out as a prime example, there have been at least a dozen other incidents involving gunfire inside our nation's schools since April 20, 1999. It is certainly easy to dismiss such events as things that "would never happen here," but the rash of school violence has affected the state of Wisconsin, most notably in September of last year at Weston High School in Cazenovia: a school that saw its principal shot and killed by a 15-year-old freshman. These events are anything but rare; the carnage at Weston High took place two days after another Colorado school shooting and only three days before a crazed man lined up a group of Amish school-children in Pennsylvania and systematically executed each one of them. There is no inherent reason why American kids kill their classmates more often than those in the rest of the world. It is hard to believe there is any more bullying in American high schools than those of our European counterparts, and much of the world is exposed to the same media and video game outlets that American children are. The factor that causes our nation's children to commit fatally murderous acts is simple: access to advanced weaponry. A study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that between 1950-1993 "the overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children aged less than 15 years was nearly 12 times higher than among children in the other 25 [industrialized] countries combined." So why do American children kill each other so often? The answer is straightforward: because it is easy to do so. The commonwealth of Virginia allowed a mentally disturbed man, described as potentially violent, to purchase two guns within a month. Those guns would later be used by Cho Seung-Hui to brutally murder 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty. In what other developed country in the world is this possible? Simply because our Constitution, a document written well over 200 years ago, allows a citizen to "bear arms," we should let ourselves be subject to random violence? The handguns that Mr. Cho used are ones not suited for hunting, so what is their purpose and why do we allow them to be purchased so easily? It must be conceded that loose gun-control laws are not the sole reason behind senseless school violence. If a student in Britain had a strong desire to obtain a gun in order to kill his classmates, he could do it. There are pathways around every law and all items are attainable. But, often times the violent students don't even look that far for their weapon of choice. Under normal circumstances, it is legally obtained by a family member and nestled safely in the confines of their home. This can mean easy access for a confused and impulsive teenager. Or, even worse, as CNN reported last week, you have mothers like Michele Cossey, a Pennsylvania woman who is now being charged for legally obtaining "a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle, a 9mm semiautomatic rifle and black powder used to make grenades," for her 14-year-old son, who was allegedly planning a "Columbine-like attack" on his school. These items are not suited for anything but murder and destruction. Yet it is our country, the United States, which stands alone in allowing such an easy pathway for our children to obtain such havoc-inducing material. So let's not blame a violent film or a graphic video game for causing real-life mayhem; we must examine the system that allows our nation's kids the ability to unleash fatal aggression. Ben White ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and sociology.