From Mike:Pop quiz: What was the cause of the high school shooting in California earlier this week?

A) lack of gun control laws
B) failure to report the suspect's vicious intentions
C) violence in the media
D) poor parenting/society
E) all of the above

Scapegoats are very popular and probably most popular when trying to explain "weird" or "unusual" teenage behavior. Passing the buck of blame is now a media ritual after each school shooting.

Teens are generally looked at by adults as trouble-making, egotistical, spoiled, apathetic brats. Violent school shootings like the recent one in Santee,California do not help this stereotype. Does this mean that all teenagers are powder kegs filled with rage ready to explode in a savage attack on their classmates? Murders, especially shootings, have occurred on American highways, office buildings and even churches.

Suspected shooter Andy Williams told as many as 50 other people that he would bring a gun to school. "I thought he was joking" and "yeah, right" were the initial responses from his friends. None of them reported Williams' intentions, but this does not mean they are to blame.

Should teens take everything their peers say seriously with all intentions that they will actually do it? Many teens talk of suicide or running away from home at one time or another, but few follow up on their plans to ruin their lives. A student who despises a teacher for too much homework or a poor grade might say to his or her friends, "I hate my teacher, I wish he was dead."

This does not mean the student will take a gun from home and make his or her teacher dead. If everyone reported sarcastic hyperbole used in everyday language to higher authorities, society would become nothing more than a huge throng of untrusting spies and strangers.

Instead of isolating the 50 or so people whom Williams talked to the weekend before, society should examine Williams himself and why he killed two classmates and wounded several others. There is never just one sudden cause pushing a teen to commit acts of violence.

Sporadic and spontaneous, school shootings have their primary origin in the home.

(The quiz was a trick question, there is no correct answer.)

From Kathleen:
Everyone seems to be trying to place blame on teenagers who "knew" but didn't tell about the horrific shooting on Monday in Santee. It happened after the Columbine shooting and it's happening again. People haven't learned yet that after looking at the shooter, blame can't be placed on one particular group or person.

If a 29-year-old adult felt that Andy was joking when he heard the boy talk about bringing a gun to school, how can teenagers be expected to see what adults can't? With the "zero tolerance" policy on school violence, even the littlest phrases can get a young child suspended. Teenagers say all the time that they will kill someone because of some false rumors. If students are to report each other for saying such things, the administrative offices would be overcrowded with reports all day, every day.

It's hard to snitch on someone, especially a friend. Andy's friends were used to his exaggerations, so what made his "I'll bring a gun to school" any different? What if Andy was joking and someone snitched on him? Andy would have been suspended for nothing and the "narc" would have been in trouble with his friend. Although, sadly, this wasn't the case, this is a risk that students face when they think of reporting someone.

No teenager goes around constantly analyzing every statement wondering if the other person is joking or not. Amid everyday problems and temporary hatred for someone, threats and boasts aren't given a second thought. Should life be so serious already for a teenager that they have to worry about every threat and wonder if they will be responsible for the next shooting because they didn't say anything?

Trying to be tough and cool, Andy "talked the talk," but never "walked the walk." There was no reason to think that he would actually go ahead with his boasts. Talk of revenge, in a way, is expected and reasonable from someone who was constantly picked on and faced vandalism at his own home.

Williams is to blame for the shooting because he did bring a gun to school with the intent to shoot people. However, his tormentors, to an acute degree, are also at fault.

"He was small and couldn't defend himself, so the punks would pick on him, maybe he just got tired of being picked on," said a former neighbor. The neighbor also reported that these "punks" destroyed Williams' tree house and the boy's room had been vandalized.

Has society raised children to become bullies, shooting at people's houses and tearing apart building structures? Where were the parents and the teachers, the neighbors and the adults in authority when these verbal and physical attacks were made?

Michael Fox and Kathleen Denise Miller are students in Alan Weintraut's journalism class at Annandale High School in Virginia. The school is a Student Press Printing Partner with The Washington Post's Young Journalists Development Project, under the direction of Dorothy Gilliam.