George Getz, Libertarian Party spokesman, said: "A disturbed 15-year-old California high school student kills two classmates with a gun, and it's front-page news and around-the-clock TV coverage. Last week, a disturbed 19-year-old California college student kills four classmates with a car, and it's a minor blurb in newspapers, and a 10-second clip on the news.

"What's the explanation for this, unless journalists are almost 100 percent against the Second Amendment and jump on any opportunity to demonize guns and exploit gun-related tragedies, while ignoring other, equally tragic crimes?"

In February, a 19-year-old student at the University of California at Santa Barbara plowed his car into a crowd of college students in Isla Vista, killing four and critically injuring one. Libertarians say that attack was downplayed in the media and caused no demands to outlaw cars.

"Why was one a major story in the eyes of journalists and the other an afterthought? The only plausible explanation is media bias," according to Getz.

"Journalists are taught to revere the First Amendment and scorn the Second Amendment. So they use their First Amendment rights to slant and distort the news to attack the Second Amendment. And as Americans rightfully mourn the two dead Santee students and unfairly ignore the four dead Isla Vista students, that media bias is on display for everyone to see," Getz said>>.

<<...Despite the untold millions of dollars that schools across the nation have spent on anti-violence efforts in recent years, the key to averting random attacks still often comes down to the willingness of teenagers to report their classmates' threats. That still happens rarely, law enforcement authorities and other experts said.

"There is not a school in America that didn't do something to make their buildings safer after Columbine," said William Modzeleski, director of the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program at the U.S. Department of Education. "But where it begins to break down is that I don't think we convinced kids that these are very serious things that kids are saying when they make threats."

As officials begin to assess how their anti-violence efforts failed to avert the shooting spree that left two students dead and 13 people wounded at the high school outside San Diego this much seems clear: Williams offered many clues.

As recently as last weekend, he told friends about his plans to bring a gun to school and open fire. One adult heard the threats, talked to the troubled 15-year-old and tried three times to call his father. But no one took the threats seriously enough to report them to school or law enforcement authorities.

"What we are saying to kids is that you, with all the great powers of cognition of a 14- or 15-year-old, are supposed to figure out when you hear a serious threat, assess the implications and make some decision as to whether to report it," said Charles Patrick Ewing, professor of law and psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo and author of two books on youth violence. "But what we have to do is convince kids that it is in their own best interest to take all of these threats seriously."

In the past two years, thousands of students in San Diego County have received anti-violence training. The county has spent millions of dollars on after-school programs, and identifying students thought to be at risk for violence.

Nearly two dozen states now require safe school plans. Principals have assembled special teams to assess threats. And top law enforcement agencies have examined the issue, developing sophisticated profiles of those most likely to attack at school.

But a study last fall by the Secret Service found that in almost three-quarters of the 37 school shootings since 1974, the assailant told someone, usually another student who did not reveal it, in advance.

Conversely, authorities have been able to prevent attacks recently after receiving tips about potential violence from students. Police in Colorado, California, New York and Kansas say they have averted four potential school massacres.

Last month, for example, an 18-year-old high school senior in Elmira, N.Y., was arrested after he allegedly brought 18 bombs and two loaded guns to school. Two fellow students had told officials.

"I've interviewed dozens, maybe a hundred or more kids who killed," Ewing said. "Most have talked about what they planned to do before they did it. A lot of what they are doing is testing the waters, seeing how other people are going to react."

Since moving to California from Maryland more than a year ago, Williams had cultivated a reputation for talking trash; consequently, his friends ignored his boasts about shooting up Santana High.

"Kids make threats all the time," said Dewey Cornell, a clinical psychologist and youth violence expert at the University of Virginia. "Most are not serious...>>