Youth Voices

The Littleton school shooting wasn't the first case of teens killing teens, and, it may not be the last. But it has provoked youths - and adults - to question the increasing frequency of such tragedies. Who is to blame and why? Is there anything that can be done? Below we present essays from two students: Tahira Simon, an 18-year-old freshman at City College of San Francisco and Megan Williams, a 20-year-old Columbia University sophomore. Both are correspondents for Youth Radio.

Where were the adults in Littleton? By Tahira Simon Gunfire kills kids everyday, but it's not headline news until some kid walks into his school and starts shooting. Only then do we talk about access to guns and safety in our public schools. No one talks about it two months afterwards, which is sad because it certainly takes less than that for some psycho, neo-Nazi, emotionally deprived outcast to decide he's going to go on a killing spree. FULL STORY

A wake-up call for the suburbs By Megan Williams My own thoughts on the Littleton situation are focused on where this is coming from. All of the papers are running their usual stories on how this was "Anytown, USA." No one seems to be suggesting any answers as to why here, why now, without it sounding like some frustrated cry to an absent god. But I have a few answers. FULL STORY

Youth Radio is a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley, California. Student-produced pieces and commentaries can be heard on KQED and KCBS in San Francisco, on National Public Radio and on the Pacifica National Network. Youth Radio also contributes to "Digital High," a service of the San Jose Mercury News, and to "Youth Voices," a project of Brandeis University.