City of Violence: Santee, California; El Cajon, California; Littleton, Colorado. These are names of American cities and towns where violence has usurped the heartland of America, where families settle to raise families far from the violent big cities. Andy Williams, Jason Hoffman, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold; names of students who came to their schools with weapons to kill those students and staff they held responsible for their melancholy. What are the motivating factors behind these suicide attempts? Society is trying to convince itself that it has to be Hollywood with its violent entertainment and glorification. Another scapegoat is video games with all the blood and realistic murders or perhaps even music whose lyrics are considered by the majority to be full of suicidal or homicidal messages for today's youth. Politicians, parents, law enforcement and society are asking: "What are the factors that lead to the increase in violence among our children?". The most compelling causes of violence in our children lie not in the entertainment industry, but in ourselves. The main source is the killers' depression due to rejection by their peers, breakdown of the cohesive family unit due to divorce, and easy accessibility to guns. The main cause of violence believed by some researchers is the ancient traditions of bullying and cliques. system in high schools. Jerry Adler states in his 1999 article The Truth About High School that these are the so-called "rights of passage" that have also been reported to all American students. “These factors have existed since the invention of high school and adolescents have formed cliques and mentally classified them just as in an adult society [that is] dominated by hierarchies” (Adler 56). As in most high schools in the country, the athletes dominate the social ladder and enforce the hierarchy, which explains why they are at the top of the food chain. “It's pretty common to see athletes picking on the fat kid or the weak kid, or anyone who's different” (Adler 56). So what causes aggression and violence among lower hierarchical levels? This is often scapegoating, where teenagers are bullied by a higher hierarchical group in front of their peers, leaving them excluded and humiliated. In an online poll conducted by the San Diego Tribune, statistics show that “87% of students think school shooters are motivated by a desire to get revenge on those who hurt them and 86% say that teenagers they resort to violence because other kids take it out on them." them, making fun of them or mistreating them" (Eckert 2).