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The past school year has been a time of shock and grief for at least four American communities, where children opened gunfire on classmates and teachers in their schools.

In March, in the small rural town of Jonesboro, Arkansas, four children and a teacher were shot dead, allegedly by two boys, aged 11 and 13. The boys dressed up in camouflage, helped themselves to a small arsenal of firepower from one of the boys' grandfather's collection, and hit the fire alarm at the school. As children and teachers filed out, they opened fire, killing four of their classmates and a teacher who died shielding another child.

In April, in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, a student shot a teacher dead and wounded three others at a graduation dance. The 14-year-old earlier had talked about wanting to kill people. Edinboro is a small community near Pittsburgh, a town to which many residents had moved to get away from city violence.

Earlier in the school year, shootings in Paducah, Kentucky, and Pearl, Mississippi, claimed three lives.

In numbers, the shootings and the victims are few. But when the killers and the victims are children, and when the location is a school, every shot is heard around the world and every victim is grieved by the world.

Bereaved parents and classmates, experts and pundits, and the President of the United States are all asking the same question: Why?

Following the tragedy in Jonesboro, President Clinton commented that, "This is the third time in recent months that a quiet town B and our nation B have been shaken by the awful specter of students being killed by other young people at schools." Weeks after he made that statement, the Pennsylvania shootings were added to the toll. The President has asked Attorney General Janet Reno to convene a panel of experts to analyze the incidents and see if they can be avoided in the future. Meanwhile, the news media and a variety of experts are working the incidents for all they're worth, hauling out the usual suspects.

In these cases, though, many of the usual suspects were not to be found. As far as we know, no gangs or drugs were involved. None of the stricken communities would be considered at high risk of violence. They're small and medium-sized towns, where people think they know each other, and think they would know if one of their children is unhappy, angry, or disturbed enough to kill. They are the kind of towns that make people think, "if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere."

Seeking answers, commentators have re-opened two long-standing, unresolved debates: media violence and the easy availability of guns.

"The daily doses of murder and mayhem heaped up on television and in movies are, at least for now, taking the brunt of the blame for the decision by two youngsters to put on fatigues, pick up a couple of guns and fire at will at their classmates," reported the Christian Science Monitor (Friday, March 27, 1998, online edition). Since the 1950s, "the vast majority" of more than 3,500 studies "have found some link between the amount of violence watched on television and increases in anti-social behavior," said the Christian Science Monitor.

Some, however, remain skeptical that media violence encourages real-life violence, and others say the problem is not so much the violence as it is the lack of depiction of nonviolent solutions. Others point out that almost all children watch television, and very few of them ever kill.

The issue of guns in the hands of youngsters is especially relevant in the Arkansas shootings, reported The Washington Post (April 1, 1998, on-line edition). "This is a state where 300,000 hunting licenses are issued and a region where guns seem as commonplace as cell phones," said Post writer Lois Romano.

Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler was quoted in the Post as saying, "The people of Arkansas are very traditional when it comes to guns and hunting. They are not going to allow this incident to jeopardize their rights."

"This tragedy has everything to do with access to guns," said Naomi Paiss, spokeswoman for Handgun Control Inc. "If they didn't have access they could not have killed five people in a minute. If they weren't able to get the guns, let's face it, 11- and 13-year-olds run out of steam on a bad idea."

Kristen Rand, director of federal policy for the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, which researches firearms violence, said Arkansas' 1995 gun-related homicide rate for children under 18 was 77 percent higher than the national average and that Arkansas also is at the top of the list for unintentional firearms related deaths among children.

If the alleged Arkansas killers are convicted of murder as juveniles, they will be able to own guns when they are released from prison at the age of 18 or 21.

Media violence and guns don't tell the whole story, however. Most American children grow up watching violence on television. And most of the children who grow up in homes with guns do not go on to kill their classmates.

Researchers are finding a number of clues as to the reasons an innocent child becomes a vicious killer.

"Researchers have found that very young children who witness anger and violence in their homes are far more prone to violence later in life than other children. They've also shown that illegal drugs, alcohol and toxins can have disturbing effects on the developing brains of fetuses" writes Jack Kresnak in the Detroit Free News (March 31, 1998, on-line edition).

Robin Karr-Morse, co-author with Meredith Wiley, of Ghosts from the Nursery (Atlantic Monthly Press, $25), says the right questions aren't being asked.

"I'd ask what that mother's life was like when she was pregnant with this child. I would ask what kind of support system she had early on, how she did with the baby early on. In terms of feelings, was there depression? I would ask if there was drug or alcohol ingestion by her when the baby was gestating. I would ask did she have a supportive relationship, or was there violence in the home early on?"

Child abuse and neglect can damage children's developing brains, says Dr. Patricia Moylan, a pediatric neuropsychologist at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit. Children under age five, and especially those under age two, are most susceptible to brain damage, she said.

Pediatrics Professor Harry Chugani studied Romanian children who grew up in orphanages without physical nurturing and love. The children did not develop appropriately, and parts of their brains showed little or no activity.

Studies of "resilient" children B those who thrive despite difficult, sometimes inhuman, childhoods C show that a bond with a single caring adult seems to be the key to determining whether a child will make it. Did the young killers of the past few months have that bond? Fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst, the alleged killer in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, spoke of wanting to kill people and commit suicide B but no one took him seriously.

Is there a way to head off violent outbursts by children? Until we know what is causing the violence, it is almost impossible to predict when and where it will next erupt.

Efforts now are focusing on keeping schools safe and on creating programs that support children and families, in the hope that children who get off to a good start are less likely to resort to violence later. In this issue's Stateside, State Superintendent Joseph Spagnolo describes efforts to prevent violence in Illinois schools. The article, "What Children Bring to School," describes two promising programs in Illinois designed to provide a safety net for children at risk.