I have lived on farms, small towns, and loud, bustling cities.
I have seen all sorts of schools.
I have seen kids bullied for everything, riding the short bus, obesity, height, style, being teacher’s pet, being rich, being poor, being new.
Being on the farm, we had guns around everywhere, all the time, often loaded.
I never messed with our guns, I used one when I needed to. Every farm boy in my school had hunted and killed supper by age ten.
The school shooters are never those kids. Usually they are city, sometimes suburb kids.
We had some messed up parents where I grew up.
I think it is environmental influence, but neither parenting nor school bullies are the cause exclusively. Gun availability isn’t it either. All those guns around, but what we lost kids to was bale avalanches and overturned tractors, and drugs.
I think the biggest part of the violence is never, ever, ever getting away.
On the farm, I had fifty different places I could go to be alone and spend hours without other people, phones, TV, etc.
When we moved, being in town just about made me nuts. I had nowhere.
There were places for activities, entertainment, but no place to breathe free, think, fanticize uninterrupted.
Some people really need that. It makes facing bullies and rotten parents easier to live through.