Okay, yeah, this is a little...

Weird little juxtaposition of events from school today. In first blockthing, Mr.AP Gov is discussing the emergency drills. In case of fire or bomb threat, turn left, go down the stairs, and go to the far corner of the parking lot. In case of tornado, go in the hallway with a book over your neck to protect from flying er...cardboard. In case of Columbine type shooting, sit in the corner with the lights off and put a sign on the door that says we're in the media center, just in case the shooter is looking for Mr. AP Gov. Unless, of course, one of you is the shooter, in which case, we're actually in the media center. Or maybe that's not the plan.
Here's the big deal: Any one of us could be the shooter. You could be the shooter. I could be the shooter. We could all be the shooter, we could all be the victim.
Then in AP Lit, second blockthing, someone brought up the shooting at the end of Empire Falls. Was the shooting kid just a little messed up, but would have been okay if he had friends, or was he truly a psycho? The thing that I so desperately wanted to say, but I just couldn't (because then they question me even more, then I get sent to the school psychologist again*) was this : They're the same person. There's no difference between the kids who shot up Columbine and every other hi!schooler you know. So what, one of them has friends and the other doesn't? One of them plays violent video games and the other doesn't? One of them is athletic and the other isn't?
What's the big difference?
We're all human. We're all messed up. We're all fighting our private battles, and no one has any idea who we are.
*One benefit of budget cuts - they laid off anyone who is there to talk to me about the problems that I'm crying out for help with, when in reality, they're not problems at all.