https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/

I was in the 7th grade when Columbine happened. 1999, the year before Y2K, things were supposed to be getting better. The world was supposed to be a better place than before. Then it happened. Students shot and bombs exploding in a high school in Colorado. It was surreal and shocked the nation.

The fear was after Columbine that there would be copycats. And there were. Including a small town in a southern state.

I was sitting at the lunch table. There was a boy, we will call him John.

John was troubled, had a rough home life, and was always in trouble at school. One day at lunch, about a month after Columbine, John looked at me and another girl and said: "I'm going to shoot this school up and I am going to start with you and you."

John normally joked and was a prankster but it shook me and the other girl. We told our history teacher what had happened. Within an hour, John had been detained and we were talking to detectives about what had happened.

The day finally came when John said that he would do something. Police had been watching him. They arrested him in a vehicle that was not his and found he did have guns ready and loaded.

This would have been another mass shooting. But it wasn't. Why? Students said something. The warning signs were not missed.

We did not need more gun control. We needed bravery to say something and a police force that did their job. Gun control is not the answer. It never has been the answer.

The point is, John had issues. Mental health issues as well as home issues. Sadly, he committed suicide several years later. John needed help. That help would not have come from more gun laws. He needed mental help. He needed support for his horrible home life. He needed friends that would love and support him. Unfortunately we the students of that school did not give him that last part that we could have helped.

The problem is not guns. The problem is culture.