I’m on my way to school in the backseat of my Mom’s gray Honda, swaying to the nostalgic chords of “Pumped up Kicks,” that catchy song released in 2010 by Foster the People. It’s easy to get lost in its upbeat rhythm and Mark Foster’s soothing voice, singing along to the lyrics without further examination. However, within its cheerful melody lurks a darker and deeper subject: school shootings. More specifically, school shooters and their connection with mental health issues, a prevalent condition among American adolescents for over a decade. In fact, since 2010, teenagers have experienced “the highest increase” in major depressive episodes (MDE), which are defined as feelings of indifference or depression almost constantly throughout a two-week period. It’s no surprise, then, that a recent study on the psychiatric diagnoses of mass shooters found that roughly 90% had an undiagnosed or untreated psychiatric illness such as PTSD, schizophrenia, mood disorders, and severe personality disorders, among others. Likewise, the study also found that the shooters shared intense feelings of isolation and estrangement, provoking these radical acts of violence. 

In response to the concerning rise in mental health issues among young people, and its correlation with school shootings, Foster wrote the classic Pumped Up Kicks: The song follows a troubled youth who, after coming into possession of his father’s gun, imagines going to his school and shooting “all the other kids with the / pumped up kicks” who “better run, better run / outrun [his] gun.” Over a decade after the song’s release, America still grapples with issues of mental health and an unprecedented number of school shootings.

In September, yet another school shooting occurred, this time at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, leaving behind the deaths of two students, two teachers, and a grieving community. They are not the only ones grieving. According to the Mother Jones database, there have been 1.5 mass shootings per day this year, where a mass shooting is defined as a shooter event where four or more individuals are injured. This alarming increase in shootings corresponds with the rising rates of depression among teens throughout the past two decades. According to an article entitled “Rising Rates of Adolescent Depression in the United States: Challenges and Opportunities in the 2020s,” published in the March 2022 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, we as a country “face an adolescent mental health crisis.” Reflected in this statistic is Colt Gray, the 14-year-old shooter of the Apaplachee shooting, who will be tried as an adult in court along with his father, who knowingly provided his son with the weapon. The tragic events that unfolded in Apalachee Georgia led me to wonder what drove young Colt Gray to commit such acts of violence against his peers and teachers. At fourteen years old, he is a child: his brain is hardly developed, as are his capacities to reason and ability to control his emotions. Is he really to blame, or is the society and environment in which he lived more culpable? What really incited such violence from so young of a child? In all likelihood, the answer probably lies somewhere between mental health statistics, society, and the lyrics of Pumped Up Kicks.

More recently, Biden came out with an order aiming at “improving school-based active-shooter drills,” noting that “many parents, students, and educators have expressed concerns over the effectiveness of and trauma” caused by these drills. I spoke with our school counselor, Erika Mastrobuono, to get her perspective on Mayfield’s lockdown drills and how we could make them less traumatic for the students while still being practical. She stated that the drills should be “realistic” since “we don’t want to be putting our students in a position where they are not adequately prepared.” However, with respect to making drills less distressing, she proposed that we could talk more about the shooter drills beforehand and give students the opportunity and space to process the drills afterward. This could help students who are particularly affected or upset about certain aspects of the school shooter drills, which could be a “signal that [that student] need[s] to talk about that.” So, if you have any other suggestions on how to make the lockdown drills here at Mayfield less disturbing, please answer the survey below and tell us what you think! Also, if you have concerns about school gun violence, please reach out to youth.gov or Ms. Mastrobuono.