The school environment is one that has been stressed to be a safe and enjoyable place to learn. However, for many individuals, that is not the case. Students around the world have very unique experiences at school, which can unfortunately become abhorrent. According to the Center of Disease Control (CDC), and average of 96 Americans lose their lives to gun violence each day (Gun Violence by the Numbers). There are several causes of death by gun violence, but one of the causes that have become a growing problem is school shootings. Each school shooter has an individual story and should be treated disparate from the rest, but there are several similar characteristics between many school shooters throughout history. Though there are many factors that come into play when evaluating why someone would shoot up a school. One of those factors stems purely from the shooter’s mental health. In several interviews, such as an interview of Evan Ramsey the 1997 Bethel Regional High School shooter, school shooters admit to feeling mentally unstable. In this interview, Ramsey goes into specifics about his exceptionally difficult childhood stating that he shifted “back and forth between abusive foster homes after his mother lost herself to alcohol and his father passed away.” (Demer) In many school-shooting cases, the students committing the crime had several similarities in their backstories. These particular scarring events from their past had serious effects on their mental health.