Americans do have more guns per person than any other country on the planet, but rural youths have always had guns without turning on each other. Maybe something else is happening here. A vast, robust urbanization is moving in on the cornfields. America loses about 3,000 acres of farmland every day, a million acres a year to develop ribbons of concrete, expressways, strip malls, multiplex movie theaters, Wal-marts, fast food. Dotting the rural landscape are satellite dishes, bringing MTV, ESPN, and Jerry Springer to the placid rural landscape.
Modernization threatens the social glue of small town life.
It pulls relentlessly at those who are the most vulnerable, like early teenagers, already trying to make sense of life's most confusing and emotional and vulnerable stage. Perhaps then these city kids are rediscovering something country kids have long taken for granted. We've got to get ourselves back to the garden. I'm Clarence Page.