Why do maniacs who go crazy always shoot up schools rather than malls or something

Because there was usually some kind of unresolved issue there. Most shooters were victims of bullying and harassment at some point and their cries for help went ignored usually because their family didn't make a big enough donation to the school. I've watched teachers ignore the bullies and punish the victims because they know they can't afford an attorney to fight it. Then a tragedy happens and the school blames the parents.

it's hard to have a place you'd rather get shot up
one thing though, the people in schools are kids
and i guess when it comes to it,
they are the least you want to get shot because they are young.

Too much uncertainty with the people that could be in a mall crowd I guess. Target schools and outside of maybe a part time cop playing "resource officer" everyone else is unarmed.

Most people that should up a school go to that school, yea? So that’s probably why. It’s “their place”.

Just a guess though

locations of public mass shootings are distributed as follows:

30.8% occur in workplaces
16.9% in retail establishments
13.4% in bars or restaurants
8.1% in residential locations
8.1% outdoors
7.6% in K-12 schools
6.4% in places of worship
5.2% in colleges or universities
3.5% in government or civic places

Schools, churches, grocery stores are soft targets, little resistance met.

They want to inflict as much trauma and emotional pain on the survivors as they can. That's why they murder children. Their own lives are miserable so they want everyone else to be miserable also.

They usually just look for any building full of people, and there are way more schools than malls. So it's much more likely lunatic would come across a school first.