In a country where school shootings are much too common, it is likewise far too common to see another one, like December 16ths shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, pop up in the news and then quickly get swept away by another tragedy. The shooting at Abundant Life Christian School finds itself in a unique category of an alarmingly ordinary crime; shootings perpetrated by females. This rarity has led to much speculation and sensationalization. 

However, it is important for us to remember that no matter how much speculation surrounds them, these stories feature real people– real kids killing and being killed in our schools– and after 83 school shootings in 2024 alone it’s time for us to ask some difficult questions about how we as a society are failing our youths by sweeping school shootings under the rug as if they’re unavoidable when there are so many ways they can be avoided. 

On the morning of Dec. 16 at 10:57 a.m., officers in Madison received a phone call from a 2nd grade student reporting that his school was under attack by an unknown perpetrator. Attacks like these happen in just minutes, and that was true here. By the time the officers entered and cleared the building, approximately 8 minutes later, the shooter was already reported down and the weapon was recovered. 

In the confusion it was unclear the number of casualties, but it has since been publicly revealed that (not including the shooter), 2 people had been killed, a student and a teacher, with 2 other students in critical condition and being treated at a nearby hospital, as well as some minor injuries sustained by 4 others. Before her identity was revealed to the public, the shooter died as she was being transported to hospital due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

The shooter was Natalie Rupnow, who went by “Samantha,” a 15-year-old student of the private school. That morning she assaulted a study hall with students of various grades with a pistol before turning the gun on herself. Police report that the crime was premeditated and are yet unsure if the parents were aware of any alarming behavior or were the owners of the 9mm pistol used. That being said, all sources have reported that Rupnows parents are cooperating with authorities. 

A motive is yet unclear to the general public at this time and this has led to much speculation, particularly surrounding the shooter’s gender. A member of the press asked Police Chief Shon Barnes if Rupnow was transgender, to which he replied “Quite frankly, I don’t think that’s important at all.” Chief Barnes added thereafter that he doesn’t “think whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may want to identify.” 

Despite lack of obvious motive at this time, police allege that a “manifesto” of writings has been published by someone associated closely with the shooter (presumably a friend or fellow student) though it has yet to be verified how credible these writings are. 

The picture this illustrates is frightening but not unfamiliar. There was yet another shooting, and in a school that housed not just teens but elementary students. Additionally it seems that speculators have attached to the rumors surrounding Rupnows gender and jumped to the conclusion that it must be related to her motive in some manner; that Rupnow killed people because she was transgender despite the fact that hasn’t even been confirmed. 

In times like these it is important to remember humanity, stay grounded, and forget the headline. Focus on the real people living through these things. 

A brave *2nd grader* called the police that morning. Young kids had to be bussed away, with some waving at news crews from the windows and others visually overwhelmed with melancholy and fear at what they had experienced. We are yet unsure the age of the student who was killed, and there remains 2 unidentified students in critical condition.  

Regardless of the shooter’s motive, gender, or otherwise, there are kids who died on the morning of December 16th; a teacher who died on the morning of December 16th. There are more students in critical condition in the hospital, and a student who clearly needed mental intervention that tried and succeeded to kill herself and her peers. THAT is what matters. 

We should step outside of the media circus and look at this for what it is. It is children and teachers being killed and traumatized in their school and place of work respectively by a 15 year old that clearly needed some sort of support that they weren’t getting for a very long time. 

Bringing in personal beliefs and biases in a time where there are children going through something that no child should ever have to go through is selfish. Speculating on the shooter’s gender as if there is some sort of correlation between being trans and being a murderer is a scapegoat; taking the easy way out of a complex and scary event and refusing to acknowledge the fact that this could have been avoided.

None of that is to say that killing is justified, but allowing oneself to say it’s “just another crazy kid” is as harmful to say that it’s “just another shooting”; like these situations are unavoidable. Like there was nowhere along the way that this kid could have been steered down the right path, or someone could have recognized the changes in behavior and stopped this before it started. 

The more that the murder of these innocent children and teachers becomes “just another crazy kid” the less these shootings become what they are: Tragedies that should shock us, but unfortunately do not due to their commonality. 

We are failing our youth, and some are more content to spread the headline that paints it as some monster infiltrating the schools instead of asking themselves the difficult questions. 

We need to ask why some of our youths feel so inconceivably angry, alone, and disconsolate to be compelled to do this. We need to ask how valuable our guns are when the cost might be an innocent child’s life. We need to ask what could have been done to keep this girl who was once just a normal kid from becoming a murderer. 

We need to ask; should our children, our siblings, our friends, feel fear within the walls of their school? Should our teachers wear bulletproof vests? Should we invest in bulletproof book bags and throw our tax dollars at metal detectors? 

How many kids must die for people to understand that these are not natural disasters– not forces of nature that simply happen, twisters and earthquakes and tsunamis that we just need to stay out of the way of– but the result of ignorance and refusal to recognize that we can stop these tragedies before they happen.