Madison school shooting is the lesson that keeps repeating itself

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

•••

Once again, America is plunged into national grief, anger, disgust (pick a noun) over a deadly school shooting and forced to confront the intractable “why” question.

Why does this keep happening?

This time, the horror unfolded at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, where a 15-year-old female student entered a study hall and shot and killed a fellow student and teacher before shooting herself, said Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes. Two other students who were shot were in critical condition.

Killed in the shooting were student Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, of Madison and teacher Erin Michelle West, 42. They were allegedly shot by student Natalie Rupnow, who authorities say was in touch via text with a 20-year-old California man, who may have been planning a separate attack on a government facility. That man was detained and questioned by the FBI but as of Thursday afternoon had not been arrested or charged in connection with the Wisconsin shooting.

Women and girls very rarely pick up a firearm and commit mass murder. But that doesn’t make incidents of mass shooting attacks rare. Far from it. As of Dec. 17, there have been 491 mass shooting cases in the United States in 2024 so far, according to the database maintained by Gun Violence Archive (GVA). The deadliest incident occurred in the Chicago suburb Joliet on Jan. 21 in which eight people were killed, including two teenagers.

GVA defines a mass shooting as one with “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”

And the organization reports 971 cases of school shootings nationally so far this year. Their database has tracked 112 school shootings in which at least one person was injured or killed. The deadliest of those took place in the Atlanta suburb of Winder on Sep. 4 at Apalachee High School. Four people were killed.

As of press time Thursday, it remained under investigation how and where the shooter got the two guns she brought to school. The fact that she had access to the weapons is another deadly reminder of the struggle to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, suicidal or those with premeditated intent to kill. Minnesota made some progress on gun laws earlier this year when lawmakers passed stronger straw gun purchase laws and enhanced background checks.

However, as the Star Tribune Editorial Board has long argued, Congress must approve national gun safety laws including bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, ways to track “ghost guns,” universal background checks and a national red flag laws that prohibit at-risk people from having firearms.

As President Joe Biden said in supporting those changes, “Every child deserves to feel safe in their class room. Students across our country should be learning how to read and write — not having to learn how to duck and cover.”

“We can never accept senseless violence that traumatizes children, their families, and tears entire communities apart.”

The unspeakable happened in Wisconsin this week. Perhaps, we should simply stop calling school shootings unspeakable because they keep happening. The clock is already running on the next one.

Our children deserve better.