Caffeinated Politics

Tragic in every sense of the word.  Even more tragic is that this type of story about gun violence is all too common.

The teen murder-suicide on Madison’s East Side in which a 16-year-old died from his injuries Friday, the day after a 19-year-old man shot him and then killed himself.

The 16-year-old was close to the suspect’s sister, police spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said Sunday.

Police were called Thursday to a home in the 400 block of North Lawn Avenue at about 9:20 a.m. and found the two people shot. They reported later that the 19-year-old shooter had died, while the other teen had been taken to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Family members were home at the time of the shooting, police said.

Two teenagers are dead because of an apparent difference over a girl. A moment of adolescent verbal jousting, a kind of conflict that, in a healthier society, would have ended in slammed doors, angry texts, or maybe a bruised ego. Instead, it ended in a murder‑suicide. Two young lives gone. Two families are shattered. Madison Police Chief John Patterson told reporters last week that what happened will leave a lifetime of lasting trauma. Meanwhile, Madison is again asking how something so senseless could happen.

We already know the answer.

There are simply too many guns, in too many hands, with too few barriers between a moment of impulsive emotion and irreversible tragedy.

Full stop.

Teenagers have always fought over love, pride, insecurity, and heartbreak. That’s not new. What is new is the ease with which a teenager can reach for a weapon capable of ending a life in seconds. When a gun is present, the line between anger and catastrophe collapses. A bad decision becomes a fatal one. A moment of panic becomes a headline.

I am so tired of writing about gun violence. Be it in Madison, Maine, or Montana, where a former United States soldier killed four people last summer and made national news for bringing a gun to a bar. That deadly combo of alcohol and guns ranks up there with teenagers, heightened emotions, and a gun.

We talk about “personal responsibility” when it comes to guns. But responsibility means nothing when the tools of destruction are everywhere, normalized, and absurdly accessible. We talk about “mental health,” but differences about who dates whom and impulsivity are not mental illnesses. This all comes with being young. Not having a foundation of experiences to fall back on for guidance in how to navigate the path of life. Others will talk about “protecting our kids,” yet we continue to surround them with the very objects that kill more American children and teens than anything else.

We all simply need to grow the hell up. We do not need to ask how this happened in Madsion. To our youth.

If that gun had not been available, if it had been locked away, or if the household didn’t allow for guns to be in the home, those two teenagers would almost certainly be alive today. They would be in school, complaining about homework, texting friends, and planning their futures. Instead, we are left with funerals and what‑ifs.

This isn’t about taking away anyone’s identity or culture or undermining the Second Amendment. It’s about acknowledging reality: when a society floods itself with firearms, it floods itself with preventable death. No amount of training, slogans, or “good guy with a gun” mythology changes the physics of a bullet or the impulsiveness of adolescence.

We all simply need to grow the hell up.

We can keep pretending these tragedies are isolated. Or we can finally admit that the common denominator is the weapon, not the moment.

Guns don’t just escalate violence — they create it. They turn arguments into homicides. They turn despair into suicide. They turn teenage heartbreak into a murder scene.

This makes our city sad, angry, and, oh, wait, that network television show is about to start…..