Caffeinated Politics

Twenty years ago, I was pressing in letters to the editor of newspapers and in blog posts that parents of children who use guns for death and destruction and have been aided by said parents with access to the deadly weapons must be held legally accountable. We can all be angry about the level of gun violence in our nation. We can also note with approval the growing legal steps that place responsibility for some of these atrocities exactly where they need to land.

The case against the father of the Abundant Life Christian School shooter will continue after a judge denied a motion Thursday to dismiss the complaint filed against him.

Rupnow is charged with two counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a child. He is accused of giving his 15-year-old daughter access to guns despite knowledge of her ongoing mental health struggles.

Rupnow’s daughter killed two people and hurt six more before dying by suicide in a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison on Dec. 16, 2024.

Prosecutors argued Rupnow’s attorneys filed the motion to dismiss too late under state law. Wisconsin Stat. § 971.31(5)(c) holds that, in felony cases, objections to the “insufficiency of the complaint” must be made before the preliminary hearing.

Online court records show a preliminary hearing in Rupnow’s case was held on July 24, 2025. The motion to dismiss was filed on Aug. 18, 2025.

In her ruling Thursday, Judge Ellen Berz agreed with the prosecution that Rupnow’s challenge to the complaint was filed too late and denied the motion.

Needless to say, rational and reasonable people are not in the camp of allowing parents to escape responsibility to society when it comes to guns and children. Nor are they interested in legal maneuvers aimed at mitigating the death of two people and the injuries to six others. They also know that the suicide of the shooter, a teenager, is another sad and devastating result of access to weapons.

We’ve built this bizarre cultural bubble where parents can hand their children a weapon capable of killing and injuring many people in seconds. The shooter, Natalie Rupnow, carried two pistols, the Glock and a .22-caliber Sig Sauer P322—along with high-capacity magazines and extra ammunition, but primarily used the 9mm for the attack. So, when the inevitable happens, we cannot tiptoe around the obvious. The gun was not teleported into the teenager’s hands. Nor were the bullets delivered by the Tooth Fairy. And parents in these situations are not just humble spectators in the unfolding events.

Meanwhile, if a parent leaves a bottle of bleach on the counter and a child drinks it, we don’t shrug and say, “Well, accidents happen.” We call it what it is: reckless endangerment. But swap the bleach for a Glock, and suddenly we’re supposed to treat it like a constitutional rite of passage.

I am not a parent, but it is easy to understand how parents love to believe their child is the exception. The one shining example of a child immune to impulse, anger, depression, bullying, curiosity, or plain old adolescent stupidity. But here’s the harsh, deadly truth. The only thing a child needs for a dangerous outcome with guns is access.

And when parents provide that access, whether through a gift, a wink‑and‑nod, they are creating the conditions for violence. Not hypothetically. Not theoretically. Statistically.

We can’t keep wringing our hands after every school shooting, every accidental discharge, every preventable death, and then let the adults who enabled it walk away with nothing more than a sad‑face statement to the local news. If you give a child access to a gun — by gift, by negligence, by sheer irresponsibility — and that child uses it to harm someone, then you should be held legally accountable.

Full stop.