CONTENT WARNING: Self-Harm
On December 16, 2024, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow walked into Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, with two handguns and opened fire during a study hall full of students from multiple grades.
By the time it was over, teacher Erin Michelle West and freshman Rubi Vergara were dead, six other people were wounded, and Natalie had killed herself. Authorities later said she fired at least 20 rounds during the attack, meaning she stopped to reload before continuing.
This was not some impulsive outburst that lasted five seconds. Investigators say she planned this thing out in detail, even building a cardboard model of the school beforehand like some kind of twisted arts and crafts project from hell.
As more information came out over the following months, one detail stood above all the others because it was so unbelievably reckless.
Natalie’s father, Jeffrey Rupnow, had bought one of the guns for her as a Christmas present. Yes, really. One of the weapons used in the shooting was literally a Christmas gift from dear old dad. Another firearm was partially paid for with Natalie’s own money, but it was still purchased under Jeffrey Rupnow’s name because she was fifteen years old and legally could not buy a handgun herself.
This is a recurring theme in these shootings. The Crumbleys bought Ethan Crumbley a gun for Christmas. Colin Gray allegedly bought his son the rifle used in the Apalachee High School shooting. Apparently there are parents out there who look at a troubled teenager and think, “You know what would really brighten their holiday season? Guns designed for maximum exit wounds.”
Natalie was not exactly hiding her mental health struggles either. According to reports, she had been in therapy for PTSD after her parents’ divorce. She reportedly threatened suicide, engaged in self-harm, and cut herself often enough that Jeffrey Rupnow locked up the knives in the house.
Think about how insane this is for a second. The man allegedly realized his daughter could not safely be around kitchen knives but still thought handguns were perfectly fine. That’s like taking the matches away from an arsonist while handing them a flamethrower.
Back in May 2025, Jeffrey Rupnow was finally arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a child along with two felony counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to someone under 18, resulting in death. Prosecutors argued that he gave Natalie access to the guns she ultimately brought into the school.
Police said Rupnow admitted he told Natalie that the gun safe combination was his Social Security number backwards “just in case” she ever needed to get inside. He also reportedly allowed her to pack firearms for trips to the shooting range because he did not feel like he needed to “babysit” her around guns. The day before the massacre, he allegedly handed her one of the pistols so she could clean it and later claimed he could not remember whether he locked the weapon back up afterward.
Now comes the latest development, and frankly it’s ridiculous.
Jeffrey Rupnow’s attorney recently tried to get the charges thrown out entirely, arguing that he did not actually give Natalie access to the guns because he only gave her a “clue” to the safe combination instead of directly telling her the code.
I understand defense attorneys have to try everything they can for their clients. But come on. This argument sounds less like a serious legal defense and more like something a teenager says after getting caught sneaking out of the house.
“I did not technically give her the code, Your Honor. I simply gave her a puzzle where the answer happened to be the code.”
It’s the legal argument equivalent of “nuh-uh.”
The defense also argued that Natalie accessed the guns without Jeffrey Rupnow’s knowledge or consent and used them in a way that violated the gun safety education he gave her.
Again, this completely ignores the bigger issue. Nobody is accusing him of telling his daughter, “Hey, go shoot up your school.” The problem is that he allegedly normalized guns in the home to such an extent that a mentally unstable fifteen-year-old girl had practical access to multiple handguns. A reportedly suicidal teenager, fascinated with mass shooters and building a cardboard model of her school, somehow still ended up with firearms in her bedroom.
Thankfully, the judge didn’t buy it.
The Dane County judge denied the request to dismiss the charges and ruled that the case can move forward. She also rejected the defense argument that prosecuting Rupnow violated his Second Amendment rights. In her ruling, she stated that laws preventing minors from having unsupervised access to firearms are consistent with longstanding American firearm regulations. Let’s hear it for common sense.
That shouldn’t even be controversial. The Second Amendment was not written so people could hand guns to deeply troubled teenagers and then shrug afterward when bodies start piling up. Although you could think it might be in today’s political climate. Cue the gun nerds whose only argument is posting ‘SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED’ on social media.
If you tell your kid how to figure out the safe combination, let them handle the guns regularly, allow them to pack firearms for range trips, and allegedly leave a pistol unsecured the day before a school shooting, you don’t get to act shocked that they managed to access the weapons.
At some point, the ‘responsible gun owner™’ fantasy crashes into reality. Jeffrey Rupnow did not just own guns. According to investigators, he made them part of Natalie’s everyday environment. One of them was even wrapped up as a Christmas present. Now two innocent people are dead, six others are wounded, and his legal team is trying to argue that giving a teenager the safe combination in code somehow isn’t the same as leaving the safe wide open.
Good luck with that.
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