A Wisconsin judge has ruled that the father of a school shooter can face trial on charges of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor after his daughter used guns in his home to carry out her attack.
The shooting at Abundant Life Christian School last December claimed the lives of a teacher and student and injured six others before the 15-year-old attacker (who will not be named by Bearing Arms) took her own life. The teen's family reportedly cooperated with investigators in the wake of the attack, with the girl's father, Jeffrey Rupnow, telling police that he had bought her several firearms as a way to connect with her after her parents divorce in 2022.
Rupnow maintained that he kept the guns locked in a safe, but in May prosecutors charged him with multiple felonies for supposedly supplying the guns she used to carry out the attack.
... Rupnow looked on in silence Thursday as his attorney, Lisa Goldman, argued that he acted reasonably. Many Wisconsin parents teach their children how to shoot and [name redacted by Bearing Arms] passed a gun safety course, but he still took the extra step of keeping their guns in a safe, she said.
Rupnow had no reason to think giving her guns would cause more problems, Goldman said. He didn’t know how to access her social media accounts, [she] rarely let him into her room and her therapy records from 2021 to the spring of 2024 showed no indication of suicidal thoughts, Goldman added.
Rupnow told Natalie that the gun safe code was his Social Security number in reverse but never gave her the actual number, Goldman continued. She questioned whether Natalie’s mother may have given her the number, pointing out that police never checked her mother’s electronic devices.
While the teen's therapy records might have shown no indication of suicidal thoughts, Rupnow himself told investigators that she had stated after her parents' divorce that she "hated her life" and wanted to kill herself. In fact, Rupnow told police that his daughter had cut herself frequently enough that he felt the need to lock up all of the knives in his home. Based on the reporting it's not clear when that happened or how long he felt the need to keep his knives locked up, but it does appear that Rupnow was concerned about his daughter's mental health.
As for not having access to her social media accounts or not being "let" into her room, I'd say that how much privacy to give our kids is something that many parents struggle with. It's hard for me to throw shade at Rupnow for not just barging in to his daughter's room or monitoring her devices because I never felt the need to do that with my own kids. It's also easy to argue after the fact that Rupnow was giving his daughter too much freedom, but he could also have genuinely believed that removing any expectation of privacy would only have made their relationship worse.
She had been in therapy to learn how to be more social until the spring before the attack, he told investigators. Her mother, Melissa Rupnow, told detectives that the therapist told her that [name redacted by Bearing Arms] was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the divorce. One of Natalie’s friends told investigators that Jeffrey Rupnow was “frequently verbally aggressive” with [name redacted by BA] and that she had told him that her father was a “drinker,” according to the complaint.
Jeffery Rupnow told investigators that took [his daughter] shooting with him on a friend’s land about two years before the Abundant Life attack. She enjoyed it, and he came to see guns as a way to connect with her. But he was shocked at how her interest in firearms “snow balled,” he told investigators.
He kept [her] pistols in a gun safe, telling her that if she ever need them the access code was his Social Security number entered backward. About 10 days before the school attack, he texted a friend and said that [she] would shoot him if he left “the fun safe open right now,” according to the complaint.
Honestly, based on that text is sounds like Rupnow didn't believe his daughter could access the guns in the safe. If he didn't want her to be able to do so, though, why even a hint about the combination?
According to the criminal complaint, about two weeks after the shooting Rupnow texted a police detective and told them that his "biggest mistake" was teaching his daughter how to handle guns safely.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with teaching your kids how to be safe and responsible with a firearm. Millions of families participate in the shooting sports together, and in the vast majority of cases neither the parents nor the kids go on to commit a crime with a gun... even when their interest "snowballs".
But if our kids are struggling mentally and emotionally, it's also okay to temporarily remove those guns from the home. In Wisconsin there are a number of gun shops that will store firearms for gun owners no questions asked and for a low fee, including at least one near Madison. I don't know, though, if Rupnow was aware that was an option, or even if he had reason to believe that his daughter was still suicidal (and was homicidal as well) last December.
I suppose it will be up to a jury to figure out the answer to those questions, and to decide whether Rupnow intentionally gave his daughter access to the guns that she used to carry out her attack. Making a mistake and forgetting to put a gun back in a safe doesn't meet the definition of the crime that Rupnow is charged with, and even the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor isn't a slam dunk for prosecutors, since they once again have to show that Rupnow was either intentionally encouraging or contributing to her attack at Abundant Life or was acting with disregard for his daughter's welfare.
Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back I'm sure that Rupnow would have done a lot of things differently. I'm just not convinced at this point that he intentionally allowed his daughter access to the guns in the home, much less commit murder. I understand the desire to hold someone accountable for a heinous crime like this, but it's entirely possible that the blame rests entirely with the shooter herself... and that punishing Jeffrey Rupnow for his daughter's actions would be a miscarriage of justice.
