2024 Sets Disturbing Record with 83rd School Shooting, the Most in U.S. History
A 17-year-old female opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin on the morning of December 16th, 2024.
Americans picked up their phones during work and school today to see an all too familiar headline: “3 dead, including suspect, in shooting at Madison’s Abundant Life Christian School”. Most react to that headline with a cacophony of emotions, likely including horror, heartbreak, and despair, but also exhaustion and anger. Parents throughout Madison, Wisconsin froze in terror this morning as they received news that someone had entered Abundant Life Christian School, a nondenominational private K-12 school, and opened fire.
At 10:57 am local time, officers responded to a 911 call reporting an active shooter situation unfolding at ALCS. When they arrived on the scene, they found “multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds”. Fortunately, medics who work with the police department were training at a facility only three miles away. According to the department, no officers fired a weapon, and the shooter was found dead upon police arrival. Although there is no official cause of death from the coroner’s office, it has been reported that the shooter, a 17-year-old female student attending the school, died from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Abundant Life Christian School has an enrollment of 390 students, according to its website. Fox News falsely reported an enrollment of 200 students. Our investigation has determined that this false figure was accidentally assumed from a phrase in the “About” section of the ALCS website that states “[a]pproximately 200 families from some 56 different churches in the greater Dane County area, including metropolitan Madison and its surrounding communities, are represented in the student body.” It was likely inferred that 200 families meant 200 students, but that ignores the presence of siblings.
Speaking of mistakes, Madison Police made a scarier slip-up this afternoon when, around 1:50 pm Eastern, they announced that the death toll had risen from three people to five people. Within a half-hour, they corrected themselves and restated that the death toll was 3, including the shooter. These types of errors are common but unacceptable. It is known to be a risky decision to announce death tolls to the public immediately following new information being learned internally. The reasons for this are clear. First, the death toll is likely to change as time goes on, and most of the time this means that it will increase. Second, police departments should do everything possible to notify families before releasing information to the public. Theoretically, when a death count is increased by one death and announced to the public, all families who have not yet been able to verify the safety of their loved ones are immediately distressed. Finally, sometimes information is spread recklessly, causing death tolls to inaccurately rise, like in this case.
Six students were hospitalized at multiple local hospitals, including St. Mary’s Hospital and several University of Wisconsin hospitals. Two students are known to be in critical condition, with life-threatening injuries, and are still hospitalized as of the writing of this article.
The female suspect used a 9-millimeter pistol in the killings and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is trying to determine its origin.
There are two eyebrow-raising aspects of this shooting: the shooter is female and the Abundant Life Christian School does not have a school resource officer.
The shooter’s gender changes nothing for those impacted by this horrible tragedy, but it is a unique aspect of the case nonetheless. According to a Mother Jones analysis of United States mass shootings from 1982 to September 2024, which includes “indiscriminate rampages in public places resulting in four or more victims killed by the attacker” and excludes gang violence, armed robberies, and instances in which the perpetrators have not been identified, 96.7% of mass shootings are perpetrated by men. The retrospective study includes 151 mass shootings. Of these, 146 mass shootings were perpetrated by individuals identifying as male, 3 were perpetrated by individuals identifying as female, and 2 had both male and female perpetrators. Of course, it’s important to point out that should the death toll (not including the shooter) remain at two, this shooting would not meet the standard that the Mother Jones database requires. However, the data is interesting and important, regardless.
Secondly, the absence of a school resource officer (SRO) will have many questioning the impact that the presence of one may have had. According to a study published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management in July 2023, the presence of an SRO in schools “reduces fights and threats by about 30 percent and increases detection of firearms by about 150 percent.” Many debate the effectiveness of school resource officers despite these facts, since “schools with SROs [see] between a 35 and 80 percent increase in out-of-school suspensions, and a 25 to 90 percent increase in expulsions.” Suspensions and expulsions increase the most among Black students and students with disabilities, further contributing to the controversy. Further, a study conducted in February 2021 by researchers at Hamline University and Metropolitan State University found that the rate of deaths in schools with an armed guard present was 2.83 times greater than in schools without one. School resource officers come with tradeoffs for a school district, but there is little doubt whether the families of the victims in Madison would mind the potential downsides.
This shooting, like every other, is bound to suffer from politicization from all angles. But, is this necessarily a bad thing? Less than a half-day since the shooting has elapsed, and President Biden has called on Congress to act immediately. “Congress must pass commonsense gun safety laws: Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” More information about the origins of the weapon used in today’s shooting is likely to come out soon, but it is more likely than not that none of these measures could have prevented the attack in Madison. Critics argue that statements like these build more political tension that is unnecessary during a tragic time such as this, but we must remember one thing: this problem is uniquely American. The biggest problem with the President’s statement is that the incoming administration and Congress are unlikely to place any priority on “gun safety laws” or any other forms of gun control. Four years of “thoughts and prayers” are unlikely to get us any closer to safe American schools, and that is a tragedy in itself.
School officials at Abundant Life Christian School have yet to decide whether or not classes will restart this week, but its unlikely. According to their website, ALCS scheduled “No School beginning Monday, December 23, and continuing through New Year’s Day.” Therefore, this Friday was set to be their last educational day of 2024. Given today’s tragic events, ALCS will likely resume classes on the 2nd of January of the New Year.