What is happening?

Dear Editor,

   On May 1, 2024, a 14-year-old male was shot and killed by police outside Mount Horeb Middle School.  The young teen was attempting to enter the school with a weapon.  On December 16, 2024, a 15-year-old female, shot and killed two people and injured six others inside Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.  One of the deceased was 14 years old. The shooter then killed herself.

On May 19, 2015, two recent graduates from UW-Platteville were involved in a murder-suicide inside Wilgus Hall, on the campus of UW-Platteville. Both females were twenty-two years old at the time of the shooting.  On July 15, 2025, a woman was killed in her home in Dodgeville by a 23-year-old male who wanted her car.

And the latest mass shooting took place just a few days ago on August 27, 2025, at Annunciation Catholic Church/School in Minneapolis during morning Mass. The alleged shooter killed two and injured 18 others.  The two very young male victims who died, were eight and ten years old!  The shooter, who was twenty-three, then committed suicide.

How does one explain these terrible acts of violence?  As a graduate of UW-Platteville with a degree in Criminal Justice, I am familiar with many theories of criminal, deviant, and abnormal behavior but yet, I continue to be stunned at the level of escalating violence we have seen in our country since the mass shooting that took at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. The ages of the shooters and victims in these and other similar crimes is hard to comprehend.

Our modern culture with its 24/7 instant availability of the most graphic and violent images displayed everyday through television, live-streaming, video games, music, social media, and movies can potentially have a negative impact on human behavior.  It is estimated that by the time a child reaches 18, he or she will have seen over "200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders on television". What's happening in our schools, churches, businesses, homes, and streets is not entertainment but real flesh and blood.

Yes, the experts will search for clues and motives that led to these shootings in each individual case but let's be clear, in an age of easily accessible firearms, and a culture that glorifies and celebrates violence through the above-mentioned technology, we will continue to see mayhem in our nation.

Patrick Hardyman, 

Blanchardville, WI