The implicit argument as Jennifer and James Crumbley were charged and ultimately convicted of murders committed not by them, but their son, was that the circumstances, the evidence, was so unique that this mom, this dad, deserved to be held accountable for their miscreant son, Ethan. After all, they gave him a gun as a Christmas present and they knew of his propensity for violence. What are the chances that would happen again?
[Colin] Gray rocked back and forth in shackles and prison stripes on Friday morning as the charges against him were read. His son had just been charged with murder for opening fire at Apalachee High School, killing two students and two teachers. Next came the charges against the white-haired Mr. Gray, including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for allowing his son access to the gun even though, prosecutors say, Mr. Gray knew the boy was a threat to himself and others.
The very next school shooting. Colt Gray’s father committed no crime himself, but a tragedy occurred and sacrificing a 14-year-old school boy is no longer sufficient to sate the public lust.
These prosecutions satisfy the public desire to blame somebody. If you don’t like guns, shaming and punishing the parents feels like landing a righteous blow against gun culture. If you do like guns, it’s a bit like the predictable invocation of mental health by politicians — diverting attention from the weapons themselves and suggesting, instead, that the problem is a few bad apples among the owners. Most insidiously, though, these prosecutions set a murky legal precedent for questionable parenting while camouflaging the abject failure of the federal and state governments to adequately regulate gun safety and stop mass shootings.
But what of the legal culpability of a father for the murderous crimes of the son?
In the Georgia case, liability would depend on what precisely the parents knew. It has been reported that the FBI previously interviewed the school shooter because of online threats. Certainly, if the parents were aware that the teenager represented a credible danger to the school, they would have had the obligation to control him, including (most obviously) by not supplying the child with a rifle. But reports indicate that the child denied making the threats and the FBI could not find probable cause (a very low evidentiary standard) that he did so. It is doubtful that one unsubstantiated allegation months earlier that a child made threats would place parents on notice that a child may be violent now.
Much of this analysis derives from civil negligence law, rendering its applicability to criminal law dubious. But if the facts are insufficient to sustain a negligence claim, how could they possibly be enough for criminal culpability?
At the end of the day, however, it is not clear whether these legal technicalities will matter. We may be witnessing a development in the law of parental responsibility. Although school shootings and mass shootings are rare (they make up a small fraction of all homicides), they terrify the population far more than ordinary street violence. Americans may have had enough, and they may want the law to develop in a direction to impose a more substantial duty on parents to keep firearms away from minors. Guns are not the only dangerous instrumentality to which minors have access; cars cause thousands of deaths each year, too. If the law evolves, it remains to be seen whether it will be a “gun exception” to normal rules of parental responsibility or whether the law will impose stronger duties on parents in other domains as well.
If death by car seems too much of a stretch, even though cars can be every bit as deadly, what about a butcher knife?
As a thought exercise, let’s imagine that Colt Gray, instead of smuggling a gun into school, as he is accused of doing, took a butcher knife from his kitchen and stabbed his classmates to death. Would we be prosecuting his father? Of course not, you say. A knife is a normal household item, and there’s no law against leaving one unattended, no matter how it ends up getting used. But a gun, like it or not, is also a normal item in countless American homes.
Beyond the fact that there are guns in many homes, it is critical to bear in mind that school shootings are extremely rare despite pervasive fear. What parent would knowingly let his child have a gun if he truly believed he would take it to school and murder his classmates? Contending that a father should have known that his child presented a significant risk of danger is far easier after the fact than before.
Parsing the family dynamics, the tell-tale signs that a child is about to commit murder, to fit them into a fact pattern to muster parental blame looks entirely different before a child brings a gun to school and fires. Indeed, it may look relatively normal, as so many young people suffer from anxiety and depression and yet do nothing to harm anyone else, even though there are guns in the home.
Going after the parents in the absence of adequate gun laws is, in truth, a kind of scapegoating — displaying a head on a stake to satisfy the rage of a desperate crowd. We shouldn’t wait for kids and teachers to be gunned down, then punish the parents by having jurors try to read their minds and judge their parenting.
And yet, convicting a child for being a murderous child has proven insufficient to satisfy the public desire for retribution. After all, the child is still a child, likely to make terrible choices, including one to bring a gun to school and use it. No, someone more readily hateable is needed, even though the parent pulled no trigger and harmed no one. The argument is that maybe criminal culpability will make such parents take greater precautions to prevent their child from killing. As if the parent wouldn’t have done better had he known. But nobody knows beforehand, while everybody knows afterward.
Isn’t it a fact that laws have slowly changed, inane that might be, and against all common sense, and it’s now often the principle of guilty until proven innocent that applies? Is it not been happening for a long time when it comes to civil asset forfeiture, one of the greatest areas of abuse? If blood is required to appease the masses, why not sacrifice the parents as scapegoats, stupid it may be?
The word ‘scapegoating,’ as mentioned above and originating from Leviticus, reminded me of the biblical passage in Deuteronomy where God declares, ‘I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’ This suggests that holding parents accountable for the crimes of their children is a rather old idea. Or, as Ecclesiastes puts it, ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’
P.S. In the spirit of the “retweet ≠ endorsement” disclaimer, I must add that I place parental punishment in the same category as the Bible’s endorsement of slavery, the taking of war brides, and capital punishment for homosexuality—to say nothing of the banning of bacon, especially the maple-flavored crispy kind. In other words, it’s all completely abhorrent
Whenever gun posts come up, people without a grasp of the subject matter involved make all kinds of errors in the comments.
The example (Deuteronomy 5:9) is holding children responsible for the crimes of the parent.
The example of a parent being held accountable would be the opposite. Try Deuteronomy 21:18:
If God won’t hold parents accountable for the rebellious son… who are we to argue?
I’ve come to the realization that I have no real understand of guns or gun culture that prevails in other places, so I keep my mouth shut and leave it to more knowledgeable people.
Like Justice Dwyer, it all seems crazy to me, but that says more about me and the limits of my understanding than about the problem.
This case appears to differ substantially from the Michigan case. The child in that incident made clear ideations about violence and the school had brought his parents in to address it in the hours before the shots were fired. This case may be different enough to draw a gray line.
But, as a general rule, I tend to think that if a gun is where a kid can access it without supervision, the parent is culpable for what transpires — threats or not. Guns, booze and cars don’t belong in kids hands.
Some parents reasonably want their teenagers to have access to the family firearms in case of a house invasion. Such parents have an obligation to teach their kids the rules and practices of firearm safety. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of American teenagers are trained by parents in firearm safety. Most kids get it and very few kids shoot up their schools. Burglaries and homestead invasions are more common than school shootings. But many kids know where the family guns are in case of an emergency where their parents are incapacitated or the kids are home alone. That is probably a good thing.
I’ve got no general problem with purchasing a firearm for your child. But supervising their usage of firearms and otherwise securing them is a fundamental part of responsible firearm ownership. Taking the sensationalism of a school shooting out of the picture, if your child gets access to your firearms and kills someone, you should be held responsible. We don’t need to look at “what were the warning signs, should they have known better, blah blah blah.” Is no different than a 4yo getting hold of your handgun from the nightstand and accidental shooting his cousin. Secure it from children when not in use.
All over Heller and McDonald and Bruen is the notion that the handgun is the essential weapon (if any) for home defense.
This guy apparently gave his kid an “AR-15 platform” weapon. Merry Christmas!
That was not for home defense, and plainly is not a good thing.
First, the type of weapon is largely irrelevant. Giving a 14yo, especially one with a history of violent fantasies/ making threats, unsupervised access to a firearm of any type is obscenely irresponsible.
Second, if there were only one firearm that was protected by the Second Amendment, a pretty good case could be made that it is the “AR-15 platform”.
I take it you are unaware that the AR-15 platform is one of the most popular choices for home defense? I won’t go into whether it is the best choice, that’s a matter of opinion, but it is certainly a popular, common selection.
Well, a lot of people apparently buy them for home defense. It does seem a little strange to get one for a kid. Here in the flats, it would be usual to start a kid out with a pellet rifle or a .22 for target practice and small game hunting. For a lot of kids, even that might be kept in their dad’s locker when they weren’t on a supervised excursion.
Most of the online commentary around the Internet glosses over the point that the FBI found nothing, and deems the inquiry itself sufficient to have put the father on notice that his kid was a sociopathic killing machine.
It remains to be seen what the state will have for evidence at trial, but as in the previous case, the charges can be used to extensively destroy the parent’s personal life and finances before the case ever gets to trial.
Will this parental culpability be extended to the parents of urban gang members doing drive by shootings or is that racist?
By this standard would Adam Lanza’s mother have faced criminal charges if he had not murdered her to gain access to the locked gun cabinet? This feels like bad law, of the sort that will have a victim’s name attached to the inevitable legislation
There are actually a few factors at play here. There’s, arguably, a measure of negligence involved any time someone leaves a firearm where a child might find it. This is somewhat in conflict with/ must be balanced against the fact that if one needs a firearm to defend themselves, they need it immediately.
Knowing, as it appears the father did here, that a child has a predisposition/ inclination toward violence tips the scales toward keeping firearms secured.
FWIW, Lanza’s mother might be more akin to Gray’s, while the parents of kids doing drive-by shootings would have a much lower level of responsibility if the gun(s) being used were not their own.
There was a case, a few years ago, where a 10 or 12 year old boy used his father’s AR-15 to defend himself/ his sister against a home invader. Granted, this is an anomaly, but despite the claims that school shootings are “epidemic”, so to are events like the one in the OP.
[Ed. Note: Links deleted per rules.]
The evidence that I read is that a meaningful predictor of criminal behavior in a child is the criminal histories of their parents….in other words, genetic causes.
So, if you have a criminal history and have a child, can you be held responsible for that child’s illegal behavior? It’s probably as strong of a predictor than anything that could be assessed in a mental health exam or having a gun in the house.
Mrs. Gray had a criminal history. Why is she not being charged?