Georgia school shooting sends a warning to parents: Don't downplay the dangers of guns
There are parents who do the responsible thing when it comes to firearms: Show their children how to properly use a gun, perhaps for hunting, self-defense or sport, and then unload the weapon and lock it away.
There are other parents or guardians, however, who are far less conscientious, making careless or even reckless choices and woefully failing their children, who then end up hurting others.
Colin Gray could have surprised his son on Christmas morning with a Super Soaker water gun or a foam pellet-shooting plastic toy adolescents use for horseplay. Instead, he gifted Colt Gray with an AR-15 style rifle that the 14-year-old allegedly used in Wednesday's deadly school shooting in Georgia, law enforcement sources told a few media outlets.
The holiday present was given just months after Gray and Colt, then 13, were questioned by police about anonymous online posts threatening a school shooting in May 2023. Colt, who reportedly had a tumultuous home life, denied authoring the posts, and there wasn't enough evidence for an arrest.
We don't know what the elder Gray was thinking, but at 54, he is certainly old enough to know better than to hand a troubled child the type of killing machine that has often been used in previous mass shootings, including the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre in which 21 people, the majority of them children ages 9-11, were killed.
Gray isn't the first parent prosecutors have sought to hold accountable for their children's roles in mass shootings.
Earlier this year, Jennifer and James Crumbley of Michigan were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and neglecting signs of their son’s declining mental health before the 15-year-old killed four students and wounded seven other people at his high school three years ago. The gun, Jennifer Crumbley said on social media, was an early Christmas gift.
Here in the Chicago area, the Highland Park parade shooting suspect’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., was given jail time late last year after pleading to a misdemeanor for helping his son get a firearm owner’s identification card when he was underage.
A volatile mix: Guns, teens with depression
Gray, who was held in custody like his son after a back-to-back court appearance Friday, is facing even more serious consequences for what Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey described as “knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon.”
Gray could be locked away for a maximum 180 years if he's convicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children, a judge informed him. The severe sentence could match his son's if the boy is found guilty of murder and receives the most severe sentence for someone under 18: life without parole.
Gray is the first parent of an alleged school shooter to be charged with murder, amplifying the message many Americans, disgusted by gun violence, want to send to careless guardians: If you give a child a weapon, be prepared to pay the price for what he or she might do with it.
The median age of a school shooter is 16, according to a Washington Post database. Combine that sobering fact with the refusal of many adults to back common sense gun legislation and their increasing willingness to purchase weapons for minors — and our nation's schools will, more and more, resemble battlefields.
Even if parents don't buy their child a gun, the firearms they buy for themselves pose a risk.
More parents with teenagers purchased firearms during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a national survey conducted by the Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens, or FACTS, Consortium revealed in 2021. One in 7 of the households that purchased a gun also had a teen with depression, researchers also found.
Parents don't have complete control over a child or teen's actions. They can't be with them 24/7 to monitor their behavior, or discipline them if they are out of line. And children could borrow a gun from a peer, or figure out the combination of a safe where a weapon is kept.
But if parents arm their children and then ignore red flags, they should be ready to share the blame for any resulting bloodshed.
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