In an editorial titled “Parents and School Shooters”, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) delves into the complex issue of parental responsibility in school shootings, focusing on the case of Colin Gray, who faces criminal charges after his 14-year-old son murdered four people at a Georgia high school. The editorial in the WSJ, one of the few “main stream” media outlets to not sell its soul to the left and still provide reasonably balanced, informative and thought-provoking new coverage, explores the legal and ethical questions surrounding whether parents should be held liable when their children commit such heinous acts with firearms from the home. With references to similar cases, like the Crumbleys in Michigan, the Journal emphasizes that while holding parents accountable may be justified when clear negligence is involved (and even emotionally satisfying to those looking for someone to pay for such unfathomable acts), the law must still require firm evidence of culpability. The piece also highlights the need for enhanced school security measures, lamenting that while these steps are unfortunate necessities, they are crucial in preventing future tragedies and to date, one of the best plans put on the table at keeping our children safe in schools.
Parts of the editorial are posted here for those who cannot access it online:
“Should parents be held criminally liable if a child goes on a shooting spree with a gun from the home? That question is now in sharp public relief with the indictments this week after (a 14-year-old) murdered two students and two adults at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga.
The teenager has been charged with murder as an adult. More unusual is that his 54-year-old father, Colin Gray, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, second degree murder and cruelty to children. If found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The U.S. has been mired for decades in a partisan gun debate that has stymied practical answers for school shootings. The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms, and gun control has become a political and practical dead end.
But Americans are understandably frustrated, angry and searching for other ways to prevent mass murder, especially against children in schools. Holding parents criminally responsible for abuses by their children may make sense when the facts of a case demonstrate negligence or aiding or abetting the child’s commission of a crime.
Georgia authorities clearly feel they have enough facts to warrant a charge against Colin Gray…
…The Georgia facts will be tested in court, and it’s important that laws are written in a way that requires clear parental culpability. School shootings are horrific, and the public desire to cast blame can be strong. There needs to be evidence beyond guilt by parental association.”
In the editorial they quote the school shooter’s extended family members and grandfather, Charlie Polhamus, as saying, “the family home was dysfunctional and Colt’s emotional turmoil was the result of verbal abuse. ‘He was just a good kid, but he lived in an environment that was hostile,’ he (Polhamus) said. While the boy will ‘pay the price’ for the crime, ‘his dad is as guilty as Colt is.’”
In a TTAG article last week, Georgia gun attorney Matthew Kilgo, explained prosecutors will have their work cut out for them because of the specific charges against the elder Gray. The state does not have a safe storage law, and among the initial charges, involuntary manslaughter typically deals with acts other than a felony, which the father has not been charged with.
“The issue centers around whether the father’s act or failure to act [in allowing the juvenile access to the firearm] constituted negligence that a reasonable person would not have committed,” Kilgo said in the article. “It’s so wide and muddy that any act that the state at this point could perceive that the dad took that would have allowed his son to gain access to the gun is probably OK for charging because the level of proof for charging, probable cause, is so many steps down the wrung from beyond reasonable doubt. The problem then becomes that level of proof gets raised extremely high when you go to trial. So, that same level that would cause you to be arrested may not be enough to cause you to be convicted.”
The Journal editorial goes on to stress:
“A second useful focus has to be more school security, as some states and communities are doing. States including Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan have funded security upgrades for school buildings. Utah in March allocated $100 million in one-time funding and $2.1 million in annual funding. In 2023 Georgia allocated $115 million in school security grants…
…Confronting a shooter who is attempting to enter the building is the best chance to prevent horrific loss. Campuses from elementary to high school may need to have an armed security guard or local police officer on duty during the school day…
…It’s a tragedy that such security steps are needed, but the deeper causes of school shootings such as community and family dissolution will require a cultural renaissance. Social media’s bad effects also need to be countered.
But in the near term, increased security and law enforcement are essential, and tragically so is holding parents responsible when their children kill with guns that shouldn’t be in their possession.”
Merely having children and owning guns…will be a crime soon..
When “children kill with guns that shouldn’t be in their possession”?
Children with guns still should not kill. And for a long time, they did not.
In 1900, everything was over the counter – machine guns, cannons, drugs, medicines, chemicals, explosives…
But no TV.
Realistic violence was allowed on TV starting around 1956. The modern era of school shootings started in ’66. Meanwhile, guns and drugs have never been harder to get.
I think that is called a multivariate correlation…
But nearly no divorce. The father was very much still in the home.
Also our country had a universal belief system, that had high expectations for behavior in both public and private.
Children fought each other all the time. But never with guns. The thought never entered their mind. Private religious self-control, which is hated by the atheists, is what stopped guns from being used.
In both children and adults.
In the 1980s High school kids still carried guns to school in their cars. And they weren’t shooting each other back then.
But now children are being medicated on the “orders” of public school teachers. And divorce rates are very high.
A parent who so disengaged as to have no awareness of their child’s mental condition and does not have the common sense not to give that child access to guns probably is a big part of the reason that kid winds up being a school shooter.
Having raised 5 children, and having been a “handful” when I was one, I can say with absolute certainty, that parents are oft the last ones to know a thing.
IF you buy or facilitate your spawn to own a gat yeah you bear some responsibility-especially underaged. If you’re unaware/ brain dead like Columbine perhaps not. We can’t charge the Lanza demon as he murdered mom. The Crumbly killer yes. The July 4th mass murderer in Highland Park ILLANNOY yes. The pos who bought his spawn a gun in Georgia he!! yes! I saw a certain 2A youtube channel disagree. I have a son in his late 40’s who I don’t trust at all🙄 They’ve charged black people in ILLannoy for that!!!
Should we not hold judges criminally liable when they release a violent criminal into the community pending trial then that violent criminal goes on to commit other violent crimes?
How about holding the corrupt attorneys who knowingly and intentionally present perjured testimony to exonerate violent criminals when those violent criminals then commit more violent crimes?
I see your point, but at least we have the failsafe of elections, when it comes to local judges and prosecutors. In theory, that is…
Anyone with half a brain can see the father’s ignorance, he does not even have the sense to leave his drink in the house and stand when speaking to a police officer who is not there to invite the family to a cookout. The father should have taken the matter dead f-ing serious and either removed the son or the weapons or both. Here’s the police interview, connect the h to ttps…
h ttps://youtu.be/g2N2w4gvPsk?feature=shared
Determining responsibility is a rather challenging position. I find it unbelivable that a youth could get an AR size weapon into a school unnoticed or intercepted.
The real issue is this youth was ON the Radar. But he had been moved to a different school. Which because of Juvenile Laws was unaware of his issues.
Now if the father is criminally responsible for this what other violent actions should a parent be responsible for? Could an inner city parent be responsible if Little Shantee kills someone in a car crash?
If a child assaults a teacher should the parent be responsible?
And should the parent of the little twit who took a shot at Trump also be tried?
Let’s be clear: this family was already visited by law enforcement because of the kid’s threats made online. A half hour before the shooting the mom called the school to warn them he was a threat. The parents knew the kid was a ticking time bomb yet the dad bought him an AR for Christmas anyway. The dad is absolutely culpable in this and should be charged.
“A half hour before the shooting the mom called the school to warn them he was a threat.”
What did the school do?
mom called the school warning a school counselor of an “extreme emergency” involving her son and urged them to “immediately” find her son to check on him, a relative said… a relative who got this information from a text mom sent her. The relative showed this to a news paper, the news paper reported that a call log from the family’s shared phone plan showed a call was made to the school about 30 minutes before the shooting started.
So indications are that mom did call the school about an “extreme emergency” involving her son. But what did the school do?
The parents knew the kid was a ticking time bomb
Assumed facts not in evidence. LE visited the home last year and they left without escalating the matter. They could have followed the digital trail to track the on line post, but did not. So if LE apparently didn’t have enough evidence to take further action, why is the Dad being held to a different standard?
When someone criminally misuses a motor vehicle, knife, bat, brick, etc. to maime and kill it’s ironic how knee jerk democRats calling for gun confiscations and bans are crickets. The knee jerk european style response to criminal misuse needs to end in America. America is not Gun Control nazi germany or is it Gun Control cotton field slavery. In other words mr. and miss toe tapping democRats take your insane Gun Control and shove it back up the tyrannical behinds from which it came.
So last year there were reports of threats made by the kid. LE visited the home and determined there wasn’t enough there there to do anything about it. Maybe they were just lazy and didn’t follow up on the digital trail. Maybe they believed the kid. Who knows. But now everyone is blaming Dad for having “known”. Am I the only one who finds this odd?
Per instance aside, what I would really like to know, and the question we must answer is:
What has changed so much in our society that we are raising boys who think killing kids is even a thing?
Proving guilt unless the jury is tainted by publicity will be difficult in a state with no safe storage or age restrictions will be very difficult. Especially when the defense will present evidence that it is very common for parents to familiarize children starting in elementary school with firearms. In rule areas it is likely elementary school age children are given a 22LR rifle to use and high school age kids a 12 ga. shotgun & deer rifle for hunting.
“Should parents be held criminally liable if a child goes on a shooting spree with a gun from the home? That question is now in sharp public relief with the indictments this week after (a 14-year-old) murdered two students and two adults at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga.
Yes, YES, YES! Parents most certainly should be held accountable for a shooting by their child with a weapon the child had access to because the Parent (s) did not properly secure the weapon. It is inherent in weapon ownership and all safety requirements that weapons be locked and unloaded. The parents should be schooled by a certified local organization, Police, NRA etc., To do otherwise is unsafe, stupid and inexcusable.
There is such a double standard when it comes to every other means of killing.
You’ll never hear of a parent being arrested for buying their son a car if their son drives drunk and kills someone. And they’ll never call it an “assault-style car” or a “military-style car with a high-capacity gas tank,” not even if it’s black, OD green, or a Jeep or Hummer of military heritage.
Far more people are stabbed to death each year in America than are killed with rifles, but you’ll never hear of a parent being arrested for having “unsecured” knives in their kitchen (including an “assault-style butcher knife,” OMG!) if a kid stabs someone.
If this “kid’ was such a mess, why didn’t the state step in and get some psycological help for this individual. Charging the dad is a way to shift blame away from others ( state) failure to render aid before this type of thing happens. Wonder if he was on so called antidepressants that usually cause psychosis.
Both gray and Crumbly bought the weapons FOR their deranged kids in an effort to soothe the whacko from attacking their own parents. Both should be held responsible for their failures.
I bet Teenagers kill and injury thousands of people each year. Because their parents let them use the car.
Should the parents be prosecuted? When the kids get into an accident?
They haven’t been before.
Grey Sr certainly showed contributory negligence in buying a firearm for Grey Jr, and Grey Jr certainly looked like he/she/it was on the LGBTetc spectrum. Looks like a mess all round.