Authorities charged Colin Gray, the father of the Georgia school shooter Colt Gray, with four counts of manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Colt is accused of killing two teachers and two students. He faces four counts of felony murder.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Director Chris Hosey didn’t confirm Gray gifted the gun to his 14-year-old son.
Hosey said Gray “knowingly allowed” his son “to possess it.”
According to reports, Gray gave Colt the gun for Christmas only a few months after the FBI interviewed the family about online shooting threats.
Colt shot up the school on his second day. He only enrolled two weeks ago:
“He was a brand new student to Barrow County Schools, he had enrolled about two weeks prior. This was his second day at school. He had been before, he left early, on that day and this was his first real full day,” [Barrow County Sheriff Jud] Smith said referring to the shooting yesterday. Aug. 1 was the first day of school for the district.
Prior, the suspect had been at a local middle school, Smith said. According to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office incident report from 2023, Colt Gray had previously attended Jefferson Middle School and prior to that West Jackson Middle School.
Colt should make his first court appearance on Friday.
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Comments
Dammit! The FBI and the local Sheriff investigate this kid for making threats against the school. And then the father buys him rifle?? WTF! The damn guy needs to go to jail. FKH
Investigate but never charged and the kid denied it so where does that leave us?
yeah if he allowed his son who if they can PROVE that the father knew the child had mental problems..then trouble
so what about the TRANS SHOOTER
WOULDNT THAT QUALIFY AS THE PARENTS ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR ALLOWING THEYTHEMIT TO GAIN ACCESS TO WEAPONS
OR CAN you not say the trans had mental problems!!??
AND WHAT ABOUT ALLLL THE “MINORS” from the Urban areas ..and their parent(s) with those that had already had contact with the police the parents MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE
lets see how are 2 -tiered system will work on this and how quickly the msm and others will come to the aid of the protected
Nashville shooter was in her mid to late 20s. Very difficult, perhaps impossible, to pursue this kind of criminal case against parents of ‘children’ who’ve reached the age of majority. Once a child is no longer a minor, this parental responsibility is largely (probably entirely) severed even if they still live at home. With respect to the the parents of ‘urban’ gang-bangers, I think you raise a great point.
The parents are not generally giving them the guns.
I hope not. But, don’t the parents have an obligation to ensure their children aren’t running around at 3:00 am and attending classes infrequently, if at all? There are finally some states/localities that are beginning to hold parents of consistently truant children criminally responsible. That’s probably a good start.
Parents can’t prevent their children from running around at 3:00 AM, or from skipping school. All they can do is send them off to school in the morning; they can’t control what they do then.
Parents can’t prevent their children from running around at 3:00 AM, or from skipping school.
They can’t? My wife and I must have done parenting wrong then, because our children didn’t.
The Mennonites next door with a dozen children? They must also be doing it wrong- their children don’t.
And I could go on and on.
There is an occasional rotten child about for whom nothing works regarding discipline and proper upbringing. . We used to institutionalize them.
But even as adolescents my children understood that most of the troublemakers in their schools were the products of bad parenting..
And yet, this story is eerily familiar. This is the second time in six months that we heard precisely this same story. A story that is frankly so irrational that one would not expect to hear it twice in the same lifetime.
There is a difference between the two cases. That one happened in my own backyard, and here in Michigan it is illegal for a minor to possess a handgun. His parents purchased and gave a handgun to him. There is nothing illegal about this rifle transfer as far as I can tell, so I am more dubious of the charges against the father here. Yes, common sense says the father shouldn’t be buying him a rifle considering the kids mental state, but common sense and the law are two different things.
“Parents can’t prevent their children from running around at 3:00 AM, or from skipping school. All they can do is send them off to school in the morning; they can’t control what they do then.”
Bullshit!
My kids knew that if they got out of line, ran the streets at night, and made threats to other students, they’d get their asses kicked.
I also protected them when bullies came calling by making sure criminal charges were filed against punks.
That’s an F’d up comment.
Didnt your daddy give you a gun when you were a kid? That’s kind of normal in America.
Nope. Pacifier.
It really depends on state law.
Nashville shooter’s mom was anti-gun, They didn’t give her the gun. It was news to them that he had a gun.
Nashville shooter was a female.
Indeed. I did say her. I just don’t always type accurately, and of course, there’s no
😏
Unless parents actively helped plan or execute a crime, I object to them being charged. I bet that the perp was bullied in school, and that weasel administrators did nothing about it.
If we are going to have this kind of prosecutions, then people like Thugvon’s parents should be arrested in mass.
Again, it’s the extreme negligence in buying a weapon for someone who has been “troubled” and had just been investigated by law enforcement for making threats.
“According to reports, Gray gave Colt the gun for Christmas only a few months after the FBI interviewed the family about online shooting threats.”
Well says it all of true, he k we his so. Was troubled and this is how he dealt with it
Un-effing-belivable. I hope he spends the rest of his miserable life in prison.
They “interviewed” the family but so what? No one was charged with anything and the kid denied it. Hindsight is 20/20 but if no one is arrested for anything then there is no proof of the kid actually making the threats or the FBI decided the kid was being a stupid kid and left it at that. How were the parents to know he was not joking. Is every kid who says “im going to kill you, man” when angry now to be arrested?
The most recent trans shooter was 28, right?
However, this will be the rule going
Forward I believe regardless
I think if the parent bought him the gun after the police, school and FBI had conversations about what he was writing on blogs
He deserves to be arrested
no doubt this is the new thing..holding parents responsible…but again,,lets see how they part and parcel this justice out
Right
How many young black boys are killed each week end in Chicago
Somehow they don’t seem to care
Wonder why?
Why? No proof he was doing anything other than being a stupid kid.
Parental blindness. We see it in the black community with “he was a good boy.” I just hope this extends to other issues such as giving kids the keys to their own cars ..as status symbols. This was so avoidable. No sympathy for the parents…. none.
Giving keys to cars?
Really?
You
Can’t get a divers lic without drivers education and it’s ridiculous to think kids are t going to drive in rural and suburban areas
I could take buses in Milwaukee growing up, sure as hell would t today, I’d be killed in many areas
“Status symbol”…. Bev Hills type….
Except it’s not illegal for a 14 year old to possess a car. It is illegal for them to possess a firearm.
Okay, on further research, it’s illegal for a 14 year old to purchase a long gun, not to possess one. It would be illegal for him to possess a handgun at 14.
Thanks for doing the research. So many people don’t bother.
In RI it’s now illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase a firearm (pistol or rifle)
2A
It’s just another blue finger in the dike that SCOTUS has already cracked, SCOTUS will eventually get around to breaking their finger, as they deserve.
Next step is to prosecute the parents of distracted teen drivers for giving them a cell phone.
Drivers.. hate the phone, not me
I gave up trying to decode “Well says it all of true, he k we his so.”
This still seems ‘off’. No the Father shouldn’t have let his Son have unrestricted access to firearms after the FBI shows up with concerns about a potential profile issue. No question on that point. It was IMO, irresponsible.
Not sure why no flag on the Father’s future firearm purchasing. Not to prohibit it but to send a flag/notice to the local FBI office Agent who interviewed these folks. That way the FBI can come back and ask some more questions and take another look at Father and Son.
I really don’t like the logic of charging the Father. Lets apply the same criteria to other scenarios and it goes off the rails quick. Your 15 Daughter sends a ‘nude’ to her 15 year old boyfriend next door. Is that child porn? Both sets of Parents of the children in this bought the phones and service plans so aren’t they just as liable as the Father here if we apply the same logic.
How about a car wreck? You let your child have access to a vehicle and the keys and they injure someone, run over some dude in a parking lot while looking at their phone? Maybe the child ‘snuck out’ but you left the keys on the counter? Gonna charge the Parents with involuntary manslaughter if the guy dies? You pay for your child to take martial arts lessons and they whip some kid’s ass, dislocate a joint, break an arm or cause a concussion? Gonna charge that set of Parents using the same logic?
“Your 15 Daughter sends a ‘nude’ to her 15 year old boyfriend next door.
The biggest, most material difference is the phone isn’t inherently dangerous A firearm is, which is why case and statutory law surrounding the unintentional injury and death from mishandling a firearm is so different than it is in unintentional deaths for other items. Special care must be used when handling firearms because it’s so easy to get wrong. When you’ve given a firearm to someone authorities have already questioned in a case involving a threatened shooting, you’ve disregarded the inherent dangerous nature of the firearm…amongst other things.
If you give your child an item that isn’t inherently dangerous and the child does something harmful with it, it would be much harder to make this case, if it would be possible at all. For instance, if you gave your kid a computer and he used that computer to commit a computer crime like hacking, your criminal exposure is probably very, very small if it exists at all….unless of course your son was visited recently by the FBI about potential hacking. Then…maybe.
With respect to the car question, if the child wasn’t licensed to drive and you gave him the keys, then yes you’re probably getting charged. I actually no of a case just like that. Parent was charged with child endangerment.
know, not ‘no’. Good grief.
I agree with you about the cell phone/nudie scenario. A non-starter.
Concerning the car, the specific scenario you described might get a “child endangerment” charge (because the parents endangered their own child), but if the child had a fatality accident, could the parent(s) be held criminally responsible for the death? In the school shooting case, the child seemed to have threatened the criminal misuse of a firearm. Even though the firearm and the auto are both inherently dangerous, how common would it be for a child to threaten the criminal misuse of an automobile (and not merely unlicensed use)? This is the crux. The child may have threatened criminal acts involving the use of a firearm and the dad then enabled those acts. Merely giving the car keys to an unlicensed child lacks the known/potential threat of a criminal misuse of the car, even if the child then kills someone. What if the parents had been teaching the child to drive and believed him to be competent? Would a child’s having a license release the parents from responsibility if they knew their child was an incompetent/dangerous driver? I think attaching responsibility to the parents in the auto scenario is possible, but more tenuous and less likely.
If you’re teaching a child to drive, then the child must have a learner’s permit (in most, if not all states) to be able to legally operate the vehicle. And only then, they may not drive by themselves. In every state, you would be exposing yourself to a tort action from anyone who was injured by knowingly allowing an unlicensed driver to operate that vehicle and in most, a criminal action if it was a minor child.
In some states, not only would you be exposed to criminal penalty if you gave the keys to a minor, but you would also be exposing yourself to the other criminal charges arising out of the criminal misuse of the vehicle irrespective of the age of the driver. Michigan law works that way now. Knowingly allowing an unlicensed driver (minor or adult) to drive a vehicle is a misdemeanor. If that unlicensed driver causes ‘serious impairment to a body function’, it’s a felony, very much not unlike the felony charge this father is now facing. (Michigan Compiled Laws – Section 257.904). Michigan has been a state for some time that has been more aggressive in pursuing parents for enabling the criminal actions of their children.
the child must have a learner’s permit (in most, if not all states) to be able to legally operate the vehicle
Only on public roads. On private property your child can operate a vehicle as long as they can reach the controls. It’s an important point.
“Not sure why no flag on the Father’s future firearm purchasing. ”
Because in this country you are not subjected to endless interrogation by the authorities if no crime has been committed. Would you like government thought police showing up at your house because you bought a car? Hey, you got that speeding ticket 10yrs ago and you might be dangerous.
diver64
‘….if no crime has been committed’. The Jury decides if the crime the accused has been charged with was actually committed. LEO asking questions is part of the evidence gathering phase before charging occurs.
The Father and Son both have the option to refuse to answer questions in the scenario I proposed. LEO ask questions of all sorts of people before charges are brought every day.
If the PO PO show up without a warrant tell them to pound sand if you don’t choose to answer questions. They do this all the time b/c SCOTUS says they have an implied licence to do so but the homeowners can always tell them to leave and refuse to answer questions.
I am all in for not just the 2A but all our liberties protected by our Constitution. That doesn’t mean LEO shouldn’t ask questions about another firearm purchase in a household they had visited b/c the Son (allegedly) posted Cray Cray things involving firearms and their use. The 2A community must always be vigilant to ward off gov’t overreach but we gotta be flexible enough to understand we can’t be unnecessarily obstinate or deliberately obtuse about basic police work. IMO the failure of the FBI in not knowing or if known not further questioning about the AR purchase is very damning.
The problem is they didn’t charge child endangerment they charged murder and manslaughter. If the DA can make a case for accessory under normal criteria for any other felony then by all means do so. Absent that then it seems incredibly dangerous to begin charging folks who didn’t participate in or have foreknowledge of the crime committed by another person.
Holding person A responsible for the actions of person B which person A had no knowledge off and didn’t directly participate in is not consistent IMO with our criminal justice system. Civil accountability for the Parents? Under certain conditions absolutely.
Either the logic of charging non participants is valid enough to apply to every situation involving a minor child or it isn’t. Can’t be a situation of ‘it depends’. Especially can’t be one of ‘it depends’ on how PO the mob is and how much community pressure the DA is under. That’s really what you are arguing at root; that the seriousness changes this situation IOW this is ‘different’.
Back to cell phone and nude pics. The boyfriend posts to a chat group after they break up. Revenge porn? Internet is forever. Pics get passed around online. Daughter finds out and commits suicide but before that she uses the humiliation and anger she feels as fuel for going across the street and killing her ex boyfriend. Or maybe she guns down the baseball team he shared the pics with.
Lots of very bad things can arise from all sorts of tools. A firearm is a tool. As is an automobile or a cell phone. IMO the person who uses the tool to commit is crime is responsible for their actions not the person who provided the tool unless that person has foreknowledge that the tool will be used in a crime.
“A firearm is a tool.
Not under the law. Under the law, a firearm is a restricted, inherently dangerous item.
They didn’t charge the Parents with providing a firearm to the Son or allowing access to this firearm. Two reasons for that:
1. GA only restricts handgun transfer to minors not long guns
2. GA doesn’t have a storage/access statute
The Legislature of GA, in their infinite wisdom, decided that firearms other than handguns don’t require statutes to regard long guns any differently than any other tool re a Parent transfer to or possession by a minor. I believe the GA Legislature actually considered but rejected proposed legislation to do what you argue for last term or the one prior.
What you are arguing is that a firearm is especially ‘bad, dangerous’. I reject that. Knives are dangerous. Vehicles are dangerous. Pools and hot tubs are dangerous. All routinely kill and injure others. Motor vehicles are the leading cause of.death for ‘adolescents’. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children under 5 usually in their own pool/hot tub.
Logically then we should apply this enhanced scrutiny and criminal charges you seem to be arguing for to both motor vehicles and pools/hot tub as well as firearms due their own inherent danger as the statistics clearly demonstrate.
I’m not ‘arguing’ anything. I’m simply using the phrase that is commonly found in state statutes and reams of case law. Firearms are considered ‘inherently dangerous’ items (or ‘deadly’ items in some jurisdictions) where strict liability always attaches. A hot tub or pool that have the potential to be dangerous, to my knowledge, have never been considered an ‘inherently dangerous’ item, like a firearm or knife. When is this phrase most commonly employed in criminal law? In criminal NEGLIGENCE cases. The charges against Mr. Gray are all rooted in the criminal negligence statutes. If Gray had given his son a hammer he could use in shop class – something that can be used as a weapon but is not, under the law, considered an ‘inherently dangerous’ item – and his son used it to murder people, there is very little chance they could have pursued this case.
TargaGTS,
He wasn’t charged with criminal negligence which appears to be a misdemeanor in GA.
If you want to argue he should be charged with criminal negligence go ahead. I would probably agree with a cogent case being made.
He is charged, at present, with 2nd degree murder and manslaughter. Not so far as I have seen as an accessory to the 1st degree murder charges his Son faces.
A Father granting his Son access to a long gun isn’t the basis for a 2nd degree murder charge/manslaughter charge IMO. You want to argue it is go ahead.
Yes, it is. ALL of the crimes the father is charged with are wholly dependent on the state being able to prove ‘gross negligence’ and neglect. Without making that demonstration, they can’t use the statutes in the way they’re being used. Is a very weird set of statutes that is being used that are largely unique to Georgia.
There’s some explanation in this CNN story that discusses the one prior GA they’re likely using as a model for this prosecution.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/06/us/colin-gray-georgia-shooting-suspect-father-charges/index.html
“Not sure why no flag on the Father’s future firearm purchasing.”
Do you really want your constitutional rights taken away based on what others do? Do you not see how dangerous that line of thinking is and where it leads?
With what evidence the FBI already had I don’t think it is unreasonable for the FBI to have been able to obtain what amounts to something less intrusive than what a warrant would be required to do. I didn’t say give LEO unfettered access or block the sale or build a list.
All that would would have occurred is for the sale to have occurred and a note be sent to the same field office/Agent to follow up with this guy and his Son. Granted that was several months ago. But that visit might have been enough for the Dad to have invested in a more secure storage for the firearms to limit his Son’s access.
If the 2A advocates like you and I are gonna hold the system accountable we gotta be willing for the pieces of the system to function. The FBI checkup on weirdos who post oddball crap and also have firearms + new purchases of firearms seems relevant to their job. Doesn’t seem overly intrusive, heck let’s say they just needed a warrant to get a notification about new firearm purchases for a calendar year from the interview.
I want good police work not this half hearted BS with a big % of these weirdos being known to LEO as potential problems but the ‘authorities’ leaving stones unturned as is the case now. No we don’t want the Feds or locals telling us we can’t make a purchase or them building a database (which they almost certainly already do and if you believe otherwise you are naive IMO) nor them jumping at shadows. This was yet another case of knowledge but no follow up and I am getting tired of it. The cynic in me tells me its almost as if the ‘authorities’ are letting it occur to build more public support to undermine 2A.
Release the manifesto!
Gifting a child a firearm does NOT mean that the child had unrestrictedunsupervised access to it. I’ve not seen anything that saysproves that the parents allowed him unrestrictedunsupervised access to the rifle.
Personally, back in the day, I bought my daughter (10) and son (8) firearms. They both got a Cricket single-shot .22 LR rifle. My son got a Heritage Arms .22 LR revolver. All 3 firearms were stored in my gun safe, unloaded, right next to my hunting rifles, AR-15, AR-10, and numerous handguns. They were only ever brought out for lessons (I was a firearms instructor at the time), range days (I only ever let 1 shoot at a time and usually only took 1 to the range on a particular day), and cleaning.
So far, without evidence, I see a lot of people on this website jumping on the “blame dad” band-wagon when, in reality, we don’t know jack at this point.
In Georgia and many other states, it’s legal to hunt alone in Georgia at age 12 once you’ve completed a hunter education safety course. This arrest was probably dependent on interviews with the dad as to the intent of gifting him that rifle at 14. If the father was teaching the kid to hunt and the AR was limited to a 5 round magazine, a lawyer might be able to get him off the charge if he hadn’t been interviewed by the sheriff’s office just months earlier about threatening a school shooting. That’s the sticking point.
I looked for all the weasel wording (like, “unnamed source said the father gave the kid the gun,”) but the NY Post article says flat out that dad admitted to the cops that he gave the kid the gun shortly after the FBI visit. Unless some reporter is downright lying about that, it’s a hard rap to beat.
There is no indictment yet. Under GA law, there will need to a probable cause hearing within a couple (business) days of arrest. At that hearing, we might get a better idea of how the government is alleging the gun was stored. If not, we’ll have to wait until the indictment is obtained and unsealed, which by law can take as long as 90-days in GA. But, during last night’s press conference, the Sheriff didn’t use the words ‘gifted.’ He used the very precise phrase, ‘Knowingly allowed’ the child to ‘possess.’
PC hearing has been set for December, with defendant’s consent. So, it’s going to be some time before we really know what the facts are.
Was the December date set an example of election tampering?
Probably not. Georgia criminal courts are famously overwhelmed. That was almost certainly the first available date. The defense, for obvious reasons, isn’t in any hurry. The further they can push all the elements of the trial process away from the date of the tragedy, the better it generally is for them.
KIds in my high school had a rifle club, meets with other high schools, guns on lockers and guns on the school bus on meet or practice days. 10 miles from NYC. Range in the basement. No incidents.
Despite being old enough, I didn’t get to experience that because I grew up on military bases. But my dad did. He went to school in Mesquite, TX, went to school every day with a rifle and shotgun in the gun rack of his truck. Was part of the ROTC Drill Squad in school. Etc.
I remember moving to Austin in the late 70’s and I saw gun racks in trucks all
The time and in HS parking lots
Would I be right in assuming your school did not suffer from much “vibrancy?
I seem to remember that rhhardin is older than I am. Back when we were in HS, even the vibrant were WAY more well-behaved. It was the age of MLK, and respectability and civilized behavior was their plan to get ahead. And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling Democrats.
I got my first firearm, 22lr rifle, when I was 8. Makes a big difference who the kid is. Some are ready early, others are never ready.
In grade school I went shooting with Boy Scouts at local high school.
According to the communists, a 5-year-old in kindergarten has enough self-determination to decide to go on hormone replacement therapy, take puberty blockers and get a sex change. If the parents can’t say no to those things, how could they say no to their child having a firearm?
Good point. And if the state is trying the shooter as an adult, how can the parents have culpability? Because the dad gave his son, legally now considered an adult by the state, a firearm? I understand the dad knew his son may have been a danger to the community, but once the son is considered by the state to be an adult, how does the dad remain responsible for the other “adult’s” behavior? (Unless the dad knew his son intended to commit a crime with the firearm, or he encouraged same. In the absence of the latter, the dad could claim no more knowledge than the FBI, and the FBI didn’t arrest the boy.) The state wants to consider the son an adult to prosecute him, but wants to consider the son a child in order to prosecute the dad. If I were the son’s attorney, I’d point out this contradiction and try to have my client tried as a juvenile. The dad’s attorney could make a similar argument.
While I’m not sure if the tried-as-an-adult/but-still-a-minor angle is going to pay dividends, watching several criminal defense lawyers on local Atlanta news this morning, it’s clear that this is going to be a very uphill case for the state to prove beyond any reasonable doubt. It’s apparently unprecedented under GA law.
The same logic which I never understood is for women being allowed to have an abortion and that’s fine but if they are, say, hit by a car and the unborn baby dies then the driver is charged with murder. Can’t have it both ways.
Another question and I’m serious. How the hell does a kid carry an AR-15 which is a f*cking RIFLE into a school building and nobody says anything?
When I travel with mine it’s easily broken down into an upper (barrel) and lower. Fits easily in regular luggage. I do this so as not to advertise I’m carrying a firearm. Hard to say I’ve got a rifle if all you see me pull out of the truck is a suitcase.
Kid could probably put it in a back pace depending on the size of the pack.
https://www.saviorequipment.com/products/ultimate-guitar-case-single-rifle-case
I got my laugh of the day from this line in that ad:
WARNING: FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS ONLY: Cancer and Reproductive Harm.
It’s just so wrong, on so many levels!
AR-15’s are really easy to break down. You don’t need special tools and it can be done in seconds.
The question that boggles me is… it’s the kid’s first full day in a brand new school. What do we have here — our first known grudge-free school shooter? They don’t even need grievances anymore? They just pack up a gun, bring it to school, and play bunny hunter, just for the hell of it?
The grievance thing was always bullshit.
Charging the father does kind of make sense since it’s reasonable to view him as an accessory to this horrible crime by enabling his child to pull it off. Especially true in light of the fact that his kid had made threats before which got them a visit from the sheriff. Dad might have just brushed that off as a “dumbass kid” moment but man after something like that happens and you give your kid a gun without first checking to make sure he’s ok mentally and emotionally, you are taking some big chances!
Civil liability? Sure. Criminal liability? Did Dad know what was happening? Did his Son say ‘Dad today’s the day I get vengeance’ and the Dad then helped load the ammo into the magazines? What if the kid picked up his Dad’s keys at 0500 off the counter, took the car and ran down some joggers killing them instead of shooting up the school.
You can’t be an accessory to an event you don’t know about and didn’t knowingly participate in. Lots of folks are hella guilty under the new standard you propose here.
Seems like a common sense rule for parents to adhere to is to not gift firearms to mentally unstable, impulsive, emotionally fragile and hormone-influenced teens.
I’m not saying the charges are appropriate, here. A negligent entrustment charge might be. I’d have to know more.
Good idea and I agree to that common sense. I would probably support civil liability for the Dad here as well as potentially a criminal negligence charge…but that’s a misdemeanor not a felony and a very very far cry from 2 counts of 2nd degree murder + 2 counts of manslaughter.
Admittedly, I don’t know this area of the law well. My first instinct is that if the prosecutors are attempting to charge the father under a novel theory of criminal liability, I remain wary.
As someone else stated, above, short of the father handing firearms to his son, immediately after the son has explicitly declared his intent to murder people, or, alternatively, after the son has received a medical diagnosis of severe mental illness, I don’t see how such definitive liability attaches.
I reserve judgment, until I learn more.
Not enough details to have an opinion whether the charges against the father are reasonable. But a couple of general comments.
1. If your child is out of control, don’t expect any help from the government. You can’t even kick your child out of your house until he/she is 18.
2. As Matt Groening said, “School is Hell: Lesson 10: Junior High School – The Deepest Pit in Hell”. Only God knows what happened to the kid in Junior High School. Whatever it was, it’s NO EXCUSE FOR SHOOTING PEOPLE. But it can explain the rage.
3. If your child is experiencing rage in school, it is your responsibility to GET HIM/HER THE HELL OUT. The school will not help you. The police will not help you. The government will not help you (but I repeat myself). And don’t give him/her a knife, let alone a gun.
I think it more likely his rage (or other nihilistic emotions) stems from the problematic mother. Any bullying was probably at least partly inflicted because of his behavior.
It looks like his life is one giant ball of carp, and no one could offer him answers that didn’t lead to this sort of result.
Why the knee-jerk assumption that the kid was “known” to have written online threats?
Because the FBI paid the family a visit? Clearly it was NOT established it was this kid, simply a suspicion, since no other action was taken. It’s not unreasonable to see why the parents dismissed it.
And should the parents have known the kid was planning this irrational and deadly attack? I think of the hundreds if not thousands of adolescents who commit suicide without the parents knowing they were planning it.
Adolescents are deliberately opaque to their parents, even the “good” ones. They lack a real understanding of life, death and risk and do things (as we have all done things) that are immensely stupid and dangerous.
Especially when fueled by pharmaceuticals, I hesitate to conclude what a parent should or shouldn’t “know” about their kids.
I’m going to guess the father knew he was a very problematic child. Based on a lot of evidence provided so far.
“Why the knee-jerk assumption that the kid was “known” to have written online threats?”
“Not The Bee” is providing a lot of backstory today.
https://notthebee.com/article/we-have-all-the-family-details-and-writings-of-this-weeks-school-shooter-but-we-still-know-nothing-about-the-trump-shooter-and-it-took-a-year-to-learn-anything-about-the-nashville-shooter-huh
turns out his mom was even worse
Except she didn’t buy him a firearm.
Government and Unions:
these are OUR KIDS OUR BABIES
uhhh…but not this one
So when do we hear about the weed and video games?
Two items here. One is displacement. If the grief and anger are so great that they can’t be satisfied by blaming the immediate object; the object is blamed up, blamed out, over blamed and further condemnation is like trying to fill an already overflowing barrel. There’s no emotional relief, no satisfaction. Other objects must be found for the surplus anger.
As with Germany and the Holocaust. No fun in yelling at them. Almost seems unfair. So….who else? Maybe the Allies who should have done….something. But at least the blame seems to stick and so there’s some release/relief.
Whatever the moral justice of this case, and the legal case to be made, much of the public support is displacement.
But there’s another issue. The first family to be so blamed, the Crumbleys, were ugly and disfavored and lousy parents. Not People Like Us. Same goes for this family. Not People Like Us.
So if this sort of thing happens and the adults nearest it are People Like Us, this displacement won’t happen.
In the Crumbley (Oxford, MI) case, the school admin had the kid and parents in the same room and tried to get the parents to take this nutcase home. Parents refused. None of the highly-trained educators (who all had college degrees, mind you) checked the kid’s backpack. And the local prosecution said no blame attached to the school system or any individuals therein.
They were People Like Us.
Holy Moly. Shooter is Transtifa, no question. The Discord server operated by the shooter is FULL of ‘Pro Trans’ imagery, some of it very violent in nature. FBI and local PD/Sheriff has a LOT of explaining to do.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/colt-gray-suspect-georgia-shooter/index.html
The pertinent information about the trans stuff is buried WAY down near the bottom.
” The account referenced Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, and in separate posts shared a desire to target an elementary school and expressed frustration with the acceptance of transgender people.
Above a photograph of two firearms, the account posted, “I’m ready.”
The story comes from the very conservative – checks notes – CNN.