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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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
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.
It really depends on state law.
“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.
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?
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.
Drivers.. hate the phone, not me
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.
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.
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
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.
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
AR-15’s are really easy to break down. You don’t need special tools and it can be done in seconds.
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