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 14-year-old Colt Gray murdered two students and two adults at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga.
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. Colt and his father were interviewed by police in 2023 after the FBI received anonymous tips about “online threats to commit a school shooting” on the social-media platform Discord.