Two juries in Michigan apparently agreed that handguns must be locked away from kids. The failure of Ethan Crumbley’s parents to keep the handgun away from him made them criminally responsible for the shooting deaths — even though they were not at the school when they occurred. Bear in mind that, prior to these high-profile cases, parental involvement in teen mass-murders has mostly been charged, if at all, as parental neglect or child abuse.
The difference with the Crumbley cases is that the parents were convicted under the state’s generic manslaughter law for personally causing the deaths. Involuntary manslaughter more typically arises, for example, when someone texts while driving, accidentally discharges a gun during a domestic argument or fails to control a dog with a history of attacking people. In all of these circumstances, the person who is charged actually caused the death, albeit inadvertently.
With the Crumbley verdicts, the chain of causation is more attenuated. They didn’t pay attention enough to their son’s cries for psychological help or take steps to keep a dangerous machine away from him.
Moving forward, parents who keep guns in the home had best beware. Barring that, they should consider banding together to vote for legislators willing to pass sensible gun storage laws that protect children — and themselves — from the terrible fates that befell the Crumbley family and its victims.
— Kimberly Wehle in The Crumbley family verdicts flow from America’s failed gun laws
4 Responses
Seriously?
If you were really concerned about ‘safe storage’ then why don’t you bother to point out that thousands of criminals daily across the United States commit violent acts against victims with non-firearm weapons, and then call for laws to put those criminals in ‘safe storage’ away from society? Oh wait, we already have laws for that …. but ya know, it still happens.
But you, you moron, gotta pick on one case to make it a ‘poster child’ for ‘safe storage’ laws when ‘safe storage’ would not have prevented this horrific tragedy.
When are you idiots going to wake up and realize that laws on the books do nothing to make people ‘safe’. Its only the individual law abiding persons willingness to follow those laws that gives the law its effect, not that the law exists, while others are free to choose to not follow the law. Its not some magic thing like you idiots think “A Law! That will put a stop to this and make people safe!” abraqcadabra *poof* safety. If it were true that laws made people safe then criminals would not be able to commit violent acts against people.
Although locking guns away from kids is a great idea, it would not have helped in this case as this kid was going to kill one way or another even if he did not have a gun. And its the same way for all mass/school-shooters as all of them like this kid are mentally ill and are driven to kill so even if they did not have a gun eventually they would find something else to use, for example, an ax or machete or knife they could use in a crowd quickly.
“Barring that, they should consider banding together to vote for legislators willing to pass sensible gun storage laws that protect children — and themselves — from the terrible fates that befell the Crumbley family and its victims.”
You can suggest, but you cannot demand :
“Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
Parents like these wouldn’t abide safe storage laws and parents who would don’t need safe storage laws so what’s the point?
The kid is a psychopath and the parents are delusional or plain ol’ stupid.
The school admin. is lazy or plain ol’ stupid as well.