Swearer: It Was Objectively Reckless to Give an AR-15 to a Mentally Ill Adolescent

Amy Swearer Heritage Foundation
Courtesy C-SPAN

From a legal theory standpoint, the charges against the father might be a bit of a stretch given that the state’s only law regarding gun access for minors deals exclusively with handguns. There might still be a theory of criminal recklessness or negligence under case law somewhere, but on its face, this isn’t nearly as clear cut as it was for Michigan when it convicted the parents of the Oxford High School shooting.

From a moral, ethical, and “what feels like justice because are you actually kidding me with your choices” standpoint…the dad’s actions were wildly irresponsible. I don’t care if it ends up being demonstrably true that he “meant well” or honestly thought it was a good idea. I don’t care that reasonable gun owners can disagree about many specifics of how to introduce their children to firearms and shooting, or that there might be some fact-specific scenarios in which some minors might reasonably be given some limited access to firearms. It is objectively reckless to give unsupervised gun access to a teenager who you readily admit is mentally and emotionally struggling, just months after the FBI showed up at your door for a serious investigation.

Amy Swearer at X

 

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8 thoughts on “Swearer: It Was Objectively Reckless to Give an AR-15 to a Mentally Ill Adolescent”

  1. Those of us who have lived through the painful, debilitating impact of having a family member with severe mental illness, know first-hand how the entire family is worn down, how judgement can be impaired, and how emotions can be mis-handled.

    We all know this kid should not have had unrestricted access to any firearm….and I am NOT saying the father is blameless…just that, unless you have lived in that sick-family syndrome, it may be difficult to understand how this happened, and too easy to simply blame the Dad.

    Me, I would have gotten that kid out of public school and into home schooling with some carefully selected extra curricular activities.

  2. Neocons for Harris

    I like this concept of restricting the liberties of people who are “mentally and emotionally struggling.”
    Perhaps we can extend the idea to voting?

    1. Yahtzee…Especially Liberal Progressive democrats who believe people can decide what sex they want to be and think that it is okay to take the lives of babies. Simply because they are inconvenient to someone’s preferred Lifestyle choice.

  3. Hindsight is 20/20. No matter how this is portrayed it is evident the dad made some bad decisions.
    The left hollers “common sense”. It is this type of not so common sense that gives the left cause to further defame the POTG.
    A needless and avoidable tragedy. Sad indeed.

  4. “there might be some fact-specific scenarios in which some minors might reasonably be given some limited access to firearms”

    And with this kind of desperation to make prohibitions on human rights the norm, she looks like a statest thug who will sell natural rights away for pottage. Should be no place in Heritage foundation for her.

  5. I can’t say she’s wrong, that’s for sure. The kid was investigated for making a threat to shoot up a school. The father knew that. The father knew a lot of things that none of us knows. Father assured a sheriff’s deputy that the kid didn’t have access to guns. He stuck up for his kid when the deputy interviewed them. Red Flag laws are generally wrong, because they don’t offer due process – but Mom and Dad aren’t required to do due process.

    Neither can I assess ‘mental illness’. But it seems pretty obvious from everything we’ve read that this kid’s head was screwed on wrong. The FBI failed, the sheriff’s department failed, the schools failed, and worst of all, the parents failed. Everyone in this kid’s life failed. Well . . . maybe not his grandmother and an aunt. Reports indicate that they were actually trying to get him psychiatric help? There are questions about his – uhhh – “sexual orientation”. I can’t possibly say if those articles are accurate, but multiple articles seem to establish that his classmates called him gay.

    This is a totally screwed up story – and I put primary blame on parents, secondary on the FBI. The FBI identified him as a potential shooter, and never followed up.

  6. Shooting never should have happened. Parents have to understand they need to keep their weapons out of their children’s hands. The A.R . Pistol & Knife will not kill anyone. It’s a evil person with a dark heart & sick mind that will kill. Not a weapon. So wrong to remove weapons from law abiding citizens. Not your answer. Just have all adults be adults and be the responsible gun owners they are supposed to be. Can’t blame things used to take lives. Put all the blame on the ones who do the crime. And in ending this remember cars don’t drive drunk, pencils don’t misspell words s forks don’t make people fat. And guns not kill. Only people kill people.

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