I warned you that this could happen, and, now, it looks like it has.
You might remember the school shooting in Winder, Georgia, in 2024 (if you don’t, you can get those details here).
Now, it goes without saying that school shootings are horrible things.
Today, though, we aren’t talking about the shooting directly. We’re talking about the fallout from that shooting that has come down on the (figurative) head of the father of the alleged school shooter. And those effects could affect you and me (hat tip to here for the lead). Jeff Martin gives us details:
A Georgia man who gave his teenage son the gun he’s accused of using to kill two students and two teachers at a high school was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
Jurors took less than two hours to find Colin Gray guilty of all charges in the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta. Gray now joins a growing number of parents being held responsible in court after their children were accused in shootings.
Colin Gray was found guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. Georgia law defines second-degree murder as causing the death of a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children. Gray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the killings of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
Another teacher and eight other students were wounded. Gray was also convicted of multiple counts of reckless conduct and cruelty to children.
Here’s the lesson to take from this: as an adult and especially as a parent, you have a responsibility to make sure that you don’t allow people, including and especially your children, to have access to firearms when they aren’t mature enough to safely handle firearms or when their mental health makes them unsafe to have possession of firearms, as is alleged in this case.
Now, a few of you may point out that parents of a shooter in Michigan are already serving time for being convicted for a similar type of scenario, which is true.
What makes this case especially significant, though, is that, unlike Michigan, Georgia is a constitutional carry state.
That means that, even if you’re in a constitutional carry state, this kind of situation could come back to bite you.
So, it’s worth remembering that, as legal firearms owners, we have a responsibility to be more responsible and of even higher character and wisdom than the average person. Lives may be saved by doing so.
