This is an interesting aspect to the latest school shooting in Georgia, and I’m not sure exactly what to think of this new approach. The father of the 14-year-old shooter Colt Gray, has been arrested and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the arrest of Colin Gray, the father of Colt Gray, the 14-year-old boy accused of opening fire at Apalachee High School, resulting in the deaths of four individuals including two students and two teachers.
Colin Gray, aged 54, faces severe charges including four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children, highlighting the escalating scrutiny on parental responsibilities in safeguarding firearms. (more)
Arrest warrants said he caused the deaths of others “by providing a firearm to Colt Gray with knowledge that he was threat to himself and others.”
(Via CNN) – […] “The key issue in the case against the father here will be: recklessness, foreseeability, how he handled the gun in relation to his son,” Toobin told CNN on Thursday night.
Colin Gray could face up to 180 years in prison if convicted on all counts, state Judge Currie Mingledorff said during a Friday hearing.
Central to the case against Gray will be an interaction the father and his son had with law enforcement more than a year before Wednesday’s mass shooting; the teenager’s access to the weapon used in the attack; and what the father knew about the boy’s mental state, experts told CNN, as a portrait of the teenager’s tumultuous family life emerges.
In May 2023, law enforcement questioned Colt and his father about online threats “to commit a school shooting,” the FBI has said. Colt at the time denied making the threats, and his father told authorities his son did not have unsupervised access to hunting guns in the house.
Just seven months later, the suspect’s father purchased the firearm allegedly used in the mass shooting as a holiday present for his son, two law enforcement sources told CNN. The AR-15-style rifle was bought at a local gun store as a Christmas present, one source said. (read more)
On its face, this does seem like the action of a reckless parent in purchasing a firearm for his son just after there was evidence linking the son to online threats of violence. And yes, factually there are several precedents for parents being held criminally responsible for the actions of their minor children. However, I’m not sure about the criminal justice system being consistent and charging a parent with second degree murder.
There are hundreds of non-school fatal shootings that could be tied to the reckless action of parents, either by willful blindness or complicity; some in gang related killings.
Is it just the venue, the school shooting aspect, that suddenly draws the attention toward the father Colin Gray?
What about the youth shootings in Chicago, Los Angeles or Baltimore that are carried out by underage teens and yet the parents are never charged. What happens in those cases.
What are your thoughts about this new accountability model being placed upon the parents?
Were this to be done in every “teen” shooting incident, I would be in favor. As it is, I understand it and with more and more that comes out about his mental state leading up to this, his Dad HAD to know. That Dad still encouraged AND abetted/enabled the son to have access/own a gun, he has some responsibility.
That being said so do ALL parents in every City who aid/abet/encourage/hide/assist their gangster kids.
Laws wont be implemented for this unless federally passed and we KNOW where that will lead: Red Flag Laws and it goes downhill from that to confiscation/a gunless USA. Nope–wrong track here
BUT this just happened here in Nashville with the Waffle House shooter a few years ago. Dad gave mentally ill son his guns back when ordered to take them/keep them away and son killed ppl at WH. Dad gets charged as accessory (plus)–still pending I believe
It is being applied unequally, so, not a good idea, unless applied to all races, all ethnicities including gangs.
🎯 🎯 🎯!
It needs to be applied to city leadership, judges, social workers who enable
It needs to be applied to the fbi for their failure to intervene and stop this before lives were lost.
They knew about colt gray for months.
And government agencies who accompany and drive shooters to target rally?
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/what-did-fbi-really-know-terrorist-attack-garland-texas
This father was far more responsible than the average foolish parent. He gave a weapon to a son he had been warned to keep guns from. Hard cases make and law, sure, but this father was responsible.
Make bad law, I meant. Hard cases make bad law.
Did he go to the school with the gun and pull the trigger?
Who ever pulls the trigger should be charged ! That’s it.
Should he be given a ticket for not having his guns properly secured yeah.
One thing I know for certain only one person pulled that trigger that day causing deaths .
Accessory to a crime doesn’t pull the trigger but can be charged.
So did Crooks but his dad was not charged.
True but the ones in the gangs don’t have fathers, they have an EBT card.
We all know the difference and it’s all because this is a white family. Whatever the merits of the case. This case would be out of the news already if the shooter was POC.
Period
FF season is here. Anything can happen in the next few weeks.
I don’t believe in coincidences…
If the father did not commit murder, he should not be charged with murder. If he enabled a murderer, charge him with that. There should be a heavy price to pay for gifting a dangerous weapon to a nutbag kid.
In the Bible, where it says “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”, that is not saying that you must take revenge when someone is wronged, it is actually a limitation meaning that you take no more than an eye if an eye is lost, or no more than a tooth if a tooth is lost.
Put the father in jail for exactly what he did or neglected to do, and no more. Don’t ever give the leftists a law or a precedence that they can abuse in the future, because you can bet your last dime that they will abuse it.
Is the school staff being charged with allowing a nutbag kid to bring a deadly weapon on campus? What if he didn’t get it from his dad, shouldn’t the school still be responsible to keep guns out of the school?
Those who are found guilty should be charged for what they did, and no more. Otherwise, we can all be charged for things we did not do.
The kid committed murder. He should be hung by the neck until dead. But a 14 year-old is not an adult. Nowadays we need a law that allows minors to be executed when they commit murder, instead of pretending that they are adults. Or hang them on their 18th birthday.
That’s how I see it.
Just another effort to disarm, disarm, disarm.
It’s slippery slope as usual, the USSA on a constant slippery slope.
No it’s not… He didn’t pull the trigger.
This just does not meet the smell test. Kid takes gun, wounds and kills people, then unlike the majority of shooters who keep going to the end he just peacefully gives up when confronted by LE. Now that doesn’t sound like a mentally confused person.
I agree. It sounds scripted.
He made a deal to have his sex change in prison for free.
“On its face, this does seem like the action of a reckless parent in purchasing a firearm for his son just after there was evidence linking the son to online threats of violence.”
It’s my understanding that the “evidence” was anonymous reports.
If that’s the case and the boy denied making the threats, then what should the father have done?
The FBI said they didn’t have evidence to arrest the boy.
Are anonymous reports now the standard by which we hold people responsible?
After being warned to lock guns away from his kid, he gives the kid one of his own? Common sense would indicate keeping guns away from the kid. Otherwise, no wonder “see something, say something” is always met with unbelief, followed by a massacre.
He didn’t give one of his own, he bought an AR 15 as a Christmas gift that he gave to his son.
Buy an AR-15 NOW!
Buy all your kids a gun for Christmas!
It doesn’t matter if the gun had been given to the kid.
That is, legally like a figure of speech. Nothing changes as far as keeping the gun secure.
It’s not like “now the minor child has control of the gun”.
The gun would still be the responsibility of the parents. A child cannot buy or “own” a gun”.
However I was in charge of all my guns by the time I was 13. The wooden gun cabinet was in the dinning room and we never had a key.
Of course no kids were ever given psychotropic drugs at that time so there were no school shootings.
We had gun racks in our truck rear windows and guns in the racks during hunting season in the high school student parking lot.
These comments are obviously from Americans who know nothing about guns.
How many believe that “hate speech” is illegal?
Every comment on this article should be:
Buy an AR-15 NOW!
And buy all your kids a gun for Christmas.
It’s the school shooting thing. They are used for maximum psychological impact. With all the AR-15s in private hands, it can’t be more than a fraction of 1% used in any crime. Most crimes involving firearms are perpetrators using handguns, not long guns. Someone wants the weapons most related to the main battle rifle of the military confiscated first. It will be difficult to get through the case law, like US v Miller (1939) that established that it is the weapons most related to the weapons used by the military that are the most protected under the Second Amendment.
“Well Regulated Militia” in 18th Century language did not mean a militia like the National Guard. The National Militia Act divides the militia into the National Guard and the UNORGANIZED MILITIA, which is all military age men NOT in the National Guard. To maintain a “well regulated militia,” that did not mean all weapons under government control and locked away in a government armory in between training sessions. The history is well documented that the government knew that not all military age men would be in the “organized militia,” but might need to be taken into the military in time of war. Therefore, it was desirable to have the potential pool of recruits to be somewhat exposed to weapons closely related to those issued to the military. “Well regulated” means WELL TRAINED AND DISCIPLINED, not that the weapons are kept locked away from potential recruits.
An example of government desiring to have civilians get exposure to the military-style infantry weapons was the Army’s “Civilian Marksmanship Program.” Through groups involved in the shooting sports, the military would supply “samples” of weaponry being introduced to the military, such as the Colt Model 1911 pistol.
New York recently banned body armor, following its use by the perpetrator of the Buffalo mass shooting.
It’s becoming more and more clear that it’s not just about taking guns.
It’s about stripping the citizenry of its ability to protect itself.
I just read an article @Bearing Arms about that.
On any given day, an overwhelming majority of America’s tens of millions of gun owners will not experience or cause any adverse outcomes with their hundreds of millions of guns. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2019 there were 14,861 homicides using firearms. Even using the faulty assumption that a different person committed every homicide using a different gun, a mere 0.019 percent of gun owners and 0.0037 percent of guns are involved in firearm homicides annually. Looked at the other way around, at least 99.98 percent of gun owners and 99.996 percent of guns are not involved in homicide in any given year. Even if we add suicides (23,941 in 2019), accidental deaths (485 in 2019), and non-fatal firearms injuries (84,776 in 2017), only 0.16 percent of gun owners and 0.03 percent of guns at most are “responsible.” That means 99.84 percent of gun owners and 99.97 percent of guns are not associated with any of these negative outcomes.
From an article at Bearing Arms
If you were to follow logic, Biden/Harris should also be charged with murder for allowing dangerous murderers into our country.
Actually, there is very clear language in law regarding that. It’s the hook I’ve long said should be used against ALL sanctuary city politicians, all federal government administrators – up to and including the WH – which violate the law like the Cackling Communist and Brandon have. That also goes for Schumer and the rest that have done the same.
Good Find, especially the death penalty part.
A “holiday” present? Even in their quest to take away gun rights, CNN cannot bring themselves to say the word, “Christmas.”
We don’t even know if the son is the shooter. They FBI sure were fast on this one. If the father is guilty than if Colt is on meds the doctor should be arrested too. on meds
You may not know, but trust me, there are multiple students at Apalachee High School who do know he was the shooter because they witnessed him with the rifle, as well as shots made.
I read that the mother called the school a half hour before shooting to warn them, but school wasn’t locked down
I was wondering if the school was put on lockdown after that phone call with the mother.
I read that the mother is in prison.
An “anonymous” call was made to the school.
Try to make an anonymous call to a public school.
In my imagination, I see rooms full of young men and boys playing extremely violent video games 24/7, all government sponsored. Throw in some nasty mind altering drugs and you have a potent pool of psycho mass shooters. Let one or two out at a time, supervised by government handlers right before elections or critical legislation, and watch for the carnage. Once the mission is accomplished, take them out, either immediately or through incarceration.
Is our government capable of such depravity? Hell yes!
The fathers pain in his face. They took his son and he probably felt buying his “son” the rifle would help bring him back. Sarc; If that rifle don’t bring my son back from being a freak then nothin will.
I don’t know why he purchased the gun but I can see the pain in his face over this whole situation. He just wanted his regular old son back is my opinion.
IMO, the “pain” in the father’s face is due to being apprehended, not that his son shot someone.
Having been notified that his son was credibly accused of planning to shoot up a school, this father insisted his guns were not available to his son’s access, yet seven months later, he buys him the standard school shooting rifle? Of course this father is responsible. And a fool. And mental. This is not your ordinary decision. Did anyone stage manage this to go after our rights! How far would the globalists go to take away our rights? Maybe. Trust no one?
As a reminder a school administrator was notified in a timely enough manner to ensure every classroom was locked down and the kid wouldn’t have access to staff and students to do the shooting. That makes the school administration and/or one or more staff member guilty of gross negligence and also responsible.
Yes, if timely, they might-could have locked the kid in the classroom. I am so sorry.
An AR -15 is not the standard “school shootings” gun.
The worst school shooting was Virginia Tech. An Asian student on pharma drugs using a .22 caliber pistol. And that shooting was suspicious just like all of them.
At this point any shooting purported to have used an AR is suspicious. At close range a 9mm pistol will do just fine and easier to conceal.
Wake Up!
Shooting “13” people in a crowded place could be done with any gun.
The AR-15 just happens to be the best gun for self-defense available to the public.
Currently an AR-15 style rifle is the most popular platform for hunting.
There are over 10 million and some say 40 million in America.
But the vast, vast, majority of gun deaths are with pistols.
I recommend you buy an AR now and one as a Christmas gift for each of your children.
The safe world you have lived in could change overnight.
And then you will certainly not be able to buy guns or ammo.
I guess some people have to learn the hard way.
Then the FB-LIE should be charged with multiple counts, and the excessiveness of their willful complicity should result in the entire organization being issued the death penalty.
I guess it all comes down to how much the dad actually knew about his son’s propensity for violence. I imagine the prosecutors have texts and such that point to knowledge. I hope, because in general I do not support laying blame on
parents. Also, people who hunt gift guns to their children and it’s normal so long as the kid is not irresponsible.
I love it, this means that Joe Biden can be prosecuted for Hunter’s many crimes, including tax evasion, firearms violations, bribery, extortion, criminal drug use, and possibly being a john to prostitution. What a novel legal theory.
My understanding is that in this case, the father originally provided the weapon, and then failed to supervise his child while the child was in possession of it. This fact distinguishes this case from the others.
So he violated a law related to securing his guns when minors live in the residence.
If you support charging the father with anything the kid did then America is over as we know it.
What if he used the father’s machete, steak knife, hammer?
This shooting could easily have been done with almost any gun. A semi auto pistol would have been a much more rational choice.
Glock makes a 33 round magazine for their popular G19. But the magazines can be changed in seconds anyway so two standard 15 rounds would be just as effective
Using this logic, the Covenant killer family should be held accountable along with Vanderbilt Hospital. The Covenant killer (an adult -28 yrs old) was still living at home. The parents had this girl in psychiatric care for over 20 years at Vanderbilt. There’s still all the info taken from the home that has been illegally withheld from the public but the killer’s writings from her vehicle have been made public by The Tennessee Star showing a lifetime of mental illness. All the while being enabled by her parents and Vanderbilt.
The shooter or the parent isn’t rich in melanin like the ones in the other cities mentioned.
My dad bought me a baseball bat when I was 14 to play in the Hot Stove League. If I took the bat and beat the hell out of somebody would my father be liable?
I know, a bit extreme, but so is charging a father for a son’s crime.
And in this case, shouldn’t the FBI be liable also?
If the Father is charged . What about the kid being on the FIB list what bout all the others that were on FIB
List that commuted crimes . Shouldn’t they be charged as well ? Shouldn’t someone get fired . 👀
Public display of “hard hitting justice”… while willfully blind to the other 99.9% of cases…
Nothing done to the parents of Trump’s attempted assassin. Crickets and blackout there.
arrest the FBI moron who interviewed him and let him go to commit murder, they let people be murdered every day in hospitals
Who gives a young person an AR-15 for his first rifle? When I was a kid, a single-shot .22 or a single-shot 20 gauge were the preferred introductory hunting weapons. There is a lot more going on here than we are being told.
Apparently the school had at least a one half hour advance warning that morning from the kids mom. They blew it and people got killed.
Thank god I didn’t father any kids.
I can’t help but wonder if this strategy of charging the parent isn’t some form of kicking dust in all of our eyes to distract from the fbi’s failure to stop this from happening despite the fact that colt gray was on their radar. . .so many failures on the part of the fbi that I begin to suspect they have an agenda. Now we are discussing the father’s arrest instead of the fbi’s failure. With each fbi failure to intervene, as they should, we are that much closer to overwhelming public outrage that will lead to infringement upon the 2nd amendment. I suspect it is intentional.
That’s a pretty reasonable position.
Department of war was renamed to Department of Defense and at roughly the same time we started involving ourselves in the affairs of other countries and creating wars.
I guess they didn’t need to change the name when the US became “The People’s Republic of the United States.”
I think people who keep pit bulls deserver the SAME treatment when their dogs maul children. I’ve heard it a thousand times “It’s not the dog! It’s the owner!” When was the last time you saw any other breed of dog tear the arm off of a baby?
But I also agree with all of the parents of black children in areas of the country. That standard should be applied as well.
If they are going to prosecute the dad then since the school administration was notified by the mom prior to the shooting that morning then the administrator that was notified should also be charged since school administrators claim to operating “in loco parentis”
Negligence, obviously, which gives victims plenty of openings to sue. Murder? If that holds up, then anyone witnessing a crime that results in murder without doing something about it, is also responsible.
How about charging parents for abuse if they buy the kids junk food?
How about charging judges who let people out of prison or prosecution even though they know the perps history?
I see you point. The nanny state can absolutely go too far.
But isn’t it interesting that the grandfather of Colt says the father should be given the death penalty. Could be he knows something about the father we don’t yet know? Did the father’s mental illness get transferred to the boy? Was the father an FBI patsy in the making? This is all too weird.
Perhaps the “feral bureau of instigation” knew more about the troubled youth than the father, and should be held accountable.
My thoughts are as follows:
A) Abuse of Prosecutorial and Judicial discretion — is the method by which a Common Law judicial system is subjected to corruption. As evidenced by US, UK, Australia.
Therefore unchecked prosecutorial and judicial discretion must be simply outlawed.
The discretion can remain, but that has to be checked. The method of checking is simple: for any prosecutorial choice that may lead to criminal conviction in cases for statutes that have been ‘rarely’ applied, the choice has to be checked by 3 randomly picked prosecutors (from other states). And if all 3 agree than the choice made by prosecutor can proceed
B) Assuming that (A) is sorted. Parents has to be responsible for their children whether they provided firearms or not. A child may have had committed a heinous crime without firearms, still parents should be responsible for anybody until they can vote.
C) The voting age must be equal to firearm allowance age, and must be equal to marriage age, and must be equal military age.
Same age for these ‘adulthood’ statuses.
Once we have all 3 (A,B,C) settled and clear, then yes before that age — parents are responsible and should be prosecuted for not teaching their kids the value of life.
If a child is a foster care child — then the foster care is liable.
If parents are divorced, the parent with whom the child is staying is liable. If the split was 50/50 than both are liable.
If one of parents (or both) was incarcerated, deployed, or undergoing mental or drug treatment for more than 6 month before the crime, than not liable.
The basic principle to decide if liable or not: was the parent expected to raise the child … if yes, than liable for the child’s crimes
Nice idea but (1) we know how “random” works with Democrats because we’ve seen how “randomly” judges have been selected for Trump and (2) the notion of a state’s prosecutor being required to consult with other states’ prosecutors? That’s a little weird.
Absolutely charge the parents of ANY involvement in making weapons available for children taking ’em to school, movies…anywhere outside the premises.
“Weapons”?
So if a kid takes a steaknife out of the kitchen and stabs over a dozen kids (China) the parents get charged with murder?
Lock the knives up he uses the father’s hammer. Where does it stop?
Several million kids in America on psychotropic drugs. Both parents forced to work often multiple jobs. Smart phones wrecking everyone adults and children.
I don’t follow that logic.
ABLECHILD: Georgia’s Spending Increases on Failed Mental Health Programs and No One is Getting Betterhttps://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/ablechild-georgias-spending-increases-failed-mental-health-programs/
The drugs are behind these shootings. Parents should NOT allow the children to be drugged. What happened to the old talk therapy with NO drugs?
“What are your thoughts?”
14 year old boy should be given an air rifle or a 22 bolt-action rifle AFTER he gets ‘A’s on his report card, or earns his Eagle Scout, or otherwise demonstrates his RESPONSIBILITY. Then he can buy his own semiautomatic on 18th birthday, with his own money.
The father here seems AT LEAST guilty of accessory or aiding abetting, but I don’t have all facts
The vast majority of shooting deaths are from pistols not rifles.
Blunt object deaths outnumbered rifle deaths for years.
An AR in this case is irrelevant.
The ar-15 platform is an excellent gun for self-defense but overkill for shooting kids in a crowded area at close range.
A cheap semi-auto pistol in any caliber would be a much better choice.
AR-15 in 5.56 (.223) is basically a .22 semi-auto rifle.
This is their new tactic for selective 2A harassment.
it seems to me ALL punishment has only one purpose: TO DETER.
it isn’t retribution, rehabilitation or restitution. it seems clear that bad/cavalier parenting is worsening the juvenile violence situation, especially since democrats have robbed kids of heroes, patriotism, religion, clarity of thought and morality.
parents should be put on notice. I really want to ask the ‘parents’ of the ‘Gentle Giant’ if they’d like to apologize to America for foisting this barbaric man-child off on us to make his criminal attack against civilization. those two ignorant dollops were showered with sympathy; it should have been jackboots.
This is a full-on assault of the 2nd amendment. Unfortunately, there are far too many DEMArepublicans who support this
If the kid (a minor) had run over some other kids with Dad’s car or blown up a school building with dynamite, Dad would be liable in a civil proceeding. Why should we get wrapped up in “muh gun rights” when the kid does this with a firearm Dad bought him, possibly illegally, and certainly inadvisably?
With rights come responsibilities. Sorry.
This is a case of pushing for seizure of guns… it is a trap, some will say if it should be applied to all shooters’ parents in which case the commies will say ‘ ok’..
Accessory to murder is the highest charge that should be given to anyone not participating in the actual crime.
This would begin to make sense IF many parental rights were restored to parents AND it was thoroughly spelled out and accepted what parental responsibilities are that are coupled with those rights.
I think the ultimate motivation to charge the parents for their child’s illegal/criminal activities is just a scheme in efforts to accomplish a much larger goal later in time. The second amendment protects us for now, but their plans to disarm the masses is the ultimate agenda for the left. Any actions that the left can take to advance their evil plan is considered a success regardless of how big or small the advance is. Soon they will want to charge the business owners who facilitate the sale of firearms & then they will try & prosecute gun manufacturers- thus making it harder for law abiding citizens to protect & defend themselves, their families, & their property against those evil-doers who are trying to inflict harm. Therefore, I don’t agree with the DOJ’s decision to prosecute the parents of the responsible party of a crime unless parents can start holding the teachers & educational systems criminally responsible for emotional distress & the mental illness problem effecting our youth as a result of the shit their inculcating these kids with.
The father gifted a rifle to his son who accompanied him on hunting trips. Authorities in the prior made no recommendation for mental treatment. Father being charged is off base.