School shootings, particularly those that reach the level of being considered "mass shootings," is something we definitely need to work toward preventing. The problem is that, like so many other issues of our day, we can't remotely agree on how to address it.
And one person echoing an idea that parents should be held responsible is part of that problem.
Look, there are times when I might agree with that sentiment. Parents who are shown to have somehow facilitated a shooting, especially knowing or having reason to know that such an event will transpire, are probably liable for what happens, not because of guns but because of being crap parents who helped their kid commit a crime, knowing he or she was likely to commit a crime.
But a letter to the editor in the San Marcos Record thinks this should be more general, and the reasons she gives are troubling, to say the least.
The recent conviction of a father connected to the 2024 Apalachee High School shooting in Georgia reflects a shift in how society understands that responsibility. The jury determined that providing a firearm to a teenager who has exhibited warning signs was not simply poor judgement, it was criminal negligence. This decision sends a clear message: when an adult enables access to deadly weapons despite known obvious risks, accountability doesn’t stop with the person who pulls the trigger.
This case is not isolated. In multiple school shootings across the country firearms were obtained from the shooter’s own home. In some instances parents purchased or gifted guns despite knowing their child expressed violent thoughts, displayed aggressive tendencies, or[sic]
SEE struggled emotionally. Providing access to a lethal weapon while ignoring clear red flags is not a parent oversight, it is a preventable failure whose decision places other children’s lives in danger.
Parents should be held accountable because they are the primary gatekeepers of access within the home. Minors cannot legally purchase firearms on their own, they rely on adult supervision and control. When a parent decides to give a gun or leave it unsecured despite clear warning signs, that decision increases the risk of violence. Holding parents accountable reinforces a basic system of public safety, with rights comes responsibility. Firearm ownership carries a duty of care especially when children are involved.
The father of the currently accused Apalachee killer is an outlier case. He was told his child was talking about committing a mass killing and rather than take the threat seriously, he bought him an AR-15 and allowed him easy access to it. That's not most of the kids who carry out these attacks, in the least.
The vast majority of school shootings in this country don't necessarily even involve students, for one thing, but when they do, they're typically involving a stolen firearm. The parent isn't just handing the kid a gun and sending them on their way. Many times, the gun was actually a black market gun, though this is mostly for cases where the school shooting isn't a mass shooting.
In the others, the parent is basically a victim themselves, though of a much lesser crime. What this letter writer is proposing is to punish victims for being victims.
What she's proposing is to basically treat parents as responsible for any and all shootings at a school, even if the parent did everything they reasonably could to keep their guns secured. Even if the gun was stolen from somewhere else, she wants them held accountable because they're responsible for everything that happens in their home.
I wonder if she has kids. I wonder if she remembers when she was a kid.
We all do things that might not have met our parents' approval. Does that mean they were responsible because we did them? Obviously not. We were rebellious teens, after all.
None of us opened fire on a cafeteria full of our peers, admittedly, but my point is that parents ostensibly have control of their children, but only to a point. Kids can and will do things that parents won't approve of, and sometimes, that reaches the level of criminality well beyond drinking at a party or smoking some weed at a friend's house.
Her idea of holding parents accountable sounds good, but it won't actually prevent tragedies--an argument she outright dismissed in her letter. All it will do is create even more difficulty for parents of these killer kids, even if they did nothing to contribute to the incident.
Punish people for their own actions. Punish them for what they did when they knew they shouldn't.
Don't punish people for what their teenage kids do, especially since half the time, we're just hoping our kids listen to us.
