This very important story appeared in the Washington Post.
She had seen her grandson’s red, spiral-bound notebook before that night, but now, as Catherine O’Connor sifted through its pages for the first time, what she read astonished her.
“School Shootings,” Joshua O’Connor had titled the first page, above a reconstruction of the Columbine High School massacre that left 13 people dead. In the pages that followed, Joshua, who’d just turned 18, described a detailed plan to carry out his own massacre: the shotguns, pistols, assault rifle and ammunition he would buy and the bombs he would build; the doors he would zip-tie “so bitches can’t escape”; the spot by the bleachers where he would set off the first explosion; the route he would take on his killing spree; the moment, when it was over, that he would end his own life.
“I Need to make this shooting/ bombing… infamous,” he wrote in early 2018. “I Need to get the biggest fatality number I possibly can.”
Catherine O’Connor, a retired probation officer who was Joshua’s guardian, showed the journal to her husband, who was equally disturbed. The next day, after O’Connor dropped her grandson off at school, she searched his room and found a semiautomatic rifle in a guitar case. Then she did what many parents of school shooters never do: called the police to report that a child she loved posed a threat to his classmates, his community and himself.
Last week’s shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan, which left four students dead and seven other people wounded, has focused unprecedented attention on the responsibility parents bear when their children fire shots on campuses.
For decades, mothers and fathers have overlooked clear warning signs that their teens were capable of violence, but adults are almost never held accountable when their negligence leads to bloodshed. That’s what makes Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of the 15-year-old charged with the shooting, so unusual. They each face four counts of involuntary manslaughter, almost certainly the most serious charges ever brought against an alleged school shooter’s mother or father.
Since 1999, children have committed at least 175 school shootings, according to a new Washington Post analysis. Among the 114 cases in which the weapon’s source was identified by police, 77 percent were taken from the child’s home or those of relatives or friends. And yet, The Post discovered just five instances when the adult owners of the weapons were criminally punished because they failed to lock them up. Another three cases in which adults were charged, including the one against the Crumbleys, are pending.
[More than 278,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine)
In Michigan, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald has argued that the facts justify the felony charges against the couple, alleging “unconscionable” negligence.
Four days before the shooting, McDonald said, James Crumbley bought a 9mm Sig Sauer, which their son, Ethan, later posted a photo of on Instagram, writing, “Just got my new beauty today.” Three days before the shooting, Jennifer Crumbley posted that she and Ethan were at the gun range “testing out his new Christmas present.”
One day before the shooting, a teacher caught Ethan searching online for ammunition, but when the school alerted his mother, authorities say she instead texted her son: “Lol. I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”On the day of the shooting, McDonald said, a teacher found a note on which Ethan drew a person shot dead, along with “blood everywhere” and “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” When his parents were summoned to the school, the prosecutor noted, they refused to take him home — nor did they search his backpack for the gun. Less than three hours later, his rampage began.
The Crumbleys have pleaded not guilty, and their attorney denied the prosecutor’s allegation that the 9mm was kept in an unlocked drawer, saying “that gun was actually locked.”
School administrators also deny they did anything wrong, but the parents of two sisters who survived the shooting filed a pair of lawsuits, in federal court Thursday, accusing the district of negligence, too.
Regardless of who’s at fault, research shows that such deadly outcomes are not inevitable. In a report issued earlier this year, the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center reviewed 67 “disrupted plots” targeting schools between 2006 and 2018. Every time, the report said, “tragedy was averted” when others came forward after seeing alarming behavior. In most cases, friends, classmates or other peers spoke up, but in eight instances — or about 1 in 9 — a parent or grandparent noticed and reported something, sometimes after going through a relative’s bedroom or, as O’Connor did, reading a journal.
She discovered that Joshua had scheduled the attack for April 19 — the day before Columbine’s anniversary. She found the list of his self-diagnosed mental illnesses and the pages with the will that he’d written, explaining what was to be done with his ashes. In the journal’s seventh entry, she read this: “So today I just bought a Hi-Point 9mm Carbine rifle. … I can’t wait for April, it will be a blast.”
The day after his arrest, on Feb. 14, 2018, O’Connor watched what happened when another attacker wasn’t stopped.
Just past 2 p.m., 3,300 miles away in Parkland, Fla., another angry teenager who had threatened to shoot up a campus did just that, killing 17 people during the deadliest high school shooting in American history.
‘Not impulsive acts’
She never feared her grandson, but Joshua’s horrifying plot made clear that he needed help she and her husband couldn’t give him.
“What’s the right next step?” she recalled thinking before alerting authorities. “I don’t know what other choice there was.”
Because she made that choice, her grandson never fired a shot or took a life. Police arrived soon after her 911 call and searched Joshua’s room, where they found a collection of bomb parts and confiscated his rifle and notebook. Within hours, he was taken into custody.
Four decades before the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and two decades before the shooting at Columbine, a teenager named Brenda Spencer opened fire on a San Diego elementary school on Jan. 29, 1979, killing two adults and wounding eight children and a police officer.
Spencer was 16, and her father, Wallace, had given her the .22-caliber rifle a month earlier. It was, just like Ethan Crumbley’s handgun, a Christmas gift.
Prosecutors never charged the man with a crime.
His potential culpability garnered little attention in the press at a time when school shootings were considered disturbing anomalies rather than a national crisis that demanded intensive training, expensive technology and armed officers to deter.
[‘Scared to death’: More than 4 million children endured lockdowns in the 2017-18 school year]
Not much had changed by 1998, when Kip Kinkel shot 27 people, killing two, at Thurston High in Oregon. He used three guns from home, including a Glock his dad had bought for the firearm-obsessed 15-year-old as a way to strengthen their relationship.
Kinkel had access to the weapons despite being an angry, violent, depressed and deeply delusional ninth-grader who had twice been suspended for attacking other students and, another time, was caught by police trying to buy a stolen firearm. Whether prosecutors would have charged his parents for their negligence is impossible to know; Kinkel killed them both the day before the school shooting.
Much of the country would not awaken to the threat of school shootings until the next year, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and wounded more than 20 others at Columbine.
Klebold’s mother, Sue, has talked about her experience perhaps more than any other shooter’s parent, even writing a book about her son, the attack and its aftermath.
“Dylan did not learn violence in our home. He did not learn disconnection, or rage, or racism. He did not learn a callous indifference to human life,” she argued in “A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy.” “Dylan showed no clear and present danger, the way some children do.”
Harris’s parents, who have never given an interview, could not make the same claims, according to Peter Langman, a psychologist and the author of “Warning Signs: Identifying School Shooters Before They Strike.”
“Eric Harris’s parents knew he had anger management problems — they said he punched a wall about every four weeks — knew he had been suspended for hacking into the school’s computer system and stealing everyone’s locker combination, knew he had been arrested for breaking into an electrician’s van and stealing equipment, and also knew that he had built at least one pipe bomb,” Langman said. “They also knew he drank and smoked pot. This, of course, does not predict mass murder, but should have warranted at least conducting room searches to see what else might be going on.”
Mass shooters, experts have found, seldom kill without warning.
“These are definitely not impulsive acts,” said Matt Doherty, who used to run the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center. “They are planned in advance, and that planning can occur over days, weeks or months or years.”
In 2017, parents in Maryland discovered such a plan in their 18-year-old daughter’s journal, where she laid out a “Columbine-type attack” on her high school, said Frederick County Sheriff Charles A. Jenkins.
The teen’s father also found materials for explosive devices, shotgun shells and a shotgun she had purchased, Jenkins said. The parents contacted school officials, who called the sheriff’s office. She later pleaded guilty to possessing explosive material.
“I wonder how parents cannot see signs that are developing in a home and in a family situation,” Jenkins said. “There are always signs somewhere.”
Few school shooters offered more warning signs than Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland gunman who pleaded guilty to the murders.
On the first day that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission gathered, one of their investigators presented a slide breaking down nearly 50 instances of threatening behavior that people knew about but didn’t report or that authorities knew about and didn’t act on. Instances in which Cruz tortured or killed an animal: seven. Times he was seen with a bullet, knife or firearm: 19. Declarations of hatred he made toward a group or person: eight. References he made about wanting to hurt or kill someone: 11. Threats that he would shoot up a school: three.
The commission’s chair, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, called Cruz’s mother, Lynda, an “enabler.” She died a few months prior to the Parkland shooting.
“There’s no question about it,” he said in an interview, noting that she had taken her son to get a state ID card when he was 18 so he could buy a gun, despite knowing he was violent. Investigators learned that Cruz had once knocked out three of her teeth and, at least once, pointed a gun at her.
“There is no way she should not have known” what her son was capable of, Gualtieri said. “There is no way a reasonable, prudent person wouldn’t have recognized and identified it.”
‘A wake-up call’
Twenty-one years ago, in a town just 40 miles from Oxford, Mich., a first-grader found a handgun in a shoe box, took it to school and used it to kill a 6-year-old classmate. The 19-year-old man who owned the weapon later pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and served 29 months behind bars.
No gun owners since have faced a harsher penalty for allowing their firearms to fall into the hands of a child school shooter.
Politics are often blamed for the lack of accountability. Three years ago, Commonwealth’s Attorney Mark Blankenship wanted to charge the stepfather of a 15-year-old boy who had used the man’s gun to kill two people and wound 14 more at Marshall County High, in a deeply conservative part of Kentucky.
But, just as in Michigan, state lawmakers in Kentucky had never passed a regulation mandating that adults prevent children from gaining access to their firearms, limiting Blankenship’s options. He lost reelection, blaming the failure, in part, on his comments about going after the stepfather.
Safety advocates now wonder whether the Crumbley case represents a broader shift in the way that the country assigns responsibility after school shootings. But its long-term impact may depend on the outcome. If the couple are convicted, will more prosecutors feel emboldened to go after negligent gun owners and, specifically, parents? If they’re exonerated, will the case have the opposite effect?
Regardless, some experts say, the charges could make a meaningful difference right away.
“My hope is that this will be a wake-up call for gun owners who are not safely storing their firearms,” said Allison Anderman, senior counsel at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “There are millions of teens and children who live in homes with unsecured guns.”
In fact, if the only change America had made after Columbine was to prevent children from obtaining firearms, hundreds of kids who accidentally shot themselves or each other would not have died or been maimed or suffered through the guilt of their mistake, at least 10,000 children might not have ended their own lives in suicide and more than half of the country’s school shootings wouldn’t have happened.
For Catherine O’Connor, the woman who reported her grandson to police in Washington state, doing the right thing came at a devastating cost. She pleaded with the court to show Joshua mercy, but he still received a 22-year prison term.
At a hearing, the judge called her a hero. O’Connor hated that. She just wanted to help her grandson.
The case has eroded her faith in the justice system, but she agreed with the Michigan prosecutor’s decision to charge the Crumbleys. O’Connor couldn’t comprehend why they hadn’t searched their son’s backpack during that meeting at the school.
“That’s so irresponsible, beyond belief,” she said. “That just outrages me.”
O’Connor said she had long been wary of allowing her grandson to go near unsecured firearms. She and her husband owned guns but said they were always hidden and equipped with trigger locks.
Of course, she could do nothing to stop Joshua from buying the semiautomatic rifle when he turned 18. But even her grandson came to a realization about America’s gun culture.
“Grandma,” he said the first time she saw him after this arrest, “guns are too easy to get.”
Reblogged this on dean ramser and commented:
Yes!!
Diane, thank you for posting this important information.
Holy cow!
This is “mind numbing” information. Again thanks.
We need to start holding the Supreme Court accountable —
They should all be charged as accessories to mass murder &hellip.
Any given day, there are dozens of students in my respective buildings (rural Ohio) wearing shirts with gun related imagery. Images with guns crossed in front of American flags, punisher skulls, even the crucifix… grunt style apparel, etc. No one seems to mind, because you know…freedom n’ patriots. Also, notice how tactical gear/imagery is becoming woven into fashion.
Sure, hold parents accountable. But, there is a lot more work to be done.
“there is a lot more work to be done.”
True that
Our society worships guns and violence. Check out the movies, past and present.
and it is telling that having the temerity to argue/suggest the fact that a nation so enamored with guns is the cause of our current gun chaos will immediately bring an incredibly huge backlash of comments about how it isn’t the guns
I’m all in favor of holding parents responsible if they buy their kids guns (parents get held liable for providing alcohol and drugs, after all), but the Crumbleys did not pull the trigger. Holding any human responsible for the acts of any other human sets a very dangerous and disturbing precedent that we all know will be used against poor and marginalized parents and not affluent parents.
Close The Hague courts! Retrieve those Judgment at Nuremberg Oscars! Stop the presses on those Arendt books on the Eichmann trial! And leave the Idiot alone!
It’s really shocking that flerp did not understand this reference. Maybe he believes Eichmann got a raw deal. He didn’t pull any triggers, after all.
Lol, yes, I got the reference. Godwin’s law.
“lol”?
There is a long history of people who don’t “pull the trigger” being legally responsible when someone else does. Jails are full of people convicted for homicide who didn’t pull the trigger themselves..
flerp, what makes these 2 white Trump supporting gun-loving parents so special to you and dienne77?
A posted a link to other Michigan parents — two parents served time for a lot less — a LOT less – when their young kid got hold of a gun and killed his sibling.
These parents bought an automatic handgun and ammunition as a gift for their son to use, and lied to school officials. What makes those parents so special to you and dienne77?
^correction, that other kid just shot his sister, but didn’t kill her. But his parents were still charged with a crime.
I don’t remember a lot of people on the far right defending them.
This is a reasonable and uncontroversial statement and it predictably has generated the usual fatuous comment from our resident bloviator.
I thought as one who purportedly knows something about some part of law, I would think you would understand the word precedent.
“Holding any human responsible for the acts of any other human sets a very dangerous and disturbing precedent…”
The irony of this particular person – who scapegoats all Democrats for babykilling – making this judgement.
I am so glad the courts will now be freeing every person charged with murder because they happened to be with sojmeone who pulled the trigger but didn’t pull the trigger themselves. How can they possibly be responsible?
Did it ever occur to our resident legal expert and his kindred spirit that the parents are responsible for their own actions in giving their child an automatic handgun and providing him with ammunition?
The mother posted on facebook that she had just GIVEN her son his Christmas present.
Anyone who believes the whole “We had it in the unlocked drawer in our own room” story is about the most gullible person in the world. They GAVE it to their son and they bragged about it on Facebook. If they weren’t white, their claim would be laughed out of court.
Nycpsp– I guess your problem with Flerp (who apparently is lawyer I gather from various references on the blog) is that he’s coming from the legal point of view. This is pretty close to my POV too– I think in terms of what the system can do to protect the public, while recognizing that laws to protect the public can easily go overboard in the wrong direction, punishing the innocent. Your comment rings with moral indignation, but how much of that morality can be legislated before it ends up snapping up the guilty in a trap that also snaps up a bunch of innocents?
In this comment you cite charged/ jailed people who “happened to be with the person but didn’t pull the trigger”– I agree with that sanction, but it doesn’t apply to this case. All you’re saying is there are legitimately people who didn’t pull the trigger but do get jailed. It’s not just some principle that gets applied regardless of circumstances.
You [rightly] excoriate the mother for giving her minor son an automatic as an Xmas gift [proven by her FB post], but don’t ask: how can the law deal with this? Are we supposed to have laws detailing what parents can’t give their kids? What they really do is give it to their kids but own/ license it in their own names & don’t post about it—unenforceable. Then there are all those legit parents who give their minor kids a .22 rifle but keep it unloaded & locked under [unshared] combination, & supervise their kids when they use it. Does the law apply to them? What if their kid is a computer whiz & hacks the combination to both that & the ammo & uses it to kill a kid— parents’ fault? They should have known their nerd kid could & would do this?
Then you bring in racist application of laws, suggesting if they were black parents their story wouldn’t have been believed. Doesn’t apply here, but OTOH black parents haven’t been charged in such a case either. And regardless, you have to create laws that apply to everyone, and attack racist application separately.
nycpsp– sorry just read your following link about black parents in MI charged with 2nd-deg child abuse [charge can get you up to 10yrs in jail] in an accidental shooting among tots, using an unsecured gun brought into house by a relative. I don’t think this supports your point about racist application of the laws, since after all prosecutor has charged these white parents with involuntary manslaughter…
However I wish prosecutor had included this as a back up/ alternative charge. Not sure it would be a slam dunk with a 15yo kid, but at least they could give it a shot. I worry that the involuntary manslaughter charge won’t hold.
https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/08/boy-4-shoots-5-year-old-sister-in-head-parents-charged.html
A Black father was charged and convicted over a year ago. Where was the outrage from our resident Trump defender and the lawyer who feels so much kindred spirit with her?
A white, Trump-supporting parents buy their kid an automatic weapon as a Christmas present, take him to a shooting range AND blatantly lie to the school that a violent drawing their kid made was for a non-existent video game design.
Suddenly these 2 kindred spirits believe that white Trump supporting parents need to go free for the good of this country.
^^In other words, if you are ONLY worrying about a precedent when white people might be penalized, but you cite a concern for poor and marginalized parents who have been already been subject to this precedent without objection from you, then maybe it really isn’t any concern for the poor and marginalized people.
If it was, you would be speaking out when poor and marginalized people were subject to this. Not a year and half later when white people were.
The Crumbleys are a textbook case in why parents should be held accountable. The parents never pull the trigger. In most cases, they supply the gun, leave it unattended.
I agree. And I don’t understand why suddenly some people on the right believe they can’t be held accountable. They have in the past – in Michigan.
I posted a link to another couple of parents from over a year ago, who were charged by Wayne County Michigan when their kid got hold of a gun and killed his sister (by accident). That couple got a prison sentence. (But the father wasn’t white).
Their wrongdoing was far less than what the Crumbleys did.
^^Wait, that kid did not even kill his sister — he shot her but she lived.
And the parents were still charged.
This kid killed 4 people and seriously wounded even more.
People are forgetting that MI isn’t even one of the 33 states that has some kind of safe-storage or child access prevention law. Though many of those states’ versions don’t have enough teeth, all of them (even the worst, GA’s) would apply here. I do not know what their recommended sentences look like, but I suspect if MI at least had such a law, they could connect it to the mother’s FB post, and text to her son re: ammo search, for a heavier sentence.
The prosecutor’s charge: MI’s involuntary manslaughter law might do the trick: “Unintentionally killing another person that resulting from recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony (such as DUI).” Without safe-storage laws there may be no ‘criminal negligence’ to tie it to. “Recklessness” sounds right, given all the circumstances. Still, the facts on whether the gun was properly stored may or not may be able to be proven.
There will certainly be wrongful-death civil suits following (which have lower bars of proof) and may be successful regardless of outcome of criminal trial. [Sadly some of those will be laid right at doorstep of school, which also bears some responsibility!] If any against parents are successful, that may give a heads-up to similar MI parents, &/or prompt state legislature to get some proper safe-storage laws on the books.
And this all over the internet 12/16. We must pay attention, use common sense and care about our kids.
A number of school districts around the country are responding to an anonymous threat on TikTok that seemingly warns against students attending class on Friday 12/17.
The threat, or “challenge,” as some have referred to it, reportedly calls on students to commit acts of violence on Dec. 17. According to Syracuse.com, the threat is labeled December 17, “National Shoot Up Your School Day,” and does not name a specific school or district.
There are now hundreds of other TikTok posts referencing the challenge and warning students to take precautions.
“Idk- I don’t know- if this is true or not but apparently there is a threat on December 17 2021, schools in America are going to have a school shooting or bombing,” one user on the platform wrote. “[Once] again idk if this is true but if it is, stay safe. My mom called and told me so I looked it up. … stay safe America.”
Whether this threat is true or not, we know that there is a 100% probability that it will happen over and over again somewhere, sometime in this nation. There will be tragic stories and nothing will happen. That’s probably the easiest bet around.
Got an e-mail about this from kid’s school today.
Disturbing and sad that this is our country now.
Accountability is not an effective way to change behavior. Those who say capital punishment will lower the murder rate have been frustrated by the ineffectiveness of that policy. So what will change the path we are on?
We must prioritize mental health. Anger in our school kids is a pandemic.
We must cease the adoration of guns. Interesting in and of themselves, they are, like poisonous pens, too powerful for some people to control.
We must create gun control that involves community. The ownership of a gun should come with a membership in a group that is willing to take responsibility for the responsible use of that weapon.
I grew up in a gun toting place. Every boy I knew (except me, my parents had decided we would be raised gun free) went hunting. But no one ever killed anyone. There was, however, the occasional suicide, a hushed thing I kept up with. Guns added to but did not dictate the successful nature of these attempts. Even though we had a mental health problem, we did not have a problem with attempted mass murder.
Something is rotten in the state of mind
I think that many of the parents of these mass murderers are either in denial and/or are actually afraid of their own children. If they buy guns for their kids, aid and abet the kid’s usage of the guns, then yes, they should be held accountable.
For the first time, I am reading about girls (2) who have committed school shootings (mentioned in the article). Very rarely do girls commit mass shootings as compared to the boys.
If we lived in a sane society, semi-automatic guns would be banned to the general public. For all practical purposes, fully automatic guns have been banned (depending on the state) or the procedure for buying one involves huge hurdles and restrictions and can be very expensive.
Millions of Americans do not own guns, don’t desire to have a gun in their homes and don’t enjoy killing bambi.
I would separate legitimate hunters from the gun nuts.
There are undoubtedly millions of hunters in the US who use guns responsibly.
The hunters I have known have been very conscientious and the complete opposite of the Rambo type who are incessantly whining about their right to bear ARms (aka, assault rifles)
I doubt most of the latter have ever even been on a legitimate hunt where they killed a dear, duck, pheasant or other animal to be dressed out and used for food.
I also think it’s counterproductive to lump the two together because my guess is most legitimate hunters would not want to be associated with the nutballs who inhabit the shooting ranges with assault rifles, machine guns and various other weapons that have no legitimate purpose other than to kill humans.
The most serious, conscientious hunters I have known were actually 🏹 hunters.
If you are Ram🏹 (Rambo with a 🏹) you don’t stand a chance, cuz the deer can hear you coming from a mile away.
I fully agree that parents should be held accountable when their child comments a terrible crime such a murder.
But I also strongly believe parents should held accountable for every crime commented by their sons and daughters. Parents should be held accountable for crimes such as tagging, destructions of private and public property, reckless driving, etc., etc., etc. The list seems to be endless.
Children learn very young what they can and cannot get away with in life. Right and wrong should be taught at home from the day the child is born but in far too many families these values are not important. Until the child does something wrong enough to cause damage, injury and/or death then it is too late.
Children not held responsible for his or her actions early in life will only lead to worse crimes later in life.
Parents should be held accountable in society for all crimes of their children. But, of course, far too many adults are not held accountable for their crimes and children see this happening so why should they believe the can’t get away with anything they want.
“Since 1999, children have committed at least 175 school shootings”
Children have committed a lot more than 175 shootings over the last 20 years. That’s a lot of parents potentially liable.
There is a difference between buying an automatic handgun and ammunition for your child as a personal gift, taking him to practice using it, AND blatantly lying to the school about what a violent drawing was, and parenting a child who ends up doing something violent despite the parent not giving him the means to do so and lying to school officials to “protect” him.
I don’t understand what kinds of parents you know who would not understand the difference.
Hello.
https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/08/boy-4-shoots-5-year-old-sister-in-head-parents-charged.html
Why do you keep posting that same link?
Why don’t you comment on the link instead of asking me why I keep posting it?
I post it because it directly speaks to whether it is “reasonable and uncontroversial” (your words) for someone to comment that holding parents responsible under any circumstances would be a “very dangerous and disturbing precedent”. This already happens and no one cared.
None of the right wing sites were trying to gin up outrage about these other Michigan parents being charged, despite these parents being far less responsible than white parents who bought an automatic weapon and ammunition for their child as a gift and lied to school officials to hide his violent nature, knowing they had just bought him a gun.
No one talking about how disturbing and dangerous it was to charge those parents a year ago. No worry about “precedent” until a white couple who is far more responsible than this couple was gets charged.
What do you want me to say about the link? I don’t understand your comments.
I think Dienne was saying a few things. First, that a parent who buys a gun for a child who murders someone with that gun should be held responsible. Second, that we should nonetheless be careful about attributing acts of violence to people who did not actually commit those acts of violence. And third, that holding parents vicariously responsible for the violent acts of their children is likely to happen most often with poor and marginalized parents. I think you seem to agree with the first statement, and I don’t think the last two of statements are particularly controversial. In fact, your link appears to bear out the third statement.
Now what do you want me to say about your link?
I have not seen any suggestions s in print that assert that the students who commit violent acts are likely to have poor and marginalized parents. Where’s the evidence?
I can see that you and she are kindred spirits. Your interpretation seems perfectly reasonable — like Republicans professing concern with voter fraud — until it is clear that their sudden concern is disingenuous.
Giving you both the benefit of the doubt – feel free to go on record with your outrage that those parents in Michigan were charged.
“Second, that we should nonetheless be careful about attributing acts of violence to people who did not actually commit those acts of violence.”
“Be careful?” Why do you suddenly warn about “being careful” when it is parents who purchased an automatic handgun AND lied to the school who are being prosecuted?
I stipulate that prosecutors should “be careful”. I stipulate that prosecutors should “be careful” about any prosecution. We agree.
But I really didn’t hear either of you actually expressing any support for prosecuting THESE parents – the Crumbleys – despite all the evidence that is already out there.
And if you don’t think the Crumbleys did enough to be prosecuted, then what you mean by “being careful” speaks for itself.
Why would I be “outraged” that the parents were charged? I don’t know anything about the case. And have I said that I’m “outraged” that the parents in this Oxford case have been charged? I doubt I have, because I’m not.
There are some things I’m outraged about, but nothing in this comment thread qualifies.
“be careful”
I don’t have an opinion on the issue myself, but I do warn those who oppose mask mandates in school to “be careful” because criminalizing mask mandates could very well lead to schools being forbidden from having any dress codes at all, and students allowed to attend school wearing profanity-laced shirts with ethnic and racist slurs, or in their skimpy bathing suits or even naked.
I don’t have an opinion on the issue myself, but I do warn those who oppose school closings during pandemics to “be careful” because that could lead to schools being mandated to remain open even after officials know that bombs have been planted all over the building.
I don’t have an opinion on the issue itself, but I do warn those who want to prosecute parents who buy their children automatic handguns and ammunition as Christmas presents and intentionally mislead school officials about their child’s propensity for violence to “be careful” because that could lead to something very scary. Almost as scary as a school being mandated to remain open during a serious bomb threat.
“I have not seen any suggestions s in print that assert that the students who commit violent acts are likely to have poor and marginalized parents. Where’s the evidence”
Diane, people (including juveniles) who commit violent crimes in general are disproportionately poor.
NYCPP, this is why I generally don’t bother interacting with you in a serious way. It just goes on forever and leads to escalating levels of gibberish. I don’t know what you’re trying to say, although I have the general impression you’re trying to insult me and/or catch me in what you seem to think is some bombshell of hypocrisy. It’s just not worth it.
FLERP,
Don’t waste your time.
Very disappointing response, Diane. This idiot complains about “What do you want me to say about the link? I don’t understand your comments.” And this after ad infinitum examples of this idiot posting links he expects everybody else to read without explaining anything. You may agree or disagree with NYPSP, as I often do either way. But do not label it gibberish and don’t validate that comment with “Don’t waste your time.” She explains. Whether you disagree with it or not. It Idiot, jr. just throws out crap and never explains anything or cites relevant examples. Odd for someone who claims to be attorney. Odder that anyone would validate it. But if that’s what passes for argument these days, secular heaven help us all.
Crumble Ease
The Crumbleys crumbled
Before their son
Really bumbled
Bought a gun
Since “no” was not
A word they said
There’s now a lot
Of children dead
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Too many in the United States have an obsession with violence. Not surprising when we consider how many violent video games there are and how violent many TV series and movies there are. Then there’s the fact that firearms are too easy to get in the US.