I am not now, I have never been nor do I ever plan to be a member of the National Rifle Association. The last, and really only, times I ever shot a gun were in 1971 and 1973 at sleepaway camp; they took us down to a rifle range and handed out .22s and I was bad enough to not earn a rank badge either summer. I am not now, I have never been nor do I ever plan to be a parent. TS1 and I have talked this over quite extensively and are in agreement on this, much to my parents’ chagrin. Nonetheless, I’m going to share with you my opinion on who should take the blame when a child walks into school with a gun (unloaded) or multiple guns (and kills the principal) or multiple guns with other weapons (Columbine).
It’s the parents’ fault! If a parent cannot know his or her child well enough to know what they might do with a gun or other deadly weapon, and the parents still bring/allow guns in the house, then those parents should be prosecuted as if they themselves had pulled the trigger. I’m sure the law as currently written wouldn’t allow such charges, though a case might be made for some form of conspiracy to comitt manslaughter if a prosecutor was creative and in front of a willing judge.
And why not? People will come to the defense of these parents and ask how could they have known? Teenagers are unknowable. Well, when I was that age, my parents generally knew about things I was up to or found out. There are two incidents in particular I can remember: one time I bought a bag of pot and another time I was stopped by the local police for driving before I had my license. I suppose I smoked my share of pot in high school but this was one of the very few times I actually brought any into the house–my dad drove me to the seller’s home and made me give it back, you can imagine the ribbing I took at school afterwards.
In the tragedy yesterday in Pennsylvania, the boy was worked up enough to talk about his plans with friends. Even if none of them was intelligent enough to mention the threats to a parent or other adult, I believe the shooter gave some signs off that his folks should have picked up. Further, even though the guns were kept in a locked safe, the boy had access to them, which means the guns weren’t secure enough.
Finally, parents are responsible for the actions of their minor children and if James Sheet’s parents aren’t prosecuted, they can’t serve as a wake up call for other families. Conservative politicians are generally the most strident supporters of protecting the ability of individuals to own guns yet they’re also the fastest to put up family values as a keystone of how life ought to be lived (paging Sen. Santorum, Bush Defends Senator Over Anti-Gay Remarks). So why don’t they make the obvious connection?
BillSaysThis 