https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/14/father-of-michigan-school-shooter-found-guilty-of-involuntary-manslaughter
Groundbreaking verdict holds James Crumbley, father of teen who killed four students, criminally responsible for actions of his child
And now there's a precedent set to help stop with your school shootings America, everytime an underage person gets hold of and uses a gun on other people, you can now charge the parents, once a couple more go down you watch how quickly people start properly securing their guns away or more on the extreme side, just give most of them up.
You have something to help stop school shootings, please use it America, it's too saddening seeing how many children die at your school's when it could be dealt with just be properly securing your guns away from children.
This case will cause a chilling effect but in a backward sort of way. The reality is that nobody is likely to be convicted in the way Crumbley was, because Crumbley was so unbelievably stupid it was literally criminal. So the only people who will be convicted under this precedent are the equally stupid.
But more intelligent parents will take note, get scared, and hopefully lock up their guns so their insane kids can't use them to shoot up the school.
Yeah I was iffy on the charges until I heard the details. From what I’ve heard the crumbleys were negligent on a level that’s difficult to sufficiently express
Actually the level of ignorance is easy to express, if you’re William Faulkner. There are vast swaths of humanity that are dumb as fucking rocks. It’s not polite to talk about but as someone involved in education admin, there are these kinds of parents EVERYWHERE. I’ve literally sat in disciplinary appeals where the parents try to explain that their child HAD to have a concealed dagger for protection. In a k-12 school with 400 kids total, no school resource officers/popo, no fights, highly involved parents, etc. Um, no, your child is expelled and I’m slightly terrified that they’ll shoot us up when they turn 20 and start going schizto.
Just another reason to not waste time with guns. The risk-benefit just isn't there.
People want to feel in control and I get that. Take a natural disaster like a wildfire or something. It's pretty much entirely out of your control. In a burglary, robbery, etc., it too is out of your control you just don't realize it. The events leading up to that were set in stone in some failure in the assailant's life, society, etc.
Everyone thinks a gun will make them safer but study after study shows the added risks from a variety of vectors outweighs the alleged safety that comes from possessing one.
In essence, if people had a special device that deterred the one in a million wildfire somehow but that device subsequently elevated the risk of your family being hurt in some other way to a greater degree who would rationally possess such a device?
It concerns me that there seems to be an obvious astroturfed effort to "arm the left" that reflects the ProPublics investigation on right-wing extremists seeking to muddy the waters between the sides and sow a civil / race war. The only people jumping in glee from this are firearm manufacturers who see a new market to tap.
It concerns me that there seems to be an obvious astroturfed effort to “arm the left”
Riiiight... because the only way the left could possibly ever arm itself is because of astroturfing, right?
Somehow, I don't think you know what left means, genius.
Hahah, quoting Marx when -- tell me -- how popular is Marx anyway in the US? Going to give you a hint and note that the figure is somewhere <=1%.
That you believe Marx speaks for every leftist in America in some strangely divine authoritarian reference.... Allllriiighty, then, genius.
Most, if not all, leftists accept Marx's ideation of capitalism - even anarchists, who can be pretty disdainful of Marx otherwise. If you don't, you're not a leftist.
So... do you have any other reason to disarm the left apart from your silly little liberal conspiracy theory?
So by extension, they all accept his word on firearms? You speak for all leftists? How awfully convenient!
Alllriiightyyy, then.... Your logical fallacy is: Non-Sequitur.
I can give you a plethora of reasons worth the time honestly, but given your usage of fallacies and blindly presumptuous takes ("silly little liberal"), I'm just not sure it's worth my time.
they all accept his word on firearms?
Find out for yourself here or here.
Somehow, I doubt you're going to try.
I can give you a plethora of reasons worth the time honestly
And yet you haven't... no surprises there.
(“silly little liberal”)
Yes, I called your silly little liberal conspiracy theory a silly little liberal conspiracy theory - because it's a silly little liberal conspiracy theory.
This is not as clever as you believe it to be.
I particularly use a car on the daily whose primary purpose is to take me from point-A to point-B. You know, the part where I said Risk-Benefit...?
Tell me what the primary use of a firearm in my home is on a daily-basis other than being an active risk.
Tell me what the primary use of a firearm in my home is on a daily-basis other than being an active risk.
Well, it serves multiple purposes, actually! For starters, it makes a fantastic paperweight when I have too many documents on my desk. Secondly, if I ever run out of popcorn kernels while watching a movie, I can just load some small ones into the gun and shoot them into a frying pan. It also works great as a marshmallow launcher during backyard bonfires - that'll impress all your friends at your next neighborhood get-together. Oh, and last but not least, you can use it as a walking stick or a selfie stick for those hard-to-reach angles. Clearly, there are several creative ways to utilize a firearm in everyday life.
Shucks, you've convinced me!
Bonus we all get to supplement some great and tasty lead from all the target practice when we're training to be the big hero that one day!
The primary use is to protect you from someone who attempts to cause you harm. It’s only an active risk if not understood how to use and not properly out of reach of those who do not understand. I don’t like guns but I am not sure what you are trying to argue?
This mindset is like the motorcyclists or automobile drivers who espouse they don't plan on wrecking because they're good drivers, lmao.
Welcome to why we have speed-limits;; sure, some might know how to drive faster, but boy, when do my fellow males ever over-extend their confidence beyond their actual capability...?
lol anyways, the reality is that statistically the risk to those within the household from mere possession (safety accidents from children, suicide, domestic abuse/homicide, not opting to run, hide, flee, cooperate that are all better alternatives than engaging, statistically, theft of firearm and its use elsewhere) outweighs the safety. Full-stop. From a societal standpoint, that's kind of a bad ROI.
More Intelligent parents probably wouldn't have guns at home in the first place you sure this is going to change anything?
For many people, guns are used for sport (hunting). In rural areas, this is very common. Some people are just paranoid and feel the need to be armed. It's not stupid in its own right. If the owner of the gun knows how to secure it properly and takes the appropriate precautions, it can be safe to store firearms in a house. The problem is that too many people who own guns let their egos get too big and are neglectful of gun safety or downright stupid. That's when problems arise.
There is real nuance to this issue. Don't try to dumb it down to "gun owners are idiots".
Trust me, my rural neighbors on all fucking sides of me aren’t hunting with the ARs they start shooting the fucking moment the get home from church on Sundays. And given the number of stray bullet incidents, they ain’t Boy Scouts either.
Some people are just paranoid and feel the need to be armed.
Yep idiots. In a normal country wouldn't be allowed to own a deadly weapon. Maybe I am pushing it a bit too far because all other countries have hunters and a tiny fraction of the population with a good reason to own a firearm, but gun owners are idiots is a food enough approximation.
Also, you can store a nuclear weapon safely in a house doesn't mean any idiot should have one.
Yeah there's already the worst possible thing as the potential outcome so really can't see adding a tiny part to it will change anything. No one is thinking 'well as long as he's only shooting up the school I'll let him play with the guns' they're thinking 'I'm really smart and nothing bad will ever happen'.
I'm not saying it isn't a good idea because maybe it will stop one or two kids becoming killers which is more than worth it, though it's dangerous too if the kid decides it's how he'll get his revenge by doing a shooting and leaving a note saying his stepdad helped
Yeah you'd better especially if you're a shitty parent giving an emotionally troubled teen access to a weapon, you'll end up with a special prosecutor rightfully charging your ass.
Remember Mr prosecutor this guy's wife thought it was more important to get finger banged by her lover instead of helping her child in crisis. They're trash people.
You've got some crazy wishful thinking if you think this is enough for people to give up their guns.
All I want is for people to properly secure their guns at best and not let their hormone filled children gain access to them.
We have shit loads of guns in Australia still, we just don't have it so any billy bob can go down and get a military spec assault rifle to "defend their home".
Yeah we do, you can still buy and own guns in Australia, it's just highly regulated and you have to have your weapon secured in a gun safe or at your gun club, which you have to be a member of to be able to purchase, I have a gun shop and a club just down the road from me and that clubs packed all weekend with people shooting.
No shit a shooting club is packed with people with a gun.
Doesn't mean Australia is packed with guns just because you see a handful of idiots down the road, that is not representative of the whole population. As you said heavily regulated, there's virtually no guns besides farms and the club down the road from you. Quick search puts AU at 14.5 guns per 100 population. Quite low in the list and well below civilised places like Canada, Switzerland and many eu countries.
What people on reddit and lemmy don't seem to understand is that the shock caused by ONE mass shooting, port Arthur, and the policies introduced as a consequence shifted a country that was similar to the US in terms of gun ownership to become similar to a western European country. Ie guns are virtually non existent (unless you leave next door from a shooting range, apparently that needs to be made clear).
Guns are certainly not 'virtually non existent' in Australia. Your comment is written with such gusto and pride but reeks like a 12 year old wrote it after hearing about it in history class last week.
Shush.
Guns are certainly not as abundant as you write in your first comment. Or abundant at all
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
Edit: oh wait you are not even the guy I was replying to. So you just came here to add nothing, make a wrong statement and insult me. How about you wait until next year, go through that history class yourself, and then you can tell us what you think about how Australia managed to implement gun control? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/15/it-took-one-massacre-how-australia-made-gun-control-happen-after-port-arthur
I have a couple thoughts on this. First, if the adults are guilty and the courts accepted the argument that they neglected to give the child the help he needed, why is the child serving a life sentence? The article makes it sound like he wanted help and knew he needed it.
Also, I thought I read that the parents had not just left the weapon unsecured, but let him use it.
Because only the parents knew the worst parts, they bought him a gun, and then left it accessible.
Days later when called to the school over concern that he was showing signs of committing a mass shooting, the parents downplayed it and said their son should remain in school.
They didn't mention the gun, or ask the son about it. They didn't even go home to check.
We have this weird taboo over talking about guns. But when a kid shows these signs "do they have access to guns" should be one of the first questions asked.
I mean, it’s a common question in these scenarios.
Nothing physically compels them to tell the truth, though.
This...
This compels them to tell the truth
Because if they lie, and the worst happens, they go to prison
Also his mother chose to get finger banged by the guy she was cheating with instead of helping her kid using the excuse, "she couldn't skip work" and then she skipped work.
The kid needed help, and knew he needed help, but he still chose to go through with it instead of turning himself in.
The drawing on the math paper was a cry for help. He could have just as easily turned himself in, he did not.
It also doesn't help that:
a) Ethan gave his dad the money for the gun, and picked out that specific gun, when he was not old enough to own a gun.
b) Dad made a straw purchase for his son.
c) Mom posted to Instagram calling the gun her sons Christmas present.
I don’t think many kids know about their options though. He basically said “I asked my parents for help and they denied me, so I can’t get help.” To me, that suggests the kid thought he exhausted his options. An uneducated child is a system failure imo, not a child’s criminal act.
I’d also say that most people who are victims of suicide could have turned themselves in. Do we frown on them because they opted for violence?
The criminal justice system doesn't normally care how awful you are to yourself, its there to try and prevent you being awful to others. I believe you can still be charged with a crime in most of America if you survive a suicide attempt, but it isn't normally pursued because it doesn't really accomplish the things the state cares about...just like the state doesn't typically care about any psychiatric conditions you have unless they make you a danger to others.
I've got a few psychiatric conditions myself, and sometimes they contribute to me making bad choices that negatively impact the people I care about, but that doesn't absolve me of the responsibility I have to own up to my actions and make amends when I fuck up. I can't imagine anything I've dealt with leading me to the conclusion that killing a bunch of children or peers would be acceptable or desirable, but I also have the benefits of being properly medicated and having years of therapy under my belt that had given me a lot of great tools for dealing with my shit...but its still my shit and I'm responsible for it.
And yes, I do tend to frown on suicide. It's a final solution to a usually temporary problem, hurts EVERYONE who loves you, and it destroys your ability to do anything to make the world better.
Plus Mom chose to get finger banged by her lover instead of skipping work instead of helping her child during an emotional crisis. Even her boss said it would have been fine...she's gross.
In USA, we have a Punitive Justice system, which is about punishing people for things they have or may have done. This has conditioned us to -want- people to be punished for perceived slights. This is opposed to a Rehabilitive Justice system that some European countries have, which is about not just helping the one who commited the crime to be a better person, but conditioning their citizens to not be the type of people that commit said crimes in the first place. That's all there is to it.
That guy is a murderer and his father is an accessory to murder. Where’s the doubt?
The child asked for help and was neglected. Had he not committed a crime, wouldn’t we be calling him a victim?
Sure, but then we’re talking about him as a victim still. So why is he spending his entire life in prison? Some are cheering the Gypsy Rose Blanchard release, but saying this kid is a murderer who deserves to live behind bars
He is spending his entire life in prison because the US justice system is based around deterrence and retaliation, not prevention and rehabilitation.
In most civilised countries it is impossible for underage offenders to get life. Forinstance in Germany the maximum prison sentence for a minor is ten years. Also youth prisons are focused much more on rehabilitation, social work and education, so the children have a chance at life after their sentence.
Right. Maybe I’m just conditioned by a decade on Reddit to be Socratic and not say things bluntly lol
Especially since he was 15 at the time of shooting and was literally incapable of getting mental health treatment (if your parents dgaf it's basically impossible)
I wasn't trying to say he's not guilty in my original comment, but rather, if our country as a whole viewed crime and punishment differently, this kind of situation could be avoided altogether. Hypothetical, I know, but conditioning people to help those in need, in turn, reduces the rate at which people treat others poorly. If this kid was treated better in the first place, it could be said he would have never committed this crime, but now he has, and there's no coming back from that. With his punishment, he will be facing a life of psychological tortue, which won't make anything better.
Even if he'd been found not competent to stand trial, he'd still be committed involuntarily. I don't know if this makes a difference.
That ends once you’re stable though.
Edit: also, I don’t mean the kid should be free, but a life sentence for a neglected child seems unfair. The kid knew he needed help and couldn’t get it. Sounds like a victim too.
And it's very messed up he didn't get that help. However, he's still responsible for his actions and needs to be held accountable for them. He knew it was wrong or he wouldn't have asked for help in the first place. 15 is old enough to understand what it means to kill someone.
If you're an alcoholic, and you're trying to get help, but you drive drunk on the way to therapy and kill someone, you're still responsible.
The sentiment that your mental health crisis somehow absolves you of your actions is dangerous for society. I'm pretty far left politically but I've been seeing this more and more from that side of the aisle and it's concerning. Arguably everyone who kills has something mentally wrong with them!
Going by the education I got from L&O, what happens in one trial doesn't really affect a separate trial, even for the same crime
Yes, from a strictly legal perspective. But if we take a step back and ask ourselves “who is responsible?” it’s a little different.
We live in a time in history (like all times previous and much of the future) where resources are scarce, both natural and otherwise. This falls into the "otherwise" category. Does the boy need help? Yes. He is a human, and so he deserves help like the rest of us. However, the resources diverted to helping him could help many more, instead. Many who have a much higher chance of rehabilitation. Triage isn't a nice thought, but in the mental health crisis we live in, it's the only thing we have. We have to help as many as we can, and that means some of the ones that need it the most get left behind. If there were infinite means of rehabilitation and assistance then he would get everything he needs, unfortunately that isn't the case, and so instead he gets the most we can offer, which is life in prison. There will be other options for help inside, though they are lacking. Perhaps through a societal and political change we can begin to better help him and those like him, but those changes have to happen before any work can be done. Railing against the system won't do any more good than banging your head against a wall. Right now, helping him isn't an option, though, if you work hard for it, you can help change that. Talk to your state politicians, send letters, raise awareness among your peers. If the change is important to you, then make it a priority in your life.
The resources argument doesn’t really make sense. Locking someone up for life is more resources than a few years of rehabilitation.
Different kind of resources. We aren't running out of wardens or jail space (well, yes we are, but no one cares, and they'll just stack more in anyway...), we don't have enough mental health professionals.
I'll still be downvoted for it because I'm holding society accountable for society's problems, instead of letting everyone have it easy by blaming "the system."
Eh, don't give it any extra thought, the right people will read your comment regardless. (Hopefully)
It's pretty wild that you can charge someone as an adult and then charge their parents.
I really don't get the existence of charging someone as an adult regardless though.
You're charging two adults. The parent is charged with a separate crime. It's like if you enabled someone to commit a crime. That's a crime. That's what's happening here.
“James Crumbley is not on trial for what his son did,” prosecutor Karen McDonald told the jury. “James Crumbley is on trial for what he did and for what he didn’t do.”
They neglected their son's mental health problems and left a gun unlocked at home
But age up everyone 20 years in the story so everyone is more obviously an adult in your head. 60-something year old parents neglecting their adult son's mental health is not their fault anymore. If he's an adult, it's his responsibility. Even if the dad bought the son a gun, if the son is an adult, then the son was responsible for locking it up and keeping it safe.
It makes sense to me to charge a parent for getting their kid access to something dangerous and ignoring safety requirements. Like installing a pool without a fence that a kid drowns in, that's clearly morally the parent's fault. But the kid has to be a kid. Buying your adult child a pool which they later drown in is not the parent's fault. Culpability shifts when the child becomes an adult.
The son is 15. That's still very much the parents responsibility. That's a child who lives with his parents, who can't buy his own gun, who doesn't have the same mental capacity as the 35 year old in your hypothetical.
I'm saying that the case declaring him an adult was wrong to do so, if the facts of the case show that he was a child whose parents are both liable for his actions.
Sure they are separate cases so the legal system can treat him as an adult and a child at the same time. But that's bad. The legal system shouldn't do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_of_minors
A person can technically be a child, and then found to be responsible enough to be treated as an adult. To use a fictional example, Dougie Howser, MD was a 14 year old licensed to dispense drugs.
Same deal with charging someone as an adult. If a 14 year old plans a crime over months they can't claim that they acted impulsively or had no idea of what the crime would mean.
I get your argument, but at the end of the day they're a child. I'd argue you can't have the mind of an adult until you're an adult despite how much it seems to emulate as such.
I don't think there's a magic moment when a person becomes 'adult.' A person of 17 years and 11 months old and another person 18 years and three days old aren't fundamentally different.
This whole trail as an adult is just to give out harsher penalties. Honestly it should be renamed to something else as to avoid these discussions. Something like dangerous child proceedings or some such with appropriate handling
Here's a dirty little secret. There are many counties in the US where the Number One employer is the prison system. Those folks have a vested interest in keeping the prisons full.
But there are different places in the legal code to modify punishments against intent, like manslaughter v murder. One would think the idea behind charging someone as a minor is because they are a minor, who by definition has a less developed brain and less worldly experience.
We don't think they're developed enough to vote, and we don't have exceptions to that based on someone thinking really hard about it or really knowing what they're doing. They're just minors, they can't "vote as an adult." Even emancipation is more about separation from parents, it's not gaining full rights as an adult.
That's why it's done on a case by case basis.
I've know 12 year olds who had opened their own bank accounts and could be trusted to care for a baby, and 16 year olds who needed supervision all day.
I'm just pointing out how the laws work, I don't have a stake in the issue.
I'm not like, blaming you. I'm explaining why it doesn't make sense to me.
I don't think it tracks to allow it on a case by case basis. We have one set of punishment for minor offenders and another for adults. It doesn't make sense to be allowed to arbitrarily decide after the fact to charge someone with the more serious set of punishments.
And all of this ignores the fact that juries disproportionately charge black kids as adults, which proves how arbitrary it is in practice.
That's why there are jury trials.
There's a difference between the 16 year old who sees that his neighbor left the keys in her car and impulsively takes a spin, and the 35 year old professional thief who stole three cars that week.
So, someone who is 17 years and 364 days old is a child, and someone who is 18 years and one day old is a mature adult?
?
It just makes them accomplices. Same reason you can charge a getaway driver for a murder in a robbery.
Sorry, I'm a little overwhelmed with our self-imposed firearms crises. Which *shooting was this, the one where the parents literally gave an ineligible, depressed teenager a weapon for mass killing?