The case against Ethan Crumbley's parents is about more than gun access

[Jilly_in_VA]

On Friday, Oakland County, Michigan prosecutor Karen McDonald filed four counts of involuntary manslaughter against James and Jennifer Crumbley. The Crumbley’s 15-year-old son Ethan is the main suspect in a shooting on Tuesday that left four students at Oxford High School dead. (All have pleaded not guilty.)

At the press conference announcing the charges, McDonald openly expressed her frustration with Michigan’s firearms laws. Like many midwestern states, Michigan has a strong hunting tradition, and fully anticipates its minor children will handle firearms. In some more rural school districts — close to where I grew up — students may take opening day of the deer season off to go hunting with a parent. That’s likely why McDonald kept stressing the importance of “responsible” gun ownership. She’s acknowledging to her constituents — and voters — that teens can have access to firearms in Michigan if done responsibly. This is in contrast to what the state alleges the Crumbleys did: allow their son access to a gun despite repeated warnings that he might use the weapon to hurt others.

Charging the parents with manslaughter for permitting their child access to a firearm used in a shooting is not unprecedented, but it may signal a new trend. The prosecutor here is not charging the parents under specific gun-related statutes. Rather, involuntary manslaughter can be applied to any creative theory of gross negligence that results in death. Maybe heightened parental responsibility standards is a solution that both sides of the gun debate can get behind. We can provide schools with security plans and active shooter drills, but making more parents criminally responsible could be a powerful preventative fix.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/crumbley-parents-arrested-michigan-may-start-school-shooting-legal-trend-ncna1285365

[aeromanKC]

1. Hunting guns fine. Semi automatic (or any hand gun for that matter) NOT fine

[Irish_Dem]

2. Do people hunt with semi-automatic handguns?

[doc03]

4. We can use a hand gun in Ohio for deer not sure if semi-autos

are legal.

[Irish_Dem]

9. Thank you for the info.

Interesting. One side of my family are hunters, never saw them with a handgun.
So I was curious.

[localroger]

10. The handgun can be used to finish the job

...if the long-range round didn't completely do it and the animal is alive and suffering. I've talked with hunters who described the need for a handgun for this purpose with great eloquence. That said, they also all agreed that you only need a round or two in the handgun to do its job. You don't need a semiauto or a large magazine.

[Irish_Dem]

11. Thanks.

Right for the purpose you describe, you don't need an automatic.

[Woodswalker]

13. Almost all handguns

are semi auto. Even a revolver requires you only pull the trigger to fire every round.

[doc03]

14. That is true. I have three single action revolvers that you have to

cock the hammer on each shot. I think Alex Baldwin cocked the hammer on his pistol not realizing he had the
trigger pulled, then when he released the hammer it fell and the revolver discharged. That is no excuse for the gun
having a live round though. Then we have semi-autos like the Springfield XDM or the Ruger LCP that I have with no
safety you just pull the trigger. Back in the old west I heard they only loaded 5 chambers with live rounds and let the
hammer down on the empty chamber for safety.

[Woodswalker]

17. Always wanted a gun of the old west

Love the way they feel and handle

[doc03]

18. I would give up my semi-auto pistols for the single action

revolvers any day.

[NickB79]

15. Some do. A friend uses a 10mm Glock

With a red dot sight, he's killed deer at 50 yd. It hits harder than a .357 Mag with the longer barrel he uses. But it's fairly rare to see.

[Irish_Dem]

16. Yes, I never heard of it before.

Thanks for the info!

[doc03]

3. Yes this may make parents be more responsible

and keep their guns locked up. When I was growing up
my dad had his guns hanging on nails on the floor joists in the basement. I had to get on a chair or ladder to reach them. Somehow my dad knew if we had moved his guns soon as he went to the basement and raised hell if we did. Never did figure how
he could tell. We only had hunting rifles and shotguns and one 41 cal Colt revolver with no ammo that I know of. Today people have to have a semi auto military weapon with a 30 round magazine for what I don't know.

[wnylib]

8. My father had a hunting rifle that

he kept on a shelf in our enclosed back porch, so high up that even he needed a ladder to get to it. He kept the ammunition somewhere else. Never did know where.

[jimfields33]

5. I heard that students in the 70's would take shotguns to school for hunting after school

I’m not sure where the disconnect came where kids decided to shoot up schools. Something happened between the 70’s and today. I wish they study that. It could stop all the shootings.

[Thunderbeast]

7. My high school had a rifle range in the basement

under the library.

1960s.

[doc03]

12. Back then we had a shotgun or a .22 rifle. But over the last 50 years there has been

an arms race fed by Republicans and the NRA. We didn't have semi-auto rifles that could shoot
30 rounds without reloading. Back in the 1960s the NRA promoted hunting and gun safety. I was
in 4H back in the early 60s, we were the first 4H club with a firearms safety course. We were
taught gun safety by a NRA instructor and learned how to shoot. It was when Wayne LaPeire became
president of the NRA that it became a purely political organization. I quit the NRA back when GHWB
quit his membership in the NRA after LaPeire called the FBI Jackbooted thugs. Then later after the Oklahoma
City bombing the NRA prevented placement of taggets in explosives that would help law enforcement to
trace explosives.

[Jilly_in_VA]

6. One grandfather

had been a U.S. Marshal and was a hunter. He had quite a few guns. They were all securely locked up and he taught us the rules of gun safety from early on. The other grandfather and my parents did not have guns. Any guns. Ever.

The story that stuck with me from early childhood was of a friend's brother. I played with Anne, who lived in the building across the parking lot from me. She was a little older and I always thought she was an only child. Somewhere, I don't know if I overheard the moms talking, or if my mother told me, I learned that she'd had a brother, Paddy, who had somehow gotten hold of their father's gun and had shot himself. It must have happened just before we moved there just before I was 3. Somehow that story is just ingrained in my mind and it scared me of guns for a long time.