On Sep. 4, 2024, 14-year-old Colt Gray opened fire at his Georgia high school. In March, his father, Colin Gray, was found guilty on 27 charges: two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter, 18 counts of cruelty to children, and five counts of reckless conduct.
As of 2026, he is one of three parents to have been convicted for their involvement in a mass school shooting their child committed.
Situations like this make it clear that parents should be held legally accountable for their children’s actions when it comes to school shootings, because if your child takes the life of others and you are even slightly responsible, you are just as guilty as your child.
Mental and emotional neglect is a large factor in the decision to enact a school shooting, and parents play a major role. James and Jennifer Crumbley were found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter after their then-15-year-old son, Ethan, committed violence at his Michigan high school, killing four people and injuring seven. They failed to secure the gun that Ethan used, as well as refusing to seek mental help for him after a counselor was made aware of an alarming drawing he made depicting a man being wounded by a gun and the words “The thoughts won’t stop, help me” and “The world is dead.”
“James Crumbley is not on trial for what his son did; James Crumbley is on trial for what he did and for what he didn’t do,” prosecutor Karen McDonald said to the jury.
This shows that neglect, whether physical or mental, absolutely plays a part in a child’s desire to perform these acts of terror in their community.
It’s not just the mental distress that children face, but also how they garner the ability to commit mass murder. Colt Gray was given the semi-automatic rifle that he then used to take the lives of 14-year-old Mason Schermerhorn, 14-year-old Christian Angulo, 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall, and 53-year-old Cristina Irimie by his own father, Colin Gray.
Both were later indicted: Colt with 55 counts, including four counts of murder, four counts of felony murder, as well as aggravated assault and cruelty to children, and Colin with 29 counts, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless conduct.
Most school shooters either get their weapons from relatives or have easy access to the guns belonging to their parents. This is a direct result of parents’ lack of concern and refusal to acknowledge how the presence of weapons in the home affects children.
It’s reported 42% of adolescent school shooters acquired the firearms that they used to open fire on their school from their relatives. With the U.S.’s lackluster gun laws, the normalization of guns in our society, and the Second Amendment, it’s not hard to understand how.
Parents who leave their guns and other firearms carelessly around the household should absolutely be tried and convicted. In many states, leaving a gun around the house where a child can get it is simply a misdemeanor. In 2023, a six-year-old boy in Virginia non-fatally shot his teacher. The former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, was charged with felony child neglect after failing to follow proper protocol when word came of a first-grade student with his mother’s gun, which he got off of her dresser in a shoebox. The mother was sentenced to two years for felony child neglect after pleading guilty to the January incident, and it never would have happened if it weren’t for the carelessness and sense of irresponsibility of the parents.
Parents have a responsibility when it comes to raising children, and because of that role, they should be held accountable in court.
This piece was originally published in Zephyrus’ print edition on April 9, 2026
