Giving them access to weapons is quite a separate matter than holding them responsible for meeting some nebulous standard of what they supposedly could have done to prevent the incident. Unless we’re establishing some sort of ‘you must take your kid to a psychologist regularly’ rule (in which case I imagine there would be tremendous outrage) demanding that the parents or anyone else meet some ill-defined determination, probably made with the benefit of hindsight, of what they ‘could’ have done, is entirely unfair and presents a standard that is impossible to meet. It would also result in people reporting all sorts of slightly unusual behavior to the authorities, to cover themselves and make sure they aren’t held responsible for failing to respond to ‘signs’ of mental illness.
Holding them responsible for illegally giving the culprit access to weapons, on the other hand, is a good thing, and a key part of the rules I’m proposing; anyone allowing an unlicensed individual access to their firearms should face strict penalties. It would not, as noted above by others, stop all such shootings, but it may make it at least somewhat less likely that another individual would choose to illegally supply them with weapons.
Because there are only two possible solutions which are diametrically opposite, and we as a country can’t seem to agree on which one. Either dump the 2nd Amendment in the rubbish bin and more or less ban the civilian ownership of firearms (which would work a little but not as well as people hope); or expand gun ownership, and especially carry, to the level that proponents claim will deter and neutralize the unlawful use of guns. Right now we’re close to the worst of both worlds: among lawful people only police and a tiny percentage of gun advocates routinely carry, while criminals and psychopaths have little trouble obtaining a gun.
I’m mentally ill. I have been since I was a child. In my case, its genetic. My grandmother killed herself. My aunt has spent time in psych wards and gets SSDI for her mental health issues. My great grandmother was locked up with electroshock, cold baths, the whole thing.
I have one sister who spent 48 hours in lockdown and one who went through rehap three times to get sober.
You want to hold my parents responsible for raising three women with depression? My mother doesn’t have mental health issues, she didn’t know or understand that she was passing her bad genes to her children.
Being female, we are far more likely to turn our depression towards ourselves than towards others.
I’ve known people with mentally ill children. Once those children grow up to become adults, it is effectively impossible for the parents to control them. How does making the parents responsible for their children’s actions work?
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OK. After a lengthy discussion on Facebook with an old friend of mine we came up with an idea that could help in lot of these situations. Hold parents criminally negligent if they don’t do everything they can to discourage and prevent violent behavior. If it turns out that this kid showed signs of mental instability and can be proven in a court of law, then the parent(s) are held responsible.
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How far do you want to take this? It sounds like the parents of the shooter should be held criminally negligent for getting divorced.
While I think his (?) proposal in general is ridiculously overbroad, there’s a nugget of a useful idea in there: why shouldn’t someone be liable for shootings done with their guns (regardless of whether the shooter is mentally ill)?
Ban personal ownership, possession, use and storage of automatic guns, semi-automatic guns, handguns other than at sanctioned competitons, and clips of more than half a dozen bullets. Require trigger locks at all times other than when in use, and require storage at all time in gun safes except when in use or when in transit. Ban ownerhship and use by anyone with a criminal record for violence or a serious psychiatric disorder.
Of course the USA cannot do this, for it does not have the cojones and would rather hide behind its guns.
As I noted in this other thread, we have a circumstance in which homicide rates, especially by teens, have been decreasing while suicide rates by teens have been increasing and mass murders committed by teens and young adults are either stable or increasing.
I am all for keeping guns securely stored and for owners being liable for what happens if they are not, but the key ingredient here is not guns. Guns are not the cause of these behaviors. Whatever is driving the increase in suicide is minimally preventing mass murders from decreasing like other homicides are (if not increasing). Figure that out and prevent/treat the mental illness that seems to drive both suicide and mass murder, determine what is going on that does this, be it social isolation, poor mental health services, bullying, or whatever it turns out to be, and you can prevent these episodes. And do much more good overall than you would with guards and lock downs.
Neither shouting about gun control or defensive gun use does anything more than cloud discussions about the real root causes … and serve some of our other, extant, political perspectives.
I don’t know why we keep looking at this as a dichotomy.
We are semi-intelligent beings. Surely we can have a reasoned debate about gun control AND also talk about psychosocial interventions. I think it’s myopic to do otherwise because it’s obvious we are talking about the interaction of violence-prone individuals and easily accessible technology of violence.
Regulating guns isn’t going to stop people from bugging out. But is also impossible to keep people from bugging out, no matter how much hand-wringing we do over them.* Regardless of the solution, there will be trade-offs on civil liberties. Personally, I’d rather see the trade-offs fall more on individuals longing to own devices that are designed to kill and maim more than on individuals possessing deviant personalities. There is no such thing as a “need” for a semi-automatic weapon. But people need their own personalities. One person’s “OMG! SCARY!” is another person’s quirky eccentric on the road to discovering the cure for cancer.
Find me a gun that can discover the cure for cancer, and maybe I will be a more enthusiastic defender of the 2nd Amendment.
*We actually don’t know what kind of help this kid received. He came from a financially well-off family and had educated, presumably devoted parents. Why are we assuming that society failed him somehow? He may have been neglected or he may have had all the help that money can buy and it just wasn’t enough.
Are you talking strict liability or a negligence theory by leaving somewhere a kid might have access to it, or lending it to someone irresponsible (similar to negligent entrustment of a car).
I might be able to get behind those, but most of the proposals I’ve seen would actually hold a gun owner responsible when someone breaks into his home, steals his weapons, and then uses them for crime. That I cannot get behind, nor strict liability..
From what I read last night, there have been very, very, VERY few mass shootings in U.S. schools during the last thirty years. In fact, pretty few mass shootings at any venue in the U.S.
In the case of this December 2012 shooting in CT, a known person in the community got into a school where he had probably been many times before. There’s little chance of ever stopping something like that from happening.
Well, if you were living in the house, over 18, and used your dad’s guns to mow down some people, I certainly would want your father to be liable for his irresponsible storage and tracking of his guns. In the same way I’m still incredulous that no one has publicly shamed the Colombine parents for not noticing their kids were putting together an arsenal and making bombs. In the same way I hold the CT shooter’s mom responsible for giving her mentally unstable son access to her weapons.
Note - it’s because they “raised them wrong” or something like that, but because their total lack of concern or denial or poor judgment permitted the death of a bunch of people. We hold drunk drivers responsible for poor judgment when they kill people. We even hold bars responsible for overserving people who then go drive drunk and kill people. If people can’t be trusted around guns (and with a few exceptions, like a brain tumor or a sudden psychotic break, I find it hard to believe these parents don’t see something off), then need to have no access to guns.
While I’m lucky enough not to have severe mental illness in my family, I do have alcoholism and autism/behavior disorders all throughout on both sides. The drinkers have violent streaks, and remember hearing about the time my uncle shot up my dad’s garage with a shotgun. The behavior disorder crowd runs the gamut, and while most of them are young and gentle, there is one 10 year old cousin who is creepy and completely devoid of any human empathy. If my aunt and uncle were the type to have guns in their home, I would suggest that they remove them immediately, and I do not let my son play with him alone because of the weird bullying that goes on. And if he shot up a school, I would not be surprised, and I would blame my aunt and uncle for having guns that he had access too.
The CT mom is dead. Her son overpowered her, got her guns and shot her in the face. How do you hold anyone responsible for someone physically overpowering you and taking your stuff? If someone beats me to a pulp and steals my car to commit a crime, should I be liable?
I agree about the Columbine parents. How in the hell do you not notice that your garage has been turned into a pipe bomb making facility?
I don’t agree with the over 18. I don’t agree with the under 18. When I was 14, I had a gun that was “my” gun. Just like any other object, I think that unless the parent had reason to believe that the person was going to commit a terrible act with the gun then it’s not his/her fault.
For example, in my situation, had my parents gotten a report from school that I was deeply disturbed and potentially violent, then it would have been their responsibility to take away “my” gun. Absent any reason to believe otherwise, why should a parent assume that his kid is the 1 of 100 million who would do something terrible like this?
But, why were the guns therein the first place? You say your parents would have taken away your gun if you were under 18 and got a bad mark in being sane. If you were over 18 and living at home, do you think they would have kept guns on the premises? Do you think they should have?
We don’t know that, or at least it hasn’t been said in any reports I’ve read. We know he got her guns and killed her. Unless I’ve missed something, it’s not clear that he overpowered her and took the guns as opposed, say, forcing open a safe or taking them from someplace where they were poorly secured and then killing her. I don’t have a problem in theory with prosecuting people who do a bad job securing dangerous weapons, although the fact that someone else got a hold of them is not proof by itself that they weren’t properly secured.