Sure he can. He’s just gotta do it right.
Unless everyone else around him also had a gun. He’d fire off a single shot, maybe two… then he’d be dropped like a fly. Easy, simple, quick.
The problem is that too many people are pussies about guns.
Oops… forgot the smiley. Insert a 
at the end of that post (in other words, I’m hardly being serious).
Do we really have to waste time dealing with these simplistic arguments? First of all, I applaud your clever attempt to frame gun ownership as a privilege. For that matter, I applaud your attempt to frame having a family as a privilege. They’re rights. And your rhetoric won’t change that fact.
Your “guns in the house cause killings” view is just poor reasoning. There are tens of millions of houses with both teenagers and guns. If there was such a strong correlation between gun ownership and school rampages, the country would quickly be depopulated.
…but then again, not really.
Anyone else see the ABCNews.com article about why this Williams kid went on his killing spree out in California? We sit here and debate about how we can sort of understand the motive if he was picked on, berated constantly, and it was all approved of, even if indirectly, by the school not taking action - but his explanation so far is:
Now, I’m curious to hear what other reasons they’ll come up with during his trial… but what the hell is wrong in a kid’s head when he decides to shoot up his school because of his own improper actions being reprimanded? It boggles my mind.
OK, back to your discussion.
In the state of Georgia a parent IS responsible for the acts of their minor children. GA Code 51-2-3 states:
To me this says that, over and above any other legal avenue for compensation the victim may have, the parents can be held responsible for a civil penalty if their minor child violates the law and in doing so injures person or property. The code itself says this is intended to be punative toward the parent(s), not restorative to the victim.
I would be very surprised if other states did not have similar statutes.
Surprisingly enough, Zuma, it’s entirely possible for a child to be a living terror without any fault on the part of the parents. Children do successfully hide all sorts of things from reasonable, involved parents. I question whether punishing parents for the offenses of their children will in any substantial way act to curtail such offenses. And the principal purpose of the criminal law is to discourage crime, not to create more people to punish; so punishing them “so someone has to pay” is an improper motivation.
You haven’t given me any reason to believe that this measure will actually curtail youth crime.
Oh, and Doctor Jackson, that Georgia statute is the first I’ve heard of of its ilk.
I wonder what provisions would be made in the case of the mother who is raising children who have been abandoned by their fathers (or I suppose, in some cases, fathers raising the family that the mother has abandoned).
It could be that some of the problems that children from these families have, come from that sense of abandonment/worthlessness. Would the absent parent also be held responsible for the crimes of his/her children? Or would they only hold the parent who stayed to take care of the children responsible?
Can a parent self-emancipate from a dangerous child so as not to be held liable or accountable for the kid’s criminal behavior? Of course, the parent would also waive all other rights and privileges as well.
It seems that holding parents 100% responsible for the child’s willful violence is patently unfair, save for the cases where “bad” parenting can be proven.
What I’m interested in is how those like Zuma and Bill H have complete disregard for how bad a caring parent suffers when their child turns out to be a criminal. Imagine, just for a minute, that the kid you cared for and played ball with and took fishing, and helped teach to swim… turns out to be a jd, a punk, a pusher, or worse. And you did nothing to make it happen; indeed you did everything “by the book” and in the most loving way.
I know the suffering isn’t nearly that of the victims, but it’s devastating to the parents of the criminal, too. Parents of bad kids often carry the guilt and shame of the crime as if they had perpetrated it themselves on the victims. Society, in the likes of Zuma and Bill H, tends to brand the parents guilty to be proven innocent.
So, let me get this straight; Minors aren’t responsible for what they do, and the parents who don’t excercise control enough to prevent them from shooting up a schoolyard, they have no responsabilities either? Crikey, what a great deal! I should start training my 5 yr old to start taking down liquor stores- we could be independantly wealthy by the time he’s old enough to convict. If you’re kid breaks a neighbor’s window, you’re gonna pay. As a minor, he may not be capable of accountability, but his parents damn sure ought to be. Oh, wait,there’s that magic word,“accountability”. If a parent allows a child access to a firearm that parent HAS in fact committed a CRIME, and should be tried, convicted, punished. If you knew you could do the time, maybe you’d pay attention to what mischief the little dears were up to.
All this is, of course, IMHO. And the idea of self-emancipation from a child is an excellent one, Wrath, it would be an excellent indicator of the child “most likely to shoot up columbine”. Tho a little Orwellian.
Billy
Why does everyone in this thread continue to deal in absolutes? I don’t get it. I don’t recall that anyone is suggesting blanket legislation be enacted to criminally punish parents for the misdeeds of their children. But…does anyone remember the 6 year old kid that took a gun to school and killed his little classmate. His mother had dumped him at her brother’s crack house where he had access to some other adult’s gun. They charged that adult with something. Perhaps they charged the mother with neglect, I never heard. Please do not tell me that the adults in this instance were not neglegent, perhaps even criminally so.
When my daughter was 14 she decided that she hated school and refused to go. I would be late for work taking her there. She’d then walk off school grounds. I’d leave, drive the 45 minutes back home to go look for her. This went on for several months. She would disappear and not come home all night. I’d call the cops. In my state a minor must go to school. Was it my fault, certainly not. They’d never charge a parent struggling with an unruly teen. But…a neighbor down the street never made her son go to school. He repeated 4th grade three times! The school eventually bumped him up to 6th grade. He’s failing that now, and she still isn’t making him attend. He stays home with her and lays around playing video games watching televison all day. They’ll never charge her, but I hope you get my point. She is directly responsible for his truancy.
As for guns, there are instances when a parent is clearly negligent in allowing access to their firearms. Granted most of the people I know who own guns are hunters and their children have been trained in gun safety. Most of them keep their firearms locked up.
Rumor has it that this recent kid, Andy Williams, spent a lot of time at home alone. His father often didn’t come home at night. It’s one thing to trust a teen at home alone for an occasional weekend away, (I’d never do it myself. I remember all the hellacious parties I threw as teen when mom went out of town.) but to leave your teen alone on a regular basis without adult supervision of any kind is neglegent behavior. Is it criminally negligent, maybe not, maybe so. These things should be looked at when we are dealing with juveniles that commit crimes.
I know the trend now is to hold these kids responsible as we would adults but they are not adults. And if the adults in their life have contributed in a blatantly neglegent way to their criminal behavior then certainly they should be held responsible. How will we ever break the cycle if we do not.
Needs2know