‘Egregious nature’ of Georgia school shooting makes it different, expert says

The father of the 14-year-old suspect in a mass shooting at a Georgia high school was charged yesterday with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder.

Colin Gray is accused of allowing his son Colt to access the weapon he allegedly used to carry out the shooting, which killed four people at Apalachee High School on Wednesday.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it happened before: the parents of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley were convicted earlier this year for not securing the handgun used in the shooting and ignoring warning signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health.

“What really distinguishes this case potentially, but especially the Crumbley case, is the egregious nature of it,” Tim Carey with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions told KNX News. “It shocks the senses, all of the meaningful opportunities for intervention that were missed and all of the harms that were actively enabled by the parents.”

In the Crumbley case, James and Jennifer Crumbley had bought their son the murder weapon as an early Christmas present and were confronted by school officials mere hours before the shooting about a violent image Ethan sketched in class.

According to investigators, Colt Gray and his father were interviewed by authorities last year after the teen threatened to carry out a school shooting on social media. Investigators are also looking into whether Colin Gray bought his son the semi-automatic rifle used in the shooting as a gift in December 2023, after the visit from authorities.

Carey said there are laws meant to prevent shootings like this from happening, including safe storage laws that require firearm owners to store their guns securely, especially when they could be accessed by children.

Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.

“We've seen these laws have a profound impact especially on reducing pediatric firearm injuries, reducing firearm suicides, especially for adolescents, as well as some promising data for shootings and homicides and gun deaths as a whole,” he said.

There are also red flag laws in 21 states that allow courts to temporarily disarm people who are found to pose a serious risk of harm to themselves or others - Georgia is not one of those states. Carey said this case “seems like a textbook instance of where that law could have saved lives.”

Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok