Mamas, don’t let your crazy babies have guns
Jennifer Crumbley, mother of a teenager who killed four and injured seven at his high school in Oxford, Michigan, as been convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in what appears to be a novel use of the law. The conviction stems from the fact that Crumbley and her husband bought their son a handgun that he had access to, despite demonstrating signs of being in mental distress.
On the day before the shooting, the perpetrator was seen using his cellphone in class to search for ammunition—an act that is not by itself indicative of any problem, but appears to have been against school rules—and on the day of the crime, one of his teachers saw drawings that he had done of the handgun his parents had purchased with the caption, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me,” and of a bullet with “Blood everywhere” above it. He was taken in to see a school counselor, with his parents being brought to the meeting. The parents refused to take their son home, and the school did not insist. The boy had apparently hidden the pistol in question somewhere on the school property, but he and his backpack were not searched, and he was returned to class.
The school district has had a review of the actions of employees and of school policy conducted by an outside company whose conclusion was that the shooting could have been prevented had available actions been taken, but no one at the school apparently faces any form of disciplinary action, and participation in the review was voluntary.
As a bare minimum, the conviction of Jennifer Crumbley is a good step, and I look forward to the conviction of James Crumbley, the father, at his upcoming trial. There is so much more to do, however.
What should not be done is the typical gun control approach to demand that all guns owned by anyone must be locked up separate from ammunition. This sort of “one size fits all” approach is not designed to make anyone safer, but instead aims at making the practical use of firearms increasingly illegal. A gun that is needed in self-defense is required right now, and the circumstances of the Crumbley family do not hold for everyone.
Those circumstances are the key point. Parents ought to be held responsible for what their children do, and leaving a firearm where a troubled child can get at it is a grossly negligent act. Given the difficulties in the marriage of the Crumbleys and other reports, it is clear that the shooter was left alone and in serious mental illness while his father and mother went their own ways. Introducing a gun into that environment—especially with the understanding that it was a gift to the son, despite his being under age to own such a firearm—went past neglect into active harm.
A good standard to apply here is to ask, as is done in many legal cases, what a reasonable person would do in the given situation. Would this hypothetical person, for example, leave a gun out in the open in the playroom of a toddler? Certainly not. How about in a safe in that room? Firearms instructor, Rob Pincus, thinks that is a good plan on the argument that the child’s room is the first place he will go in the event of a home invasion. Might a pet deactivate the safety on a shotgun—I have here in particular the cross-bolt types in mind—and then get a paw into the trigger guard? Reasonable people who live with cats may need a different protocol from those who keep fish.
The point is that what is reasonable will have to be addressed for each gun owner, with attention given to who can get at the firearms balanced against how they might have to be used. Sadly, while the case against Jennifer Crumbley was obvious, will prosecutors limit themselves to similar incidents? It seems all too likely that many will never admit that a reasonable person can own weapons and can have them readily available for defense. The biggest field for getting work done will be in educating potential jury members on how guns are used appropriately. This is a duty that we in the gun community need to take back from Hollywood.
But the second area for improvement here is in how schools deal with students in trouble. Several of my years of teaching have been in high schools, and my observation is that such institutions have a number of heavy-handed rules about silly matters, while choosing to ignore big problems and their causes. This mass shooting illustrates what I am talking about, given the apparent ban on looking up ammunition paired with the decision not to send a student home who subsequently drew pictures and wrote captions indicating a frame of mind preparing for a violent act.
I do not want any employees of Oxford High School to be prosecuted or even fired. Working in high school is akin to patching an oil leak while the engine is in operation propelling the car forward. And therein lies the problem. We give teachers, staff, and administrators far too much to get done and leave them few solutions when trouble arises—then attack these same employees when they do take action. If we want to prevent school shootings, we have to accept that some students will be sent home and put through a review process to determine whether or not they are safe to come back. These naturally should come with full due process, including counsel for the children, but schools do need to have dedicated professionals whose job this is, and those employees need to be empowered to act when a case such as the one here arises.
At the same time, schools in specific but also society in general needs to give more attention to preventing violence by giving youths a way to deal with troubles before they explode. An adult in the school who would be a trusted person to talk to—and who could be an advocate for the child, especially in cases of parental neglect—would go a long way toward defusing crises.
Punishing Jennifer Crumbley for her negligence is appropriate, but parents like her will not be influenced by this outcome, and we need to provide children not only interventions when they act out, but also the attention of caring adults and opportunities to deal with the distresses of their lives. That would provide them agency in their lives without feeling that violence is the only solution.