Quote:
Originally Posted by retiredguy123
Ethan Crumbley, 15, has been arrested and charged with 4 counts of murder in the Michigan school shooting. He will be tried as an adult. Now, his parents have also been arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, even though school officials also had information about the possibility that the student could commit a violent crime.
Almost every day, you read about murders and other violent crimes being committed by minors in New York, Chicago, and other cities. But, I rarely hear about their parents being arrested in connection with those crimes. I wonder if the parents of Ethan Crumbley are being penalized because they are married and living in a two-parent family situation, and not in a large city. To me, it seems incredibly inequitable for them to be charged with manslaughter.
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If there were any balls dropped regarding this incident, then they were dropped by the parents.
My siblings and I were raised around guns. Dad Was a collector and had over 60, Handguns and long guns, and they all worked. None were ever locked up. But we were taught from an early age how to respect and handle firearms, along with the responsibility that operating a firearm entailed. One of the few times I recall him being angry at me was when he saw me crossing the fence with a loaded rifle and without taking the cartridge out of the chamber. I was maybe 12 years old at the time, but the lesson stayed with me.
But it wasn't just guns. Our parents made sure that we understood our responsibilities no matter what we undertook. We were taught early on that actions have consequences, and that we should not only know what those consequences were but to accept responsibility for our actions. We were by no means unique: living in rural northeastern meant that all the people who lived there saw both guns and responsibilities in the same manner. Guns were a tool like any other tool, the same as an ax, a chainsaw, or any tool that if used carelessly could turn around and bite you, and deserved to be respected and handled appropriately.
This obviously did not happen in the case of this teenager. His parents, by their actions regarding this handgun, totally shirked their responsibility as a parent of this kid. The kid will pay the price, and he should. But my guess is that this incident was just the tip of an iceberg; a history of faulty parenting that probably went back to the time that he was a toddler.