Originally published at: Watch: Prosecutor explains why teen shooter's parents are being charged | Boing Boing
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In my mind this isn’t the angle people should be attacking the parents for. If the student posed a clear danger then the school should have suspended him regardless of what the parents wanted.
The thing the parents should be going to prison for is providing their clearly disturbed, potentially violent son with access to deadly firearms, not to mention providing the apparently toxic environment that helped radicalize him in the first place.
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The mother should be convicted on the basis of this following by itself.
A teacher saw Ethan Crumbley researching ammunition in class days before the shooting, the prosecutor said. School officials contacted his parents, but they didn’t respond, McDonald said. However, according to the prosecutor, Jennifer Crumbley texted her son, writing, “lol, I’m not mad at you, you have to learn not to get caught.”
What a crappy parent and person. The perfect wife for a reckless idiot who’d buy his troubled teenaged son a semi-automatic “beauty” of a pistol.
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I’m here for this. I’ve been saying to friends for the last few years that there is unlikely to be any meaningful reform on gun control. Since that won’t happen, I believe we need to bring the legal hammer down hard on the term “responsible gun owner.” The right to keep and bear arms is NOT infringed by telling folks to secure their weapons properly, handle them properly, transport them properly, care and maintain them properly, and if you do NOT do those things, and if your weapon ends up in the hands of a criminal, you WILL face jail time.
Edit: and I should add, “responsible means not buying guns for people who cannot legally own them.”
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Monsters parenting monsters, it’s a f’d up world out there.
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It sounds like the prosecutor may not be finished with charges. Negligence came up in regard to school officials.
This prosecutor is a mom in the community, she is angry and wants it to stop. The look of disgust on her face when she talked about the fact that Michigan has no laws requiring gun owners to secure or safe storage laws told the story.
I wonder if our legislature will take action. Of course our legislature stripped the governor and health department of authority to contain a deadly pandemic so I’m guessing no. But there are elections.
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The series of events here is horrific. I can’t believe they were at the school discussing the warning signs (including a literal cry for help) the same morning. The parents should absolutely be held accountable.
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I hope to hell I’m wrong but Ill bet there will be a slight bump in gun sales in response to the parents being charged. Meanwhile the manufactures will enjoy their bump in income and go to sleep at night happy in the world they’ve help create. Find a way to charge those bastards. Find a way to curb the multitudes of ammosexual magazines that flood the market. That’s where the blood starts to flow. Go to the headwaters of this bloody river and dam the goddamn thing.
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If he had not of been white and a boy, they would have.
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You might think that, but any time it’s brought up some ammoxseual (usually a privileged white person) shows up to shed crocodile tears about how financially onerous and unfair it would be to poor PoC who simply want to defend their homes (as well as to the famous “responsible gun owners” – which I’m sure these parents claimed to be only days ago).
In the end, the core problem isn’t really the Second Amendment but a deep cultural malaise that’s part paranoia, part political posturing, part insecure masculinity, and part unhealthy fantasism.
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and now apparently the parents are nowhere to be found.
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I kind of feel bad for the school administrators here, but man, why didn’t they search the backpack and locker? They’re going to be haunted by that for the rest of their lives.
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They don’t have lockers anymore as COVID has kind of resulted in students “hot desking” and working out of their backpacks.
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As well they should be?
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all that, and… as nigh-crazy as it might seem, political fear fueled by campaign/“primary-ing” pressure which is in part funded by Russia [one link] [two link]. Putin really likes to use our ‘freedoms’, which his subjects don’t “enjoy”, against us. -sigh-
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In more than one case, it seems that the people closest to a person who is disturbed/needs help and commits heinous crimes are blind to or making excuses for the warning signs leading up to it. Even, in this case, literal cries for help. And after confronted with the reality of the acts they committed, still make excuses. No one wants to think their loved ones are monsters. 
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On Nov. 21, a teacher noticed Crumbley using his cellphone to search for information on firearm ammunition. Jennifer Crumbley did not respond when the school contacted via voice mail about her son’s “inappropriate” search, McDonald said.
Instead, she exchanged a text message with her son that read, “LOL I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”
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I certainly don’t want to stereotype based on the demographic information of that town, but , white, well off parents, bought a gun for their kid despite knowing he was troubled… and then condoned him doing the ammo search at school?
I wonder what their political leanings are.
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Wonder no more. The mother posted an open letter to then-President-Elect Trump in 2016 that is just as horrible as you might expect. The letter, praised elsewhere by her husband, concluded thusly:
Yours Truly,
A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting fucked in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy.
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But what’s the map going to look like? The whole state legislature has been held hostage by a Republican minority for a generation. If you ever wonder why our roads suck, our electric and gas rates are nearly the highest in the US, our auto insurance is still the most expensive in the US, our public schools are still terrible, etc., look no further than the State House and Senate.
I’m slightly optimistic that safe storage laws might make it through the Statehouse. It’s nearly a meaningless gesture, which is why I think it could pass.
[e] @anon85524460: That’s not true for Ann Arbor schools, and I’d be rather shocked if they’re the only district in the state allowing kids to use their lockers.
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