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Just as I expected, Ethan Crumbley fooled not only his parents but the school counselors — 66 Comments

1. ” and the school – and the prosecutor – are trying to pass the buck to the parents because they are deplorables.”

   Here is a sentence from the link that you missed: “When the parents were asked to take their son home for the day, they flatly refused and left without their son, … “

   Add to it these observations: counselors ” … waited for the arrival of his parents — whom Throne notes “were difficult to reach” and “The student’s parents never advised the school district that he had direct access to a firearm or that they had recently purchased a firearm for him,” Throne said.

   So yeah, the parent’s clearly are deplorables in the most morally precise sense of the term.

   I completely agree that the prosecutor is making this a political issue.

   However these two pieces of work are morally culpable, and in my estimation civilly, and possibly criminally.

   The mistake the prosecutor is making is of one kind. The mistake the jail is making by placing them on suicide watch, is another.

2. DNW:

   They violated no law, as far as I can tell. And the counselors seemed to think Ethan wasn’t dangerous that day. They were the supposed “experts”.

   You’d apparently like to prosecute people you think made bad decisions but violated no law. And you have no problem with them killing themselves while in custody.

   So interesting to hear. Do you actually call yourself conservative? Your m o is that of a leftist.

3. The prosecutor appears to have charged the parents with insufficient information and with the intent of attacking gun laws rather than looking carefully at the circumstances and charging according to Michigan law.

   As Neo says, the school knew that the family used guns before the day of the shooting. There are plenty of families in which guns are in the home and are used at ranges, or hunting — although this handgun is for range use, I would think. The drawing the school found was sufficient evidence to suspend the student pending evaluation. They “asked” the parents to take him home, and when the parents declined, the school didn’t insist.

   I don’t say these parents sound like the types I’d hang around with, but that’s neither here nor there. An ex-girlfriend of the dad has harsh words about him and particularly about the wife, the shooter’s mother. But estranged ex-lovers are often negative and their statements should be taken with a grain of salt absent confirming evidence.

   The prosecutor wants an anti-gun show trial, and the school wants to evade responsibility.

4. A commenter on another thread wondered whether a 15-year-old could exhibit sociopathic deception to this extent. Yes, I think it’s possible.

5. neo on December 7, 2021 at 4:47 pm said:

   DNW:

   They violated no law, as far as I can tell. And the counselors seemed to think Ethan wasn’t dangerous that day. They were the supposed “experts”.”

   The school wanted to send him home. His parents “flatly refused”. Did you miss that part? I quoted it especially for your attention.

   You’d apparently like to prosecute people you think made bad decisions but violated no law.

   I have stipulated several times that I think that they can probably, and if so then should be, held liable under tort law.

   I also think that their negligence and reckless indifference in enabling a minor under their legal control to commit homicide, might, depending on statue and case law, leave them open to criminal charges.

   That is an open question at this moment. The fact that they are such unsympathetic samples of humanity should not influence the law. But it might go to their credibility if they begin exclaiming their complete and utter shock at an incomprehensible turn of events.

   And you have no problem with them killing themselves while in custody.

   That is true.

   So interesting to hear. Do you actually call yourself conservative? Your m o is that of a leftist.”

   I have never to my recollection called myself a conservative. And I am not a leftist, or communitarian of any sort.

6. Whatever taxon you’d assign Ethan Crumbley to, the emerging portrait of events is such that we can tentatively say that the sociopath in these events is the prosecutor. Ethan Crumbley is some other species of damaged goods.

7. An ex-girlfriend of the dad has harsh words about him and particularly about the wife, the shooter’s mother. But estranged ex-lovers are often negative and their statements should be taken with a grain of salt absent confirming evidence.

   Ya think?

8. “The student’s parents never advised the school district that he had direct access to a firearm or that they had recently purchased a firearm for him,” Throne said.

   Did the youth in question tell them that ‘shooting sports’ were ‘a family hobby’ or not? If he did, why would you not assume there were guns in the house and why would you care just when the parents had purchased any of them?

   You always get missing pieces and contradictory information at this stage.

9. I think parents and son are such wretched specimens of H. sapiens that they should be dumped into the middle of Lake Michigan tomorrow and be left to their own devices. At a water temperature of 46 currently, they will have about 15 min. to reconcile with God and one another.

10. I think parents and son are such wretched specimens of H. sapiens that they should be dumped into the middle of Lake Michigan tomorrow and be left to their own devices.

    Why?

11. Cicero:

    So you would join the lynch mob, too.

    Something about these people really gets your goat, and you would apparently like to murder them.

    Very instructive – about yourself.

12. DNW:

    They are being held criminally liable and they have violated no criminal law. But you seem to have no problem with that. That is what I was reacting to.

    Civil law is quite different, but I don’t even think they’re guilty of violating tort law, although that’s certainly more possible. I have yet to see an argument for it that makes sense to me.

    And yes, of course I’m aware the school requested they take him home. The school also made it clear that the counselors did not find him dangerous. The parents relied on those “experts.” That’s a very simple point, and I’m surprised so many people don’t see it. There was no sense of urgency conveyed on the part of the school.

    And I did not say you ARE a leftist. I said your “m o” is that of a leftist. Ends justify means, because you think their committing suicide would be just peachy keen and that the state has no responsibility to keep them from doing that.

    I am well aware of how school counselors work, and what their responsibilities are. This is on them, if anyone. But it’s really on Ethan Crumbley, who kept calm and did his homework for 90 minutes in order to make it seem as though he wasn’t planning any violence when in fact he was planning carnage.

13. “My sense of this kid is that he hid everything until he drew those pictures and wrote those social media posts, and then he denied the significance of the drawings and notes, made up a really good story, delivered it calmly, and conned his parents and the counselors.” neo

    That’s certainly possible, even probable and if so, there’s no basis for prosecuting the parents, nor suing the parents or the school officials. Sociopaths are the most skillful of conmen.

14. Not a lynch mob, Neo, and thank Heaven I’m no attorney. But what sane, sensible person would buy a 15 year-old a pistol, keep it unsecured (no trigger lock, either), no shooting lessons in the offing apparently, especially when they were his parents. Do you think they were unaware of his deranged thinking, when they lived under the same roof? They did not cooperate with school officials who gave them 24 hrs warning.
    By what evidence were the parents “gun aficionados”? Was there a gun collection in the house? I have seen no such report.
    I personally am an aficionado of salsa, but that does not mean I have a salsa collection.

    “a teacher saw Ethan Crumbley viewing images of bullets on his cellphone during class. A counselor and a staff member met with him, and he indicated that shooting sports were a family hobby, the letter said.”
    Right, the letter “said”. We take Ethan’s words at face value? That’s it? That’s all? A bizarre activity “in class”, viewing bullets of different calibers on his cell phone. Oh, OK.

    I am of the belief the parents were enablers of the homicides, and that they had long shrugged off their parental responsibilities towards a very bizarre son. As the Good Book says, “the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons”.

    I guess it is one of those times when we strongly differ. Remember our debate about Ebola, when you, the attorney, argued with me and my opinions, as a medical doctor? Or so I recall; it’s been a while!

15. Do you think they were unaware of his deranged thinking, when they lived under the same roof?

    Probably. The same applied to the Columbine parents. I was pretty aware of my kids’ interests but that was long ago. I don’t know how well parents know their kids today. I have grandkids that I know pretty well and my son keeps them on a tight rein. Other parents; I have no idea.

16. Cicero:

    You said you would like to drown them in Lake Michigan. Tomorrow. That sounds like lynching to me.

    And all the facts you THINK you know are those given you by the prosecutor and the MSM. Did you read this post of mine from yesterday, in which their lawyer said the gun was actually locked? We don’t yet know which account is true – that of the prosecutor or that of the defense attorney – but these leftist prosecutors have been lying and lying and lying about cases for quite some time.

    But you’d like the Crumbleys to drown in Lake Michigan tomorrow.

17. As far as being aware of their kid’s interests – I don’t think people understand psychopaths and their ability to hide who they are. We reassure ourselves that of course WE would know, WE would see, if we had a child like that. And that we wouldn’t have a child like that in the first place. But the truth is that psychopaths often don’t reveal themselves even to parents, or perhaps especially to parents, and that they can appear in good families with good parenting.

    Fortunately, violent psychopaths are not common.

18. I don’t think that I have ever had such a strange interaction with you, Neo, even though there have been a number of previous exchanges that have gone off the rails and somehow became about me rather than the topic.

    I believe I have throughout been pretty careful with the language I have used – considering this is a comment box on a blog – and though harsh in a couple of instances when evaluating the subjects Crumbley, it has not been extravagant; and I think, definitely measured when addressing the legal aspects of the issue.

    And too, I have in general been careful to quote exactly what I am responding to if a particular point is in dispute. I do not by and large get emotional with other posters, and I do not accuse them of what I cannot demonstrate.

    I only wish that you had acted similarly in this instance; and I cannot fathom what is going on with you as regards these two parents.

    They are either criminally exposed or they are not. They are either civilly liable or they are not.

    I have one strong opinion in this matter and it is that their behavior was almost certainly tortiously negligent, and in fact contributory. The boy need not be an inherently dangerous animal or livestock for there to be some justification for the concept of strict liability being applied to their case – although the terms have been somewhat re-framed

    https://www.findlaw.com/family/parental-rights-and-liability/parental-civil-liability.html

    Although in Michigan parental liability for their child’s acts of negligence is limited, there is some exception for malice. And most importantly too, the question in the case of the parents Crumbley, involves not merely their child’s malicious and murderous act, but their active and negligently enabling it.

    Now that is Michigan. Commenters from other states can be excused for thinking that Michigan might have followed a number of other states in completely, rather than only partially, eliminating parental immunity for the acts of their minor children

    I admit that my familiarity with the common law ends circa 1860, and Constitutional about 1980, and in neither instance was it gained as a prospective practioner at the bar.

    But I think that my argument is much better founded in historical precepts no matter how slightly or tangentially referenced, than is your seemingly dismissive and emotional exculpation of the parents from any liability.

    I am going to take a break from this. I very much take exception to the way this has been going and do not want to say something that I will regret later.

    Catch you ’round the bend.

19. Cicero:

    The parents did not get 24-hour warning, except about the fact that he was looking up ammunition. The family was into guns and target practice, and that probably didn’t raise alarms for them. The other drawings were a very short while before the shootings – same day.

    Here is the part about guns in the home, which the counselors knew: “A counselor and a staff member met with him, and he indicated that shooting sports were a family hobby, the letter said… The next day, the parents confirmed their son’s account, the letter said.”

    This is the part about how the counselors did not feel the kid was dangerous: “‘At no time did counselors believe the student might harm others based on his behavior, responses and demeanor, which appeared calm,’ Throne said.”

20. Cicero:

    You also write: “I am of the belief the parents were enablers of the homicides, and that they had long shrugged off their parental responsibilities towards a very bizarre son. As the Good Book says, ‘the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons’.”

    That belief of yours is based on ZERO evidence, and yet you are willing to condemn people to death (drowning) based on that belief of yours. Rule of law? What’s that?

    I hope you’re never on a jury of any kind. You don’t seem to understand even the most basic principles of the presumption of innocence.

    Also, that “sins of the fathers” thing is not promoted by either Christianity or Judaism these days:

    The Bible speaks of generational sin in Exodus 20:5, which states that “the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the sons and daughters — unto the third and fourth generation.” This concept implicates that “unresolved issues get handed down from generation to generation”, but that “Jesus is the bondage breaker…[and] He is able to break the cycle of this curse, but only if we want Him to.” James Owolagba says that in addition to prayer, frequent church attendance including regular reception of the sacraments, especially Holy Communion, aids in delivering an individual from generational sin….

    Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.
    —?Deuteronomy 24:16

    The Talmud rejects the idea that people can be justly punished for another person’s sins and Judaism in general upholds the idea of individual responsibility. One interpretation is that, even there is no moral guilt for descendants, they may be negatively impacted as a consequence of their forebear’s actions.

    And it certainly is not part of our legal system. Thanks goodness.

21. DNW:

    It is you who are the emotional one. Letting them commit suicide when you know almost nothing of the facts of the case other than what the MSM and the leftist prosecutor say is a huge mistake and in my opinion based on your own emotions.

    My own reaction to you is neither emotional nor strange, although you may find it so. It is about your rush to judgment, and in particular the suicide remark. I have no particular need to defend these people but I do believe in not rushing to judgment without knowing the evidence. I’ve followed that rule my whole life and it has held me in good stead. It means I rarely have to backtrack on these things.

    You write: “I have one strong opinion in this matter and it is that their behavior was almost certainly tortiously negligent, and in fact contributory.” Based on what? Are you sure the gun was unlocked? Are you sure of what the school counselors told them? Do you have a clue what this kid’s previous behavior was, and whether it raised any red flags or should have? Do those things matter to you?

    If there is a civil suit it’s certainly possible that facts will come out that indicate civil liability, but so far I have not come to that conclusion.

    As far as I know, strict liability has never before been applied to parents in such a case. It would open up a huge can of worms.

22. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoH0sxcp-xk

23. If there’s anything we’ve had our noses rubbed in over and over again is that when a case makes national news and the legacy media has a slant on it, you are not going to get enough facts to form an informed opinion for weeks or months.

    The facts that dribble out will be buried in the bottom of the news articles while they are repeatedly shrieking the narrative they’ve already decided on, only later for a jury that heard many more facts and heard two sides of an argument come to the opposite conclusion.

    It’s like Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t acquitted just last month.

24. Oh I understand the presumption of innocence, and value it as much as you, Neo. I am however persuaded by my reading between the lines as to the probable family dynamics. I await the evidence. Enabling a totally screwed up kid by buying a pistol for him at age 15? Assistance in murder before the event of death (enabling) is chargeable as murder in its own right, is it not?

    OK I jumped the gun by condemning the parents, but so did you, calling me a murderer and a person unfit for jury duty.

    Sorry, I’m Catholic, old school. I do not care for modern revisions of Christian or Jewish theology, which are almost always driven by leftists. See “Liberation Theology” as to Catholicism.
    My family worshiped with Luther, so I’m the first Catholic convert in 600 years, after years of study and contemplation. I know you’re not Christian; go to temple much?

25. I have done a bit of research and it seems as if there is no Michigan state or federal law which prohibits a minor from having a pistol although he or she must be 21 years old to purchase one. In my experience I don’t think a young teenager should have access to a pistol, I have known two who killed themselves by accident both rather stupid. I am a gun guy who has known about nine folks killed by guns, a few suicides, one a murder suicide where I sold the gun to the guy who killed his wife and himself in 1963 when I was in high school working in a hardware store. Guns are serious stuff and when my son was growing up I did not keep ammunition in our home, we purchased it and shot it all up when we went out to shoot, hunting and at ranges because I was not comfortable with a teenage boy and guns. My older sister lost a grandson to the boy being stupid playing with his dads .357 revolver and that was over 40 years ago. My goodness, if we can take anything away from this latest disaster, we need to be careful with guns and young men, young women do not shoot people very often but young men seem to do that from time to time.

    Let the law be the law and if the actions of these parents and their apparent sociopath son allowed this to happen it appears they have not broken the law but please, don’t let youngster males have access to pistols and ammunition. I raised a son who now shots competition at 49 years old and he keeps all of his guns well secured with a 9 year old daughter in his home, guns are serious stuff and we need to protect our rights to own them and use them properly. My heart goes out to those people who lost their lives to a mixed up strange young man and I don’t understand any of this stuff.

26. Very tangential or barely tangential,

    but why are we locking 13 – 18 year old Americans in concrete rectangles with hundreds to thousands of their peers, shuffling them from 18′ X 18′ room every 50 minutes, forcing them to sit lifeless in uncomfortable plastic chairs under artificial lighting for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year?

    It’s not only unnecessary, it is anathema to any of the stated goals those institutions are designed to achieve, especially the prime directive of developing young people into successful adults. Many will still manage to do that, but it’s almost certainly in spite of the process, not because of the process.

    In a typical, 4,000 student, U.S. High School the students currently enrolled will go on to do hundreds of distinct, different things. Why force them all through the same, cookie cutter process of sitting nearly idle and quiet for 8+ hours/day? Many are introverts. Many are shy. Many are maturing at different rates. Many learn well moving, standing. Many learn well with short bursts of intense focus followed by periods of play. Many will enter into careers where they stand and move for 8 hours a day; waitressing, working in a machine shop, cook…

    If we don’t lock 4,000 adolescents in concrete cells 8 hours a day there is no opportunity for a mass shooter to shoot them. Not the best reason to completely change our model of education, but maybe it will help people see how idiotic the status quo is.

27. ^ This.

    Also, it’s just a fact of life that @#$%tards and Wastes of Oxygen and Nitrogen exist on ‘our’ side, too. Naturally the Left will make full use of the misdeeds and @#$%ups of these individuals in order to advance their various agendas.

28. Local, early reports had cops coming from the Crumbley’s home with “armloads” of long guns. Not sure from the pix how many is “armloads”, but in journospeak, that probably means “two, owned by people we don’t like.”
    That would support the kid’s statement about shooting sports.
    It would also modify the horrorbileness of looking for ammo on the phone while in school. Other kids are doing porn, I suppose, or texting friends about nothing educational. And when you’re doing shooting sports, ammo supply is a thing. Doesn’t take long to run through a couple of boxes, and that’s not cheap.
    A year or so back, talking to a gun shop owner about ammo shortages. Shortly after a demo in favor of St. George of The Floyd in Grand Rapids, I ran into a guy who couldn’t even get 22 for his pistol. Not at any gun store or sporting goods store, or other shop, or other calibers.
    One owner pointed to his cell phone and said that ends any shipment, since the Word gets out and the parking lot is instantly jammed.
    Not making excuses for the shooter, but any ed biz person familiar with the issue would presume that an ammo search is not indication of anything but a family concern about the joint activity.
    So I’d take that off the blame list for the school.

29. Tangential to my tangential comment:

    We prolong adolescence way too long in modern America. We evolved to function as independent adults in our teen years. I know the brain continues to grow and mature into the twenties, but most of our teens are far too idle. They are capable of working in real jobs, apprenticing… My High School was not College prep. I was in the minority. Most of my peers were going to a few hours of class a day then spending the afternoon apprenticing in real, adult careers for the second half of each weekday. We were taught how to drive, balance a check book, plan a wedding, rent an apartment, cook, sew, repair an internal combustion engine…

    Nothing against reading Shakespeare and studying Euclidian Geometry. I’m grateful I’ve been able to do both, but it’s not for everyone. It’s not for most.

    Our education system is beyond idiotic. If you build a system structured on baby-sitting teens one shouldn’t be surprised that the result is teens who behave like babies.

30. My preference would be that neither the school or parents were held criminally and/or civilly liable – even if guns weren’t locked away at home. Unless, of course, someone encouraged and helped plan this tragic event. I’ve been reading the Wikipedia entry for school shootings 1800’s +. Adjusting for population I wonder how much things have changed. One thing that probably has changed is the lethality of attacks. This we probably can blame on video games. I’m sure all these kids have excellent aim in comparison to the past.

31. Cicero:

    Your comments indicate a lack of understanding of the presumption of innocence and my response is based on that. You have no evidence that the parents knew Ethan was “totally screwed up.” He obviously was and is, but if neither the parents nor the school knew that, your assumptions are groundless.

    What you believe as a Catholic is not what the legal system is based on.

    Your remark about taking them out to drown in Lake Michigan TOMORROW was shocking and wrong and I don’t think even the old time Catholic church would support it, unless you’re talking about Inquisition times.

32. Re: School shootings since 1800s

    Eva Marie:

    It wasn’t a school shooting but the most lethal (44 killed, 58 injured) American school attack was with timed explosives and was committed by the school board treasurer in 1927, after he failed to be reelected:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

    So, school bombings have gone down in the modern era.

33. At this point I do not think we know enough to be sure of anything. With each side leaking out their own set of particulars.

    But as someone who has had to deal with very similar situations in a professional capacity I thought I would ad a few points based on the information we have so far.

    This situation to me appears to be one in which while the “red flags” regarding Crumbley are concerning in hind sight. You are very limited in any legal or moral sense taking action beforehand.

    Other than DIRECT threats against individuals. From a law enforcement perspective there is little that could be done. For instance saying “I feel like killing someone” is completely different than stating “I plan to kill (X) at school”. Absent a direct threat, what he did was not actionable.

    It POTENTIALLY could warrant psychiatric committal. But there would need to be considerably more to go on. To go this route in Michigan. You would need either more such vague threats and actions over a period of time. Or again a more direct threat to himself or others. In this particular event the warning signs appear to have been over a relatively short period of time.

    So next up is the school. Who again simply cannot expel him based on what has been demonstrated so far. And it appears Crumbley often had convenient semi-plausible excuses for the warnings he demonstrated. Its possible an administrator could have unilaterally suspended him to remove him from the school. And then involved police to remove him once the family refused to pick him up. That would then open up said administrator to legal ramifications had he chosen wrongly. And contrary to what you may believe. Vague violent thoughts like those publicized so far. Are surprisingly common in a high school.

    So that leaves the parents. Who could have forcibly committed their son ( a minor) for a psychiatric hold. In which absent other actions upon his stay. Would have warranted a 3 day hold and observation. At which point absent him being diagnosed with a serious mental disorder. Would have released him with outpatient care appropriate for a disturbed teen. And I can tell you that parental denial of such realities. And the fact that forcibly incarceration of a child is something most parents are loathe to do. Make it seem like the prosecutor is using the fact that this ended in murder. Somehow changes the limitations placed upon all the involved parties. Leading up to this.

    In no way am I minimizing what happened. And there may be more information that becomes available that clarifies the events leading up to this. But trying to prosecute the parents and possibly school officials (as has been suggested by the prosecutor). Seems to me a potentially terrible precedent to set. In light of what we know now. And seems to impart the idea that such vagaries would have inevitably lead to murder.

34. 1. Metal detectors at every campus entrance.
    2. Armed and trained security personnel at every campus entrance.
    3. Routine counseling visits for EVERY student, perhaps quarterly.
    4. Emphasis on EDUCATION (3 r’s, living skills—cooking, sewing, soldering, woodwork, etc. What used to be called “Home Ec”)
    5. Teachers who know something besides CRT, and have a bit of psychology training as well.

35. Neo-

    In many ways the information we have so far mirrors that of Sandy Hook.

    The mother who was also a gun collector. Had a son who had many disturbing problems. But in the end the totality of his actions were not something that others could act upon.

    And while Lanza’s mother appears to have known he had problems. She either minimized them, or became accustomed to them. In the report filed by the Office of the child advocate concluded

    “There was not one thing that was necessarily the tipping point driving Lanza to commit the Sandy Hook shooting.”

    Instead of being prosecuted, Lanza murdered his mother to take her collection of firearms. And she apparently did not take any obvious precautions (door locks etc) to deter him.

    With 20/20 hind sight. Way too many people seem to believe that stopping someone like this is routinely possible. In a generally free society with strong constitutional foundations. Other than constant monitoring of peoples actions and violating someones rights by incarcerating them for uncommitted crimes. It becomes extremely difficult to directly stop actions such as this.

    Also with few exceptions people tend to be ignorant that crimes like this also occur in other countries . With much greater regularity than most believe. Because the press in the US will keep the coverage of this going for weeks or even months.
    For example the Jokela school shooting or Kauhajoki school shooting in Finland. Are basically forgotten. Many still remember the Norwegian shootings simply because the death toll was so unusually high (77 people).

    In some countries the weapons differ. Knives instead of guns in China. Or disturbingly in Sweden they use grenades. Forty of which occurred in 2016 alone. Which demonstrates that this is a problem less of societal constructions. And more an issue of individual mental problems and intentions.

36. Old Texan;
    Wise words. A practical, reality based approach to gun ownership.
    Rufus;
    Perceptive observations about high school. I think most people don’t realize that high school is a modern invention – in it’s current form only about 100 years old. Humanity has never before organized adolescence like we do now. If you ask me, high school is not a whole lot better than prison. And a lot more like it than most people want to admit.

37. Stan Smith

    Some of your ideas have merit. Many others are questionable.

    1) Is possible but somewhat expensive.
    2) Would mean having enough personal to monitor all these detectors and exits. That is in a mid sized city of say 100,000 with 3-4 high schools. HUNDREDS of new armed employees.
    3) Again a massive outlay of manpower for what? Do you honestly think anything less than a small army of counselors can under mandate. Spend any significant time do this every quarter?
    4) I actually agree with your point but I fail to see its direct relevance to school shootings
    5) Again see 4.

    The solutions I agree are feasible are really just putting the education system back on the track they so long ago abandoned.

    The others are basically turning each school into a mini prison camp at a huge expenditure of money and manpower.

38. Not a lynch mob, Neo, and thank Heaven I’m no attorney. But what sane, sensible person would buy a 15 year-old a pistol, keep it unsecured (no trigger lock, either), no shooting lessons in the offing apparently, especially when they were his parents.

    My parents. Well, none of the guns in the house were purchased for me as a gift, but we were all given some rudimentary instruction in using them because ‘shooting sports’ were a…family hobby. (For a concatenation of reasons, we’ve had no such hobbies in our own house).

    Ordinary people do not order their lives around the prospect of low probability events and people who do can be quite irritating and abrasive to those proximate to them. Since 1959, fatal shooting incidents on the campuses of primary and secondary schools have averaged 3-4 per year. A typical birth cohort has about 2,000,000 males in it. Over that same period of years, instances of homicide have averaged about 16,000 per year; school campuses are not peculiarly unsafe all things considered.

39. The mother who was also a gun collector. Had a son who had many disturbing problems. But in the end the totality of his actions were not something that others could act upon.

    She owned four guns. They were kept in a safe in compliance with state law.

    And while Lanza’s mother appears to have known he had problems. She either minimized them, or became accustomed to them. In the report filed by the Office of the child advocate concluded

    She was taking steps to have him institutionalized at the time he murdered her.

40. 1. Metal detectors at every campus entrance.

    Advisable for slum schools, not ordinary schools.

    2. Armed and trained security personnel at every campus entrance.

    Advisable for slum schools, not ordinary schools. In ordinary schools, a single sheriff’s deputy on the campus might suffice, in other places a licensed security guard, in other places nothing.

    3. Routine counseling visits for EVERY student, perhaps quarterly.

    Good God, no.

    4. Emphasis on EDUCATION (3 r’s, living skills—cooking, sewing, soldering, woodwork, etc. What used to be called “Home Ec”)

    Elementary schooling and some secondary courses, yes. Not all.

    5. Teachers who know something besides CRT, and have a bit of psychology training as well.

    Aye. Teacher training programs these days are commonly a scandal. They don’t need to be reformed, they need to be shut down.

41. What you believe as a Catholic is not what the legal system is based on.

    Whether it is or is not the basis of the legal system, irrational risk assessment is not an obligation for Catholics.

42. We prolong adolescence way too long in modern America.

    Nothing against reading Shakespeare and studying Euclidian Geometry. I’m grateful I’ve been able to do both, but it’s not for everyone. It’s not for most.

    Bingo.

43. I am of the belief the parents were enablers of the homicides, and that they had long shrugged off their parental responsibilities towards a very bizarre son. As the Good Book says, “the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons”.

    Absolutely nothing has emerged to indicate the family was ex ante anything but ordinary. There were three respects in which they were not modal: the father had had a period of temporary disability in early middle age, they had only one kid, and the father evidently sired one child each by two other women in the years prior to his marriage.

44. There are a couple of ways to know things.
    If something wasn’t tried, that means it absolutely, positively, without question, could not have failed. It was, or would have been, absolutely guaranteed to succeed.

    If something failed, then it absolutely, positively, could not possibly, have been tried.

    We have no idea what worry or attention these parents applied to their kids’ situation. Maybe none, maybe some, maybe a lot.

    But to reprise. Kip Kinkel’s father, a high school counselor and thus, for the present purpose, surpassing the wisdom of Solomon, got his kid a gun because the kid was feeling poorly and Dad thought that might cheer him up.

    Adam Lanza’s’ mother was trying to get him involuntarily committed. She also kept guns around the house, but they were locked, LOCKED, TELL YOU!

    The Colorado theater shooter was seeing a psychologist. The psychologist’s letter to the university disappeared from public gaze. Point is, some way or another, the shooter was accessing resources. Can’t do better than that, right? Right? Resources.

    The theater in question had signage that it was a gun-free zone. Huh. Funny…

    Point is, we know close to zilch about the pre-shooting life of this kid and the more that comes out, the less likely it is that we’ll know what was going on.

45. I wonder if I went through the comments on the posts about Waukesha, I’d find so many hoping for the death of the driver. More alarming is the failure to connect their lust for death to any issue beyond familia relationship. The tell is the sin that they owned firearms. I guess the difference in Waukesha was it involved an SUV, irrelevant of the sociopath controlling it.

46. Vague violent thoughts like those publicized so far. Are surprisingly common in a high school.

    As are suicidal thoughts and actual suicides. As are brutal fights. As are rapes.

    We are all grown adults. Imagine if you were required, by law, to get up every morning, often before sunrise, wait in the elements for a bus and spend eight hours in a concrete rectangle where you must sit the entire day and remain quiet. There are thousands of people there with you and they are randomly seated next to you. Some are dangerous. Some are depressed. Some will be attracted to you and pester you for attention. Some will try to steal your things. Some will want to fight you. Some will mock you. You are not allowed the basics of freedom. Simply requesting to use bathroom facilities is an ordeal. Horrible, artificial lighting overhead.

    You are an adult. You are more mature and better equipped mentally to deal with that situation than a 14 year old. Would you get depressed? Would you get angry? Would you feel inspired to learn and be your best self?

47. There is also the disparate “societies” involved. The parents were comfortable with firearms and were “deplorables”. Teachers and administrators seem to be more often “Progressives” with a fear/distrust of firearms. Indeed, I recall one instance, reported in the media, where a student had chewed a lunch cake into an “L” shape and was suspended when an “adult” teacher decided that the “L” was actually a gun shape. I have no idea about the details of this shooter’s family life or prior school behavior. The notes suggested a mental derangement and cause for action no matter what the student said. The “psycho” people and repeat criminals are very good at disguising their intent. I am amazed that the school had a meeting with staff and parents, about a serious student problem, and then did nothing as a follow-up.

    I can’t believe [actually I can] that the school officials didn’t have the authority to check all lockers, desks, packs/brief cases. I would expect the students to know that there is no expectation of “privacy” in a public facility and that anything or anyplace is subject to search.

    For most things, we will have to wait for the details to emerge. Every pronouncement has the appearance of CYA in spades. So far, I am inclined to place fault on the school where a problem was suspected/noticed and not acted on in any way. If a student is “unjustly” handled, the parents can scream and shout. There is no fixing “dead”.

48. Rufus T. Firefly:

    I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

    First of all, suicides and rapes are NOT “common” in high schools. They are more common than we would like, but they are not common.

    Secondly, we don’t have to imagine. We all went to high school, many of us to large impersonal high schools. It did not make us into mass murderers or even depressed or angry people, for the most part. I was a good student but did not like school during virtually the entire time I was there, and I certainly wouldn’t say it brought forth my best self. But I don’t see the relevance to this highly unusual case.

49. This comment from Richard:
    “ And when you’re doing shooting sports, ammo supply is a thing. Doesn’t take long to run through a couple of boxes, and that’s not cheap.”

    That’s how I see the searching for ammo evidence, unless and until other evidence is brought forward of known prior disturbed behavior. Simply owning and enjoying shooting firearms is not sociopathic in and of itself. Those activities are definitely not against the law.

50. Mythx:

    I don’t see parallels to Sandy Hook, except the obvious one of a mass school shooting.

    Lanza had been coded as having Asperbergers for many years and had a number of obvious emotional difficulties, although he had shown no previous signs of violence. There is no evidence that Crumbley had known problems prior to the drawings on the day of the shooting, which he explained to the counselors’ satisfaction.

51. I agree with Rufus. There’s a reason most everyone hates High School and has at least since the 50s. Locking in together hundreds of people who are mostly strangers to each other and whose brains and bodies are in a constant hormonal flux is a rather odd thing to do. My own HS years were during the turmoil of the Civil Rights 60s. Everyday was a chore just to get through even though teachers and administrators had much more power to punish bad behavior back then.

52. neo,

    In my defense, I started off by stating my comment was barely tangential to the topic.

    Most of us here were probably like me. Sounds like you were. For a 13 year old I was fairly well motivated to learn, improve physically, treat others well and not make waves. All of us here were likely fairly ideal citizens. We did alright in large high schools, but we would have been decent and obedient in any system we were forced into. What benefit I got out of it could have easily been accomplished in two years. At best 50% of it was a complete waste for me. And, for my friends who had no intention of going on to College that percentage was likely higher. And I know a lot of people who really, truly suffered. I was one of the brightest students academically (not too hard in my neighborhood) and a good athlete, so I was not bullied and found it fairly easy to get a female to go to the movies with me on weekends. So many of my friends struggled mightily. Guys stalked girls. Girls lived in fear of being teased, mocked… Boys lived in fear of being attacked by gangs… There were a lot of fights, pregnancies (wanted and unwanted),

    It wouldn’t take long for us here to come up with proposals for better ways to educate and develop young minds but I doubt any of us could come up with a worse method.

    Are rapes really that rare? Some non-consensual sex occurs but how much of the consensual sex is legally consensual? And it is very common for girls to date boys 2, 3, 4 years or more older. Does a 15 year old girl have much of a chance debating physical limits with a 20 year old young man 50% larger than her?

    When Columbine happened, after some time to digest it and come to terms with the destruction my reaction was not, why? or how? As I looked back on my own High School experience and thought about the system my reaction was, “It’s incredible this does not happen much more often.”

53. Look at all the societal structures we have in place to force this system to work:

    My school had armed men “paraprofessionals” in the hallways. Outside of the building the police dealt with gang fights and thefts nearly daily. Counselors, Psychiatrists, half-way houses, mental health facilities. Your local public school salaries are public information. Look up how much is spent in tax dollars on administrators, superintendents…

    Without those immense, extraordinary efforts to identify and deal with struggling students how many more suicides and homicides would there be? The system treats young people like they are involuntarily incarcerated prisoners. Weird that some act like involuntarily incarcerated prisoners.

54. WRT metal detectors. That’s where the shooting starts Moving the perimeter to the doors–where the kids are thickly packed going in and out–means only that you get to shoot in the daylight instead of indoors in a climate-controlled environment.

    As to the general tone regarding the Crumbley parents….strikes me I may have said something about displacement. And what better candidates for the good, just, righteous and virtuous to place their excess angst than these two?

55. The system treats young people like they are involuntarily incarcerated prisoners

    Fully merited in the case of some of them.

56. Without those immense, extraordinary efforts to identify and deal with struggling students how many more suicides and homicides would there be?

    I’m not seeing the immense effort. I am seeing that (1) youngsters in areas where I’ve lived are more obnoxious and undisciplined than they were 40 years ago and (2) the compliance people have taken away tools to control them. We need school employees who can mete out some physical rough justice and we need to sequester the real troublemakers.

57. Let the jury figure out the evidence. Let the judge figure out the law which applies, if any. I’ve served on four juries in Superior Court, and everyone takes his or her oath very seriously indeed.

58. Fine, lets start going after parents and associates who knew of “crazy” people and did nothing. Chicago would turn into a ghost town. Lets do it.

59. I served on a jury, but I don’t think we should arrest people just because we don’t like them and then put them in peril at great personal cost, so that a judge and jury can affirm that no crime was committed by the defendants.

60. Leland
    Absofreakinglutely.
    But you know you’re spoiling the fun for a lot of people.

61. Art Deco,

    I agree we need to sequester the trouble makers. Locking them up 8 hours a day with kids trying to learn does no good for either group.

    And I’m confident we would have much less trouble if teens were much less idle. If you’re exhausted at the end of the day from apprenticing at a factory or restaurant you might not have as much energy to do mischief.

62. And the real elephant in the room regarding public education in the U.S.: sex differences. More than skin color, ethnicity, native language; the greatest differentiator among humans is biological sex. The wife and I sent the Little Fireflies to unisex schools. Unlike most U.S. schools, the boys’ schools had a majority of male instructors. And some of those instructors cursed and were not hesitant to get physical with their charges when students got out of line.

    In a non-Co-Ed environment there was simply less nonsense and horseplay. Young men and women were not competing for the opposite sexes attention during the school day. And, administrators didn’t have to have a “one size fits all” approach to dealing with issues.

63. In answer to your question, neo, if my keyboard diarrhea hasn’t made it clear (always possible with me); if I had to spend 8 hours/day 5 days/week locked in a building in close proximity to a random selection of 4,000 humans I would fully expect there to be violence. It’s hard to devise a more effective system for fostering frustration, and any occupants prone to violence have a literal barrel of sitting ducks to prey on.

    We’re trying to examine why this particular case occurred. I think Tolstoy answered this question 150 years ago, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

    I think the real question is, why doesn’t this occur more often?

    (And it would if we didn’t have absurd, ridiculous, elaborate layers of humans devoted to attempting to keep the house of cards from collapsing day after day.)

64. Rufus T. Firefly: There’s also the question of cost. Twice a year, when paying property tax (in fact, the next payment is due in a couple of days), I ask myself “why am I paying so much money to babysit other people’s children?”. Yes, supposedly, society as a whole benefits from having an educated populace, but I don’t remember learning much of anything during my school years. I don’t know what it should look like, but our approach to educating children and young adults needs a complete redesign.

65. Rufus T. Firefly:

    I disagree.

    As I said, I very much disliked school all the way through. I went to a school of about 4,000, and it was not a pleasant place at all. But there was no violence, ever, except a few fistfights. My school serviced a lot of pretty poor people, too – a real demographic and racial mix.

    I cannot remember hearing about any school murders at that time, either, around the country.

66. Some excellent points about parental responsibility and media standards:

    https://www.city-journal.org/school-shootings-color-coded-parenting-standard-of-the-media?skip=1

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