On parental responsibility: Colin Gray, father of teen murderer Colt Gray, sentenced to 15 years
Colin Gray is the father of Colt Gray, who in 2024 at the age of 14 killed four people in a school shooting in Georgia. This case is the second one in which a teenage son committed murder at a school and a parent or parents have been convicted not just of negligence but of being guilty of either manslaughter or murder for failing to prevent the crime despite warning signs. It resembles its predecessor the Crumbley case in many respects.
I’ve written about the Crumbley case quite a few times; please see this. And I wrote about the Gray case before, too; see this post. I haven’t changed my mind, either. My position remains that although the parents could have been charged with negligence of some kind, manslaughter or murder should not have been charged.
Colt’s father Colin Gray was found guilty by a jury, however, and now has been sentenced to fifteen years (one of the charges was second-degree murder, defined in Georgia as “causing a child’s death through cruelty to children”). His son, Colt – despite having been 14 when the crime was committed, was nevertheless charged as an adult and has been sentenced to life without parole in a separate procedure before the same court. His having been charged as an adult doesn’t seem to have affected the jury’s decision on his father, however.
More:
[Judge] Primm’s sentence [of the father, Colin] was far closer to the defense’s request than the prosecution’s.
Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Colin Gray to 80 years in prison.
“He is the reason four people are dead, seven were injured and countless others were traumatized, and he is the reason a 16-year-old boy was sentenced two days ago to the rest of his life in prison,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said in court Thursday morning.
The father is the reason? Certainly, he is a contributing reason, but hardly the reason.
More:
Hobbs, the defense attorney, asked for a 20-year sentence, with 10 years served in prison and the rest on probation. Gray has already served just under two years in custody since his arrest a day after the shooting.
“Was it enough, what Colin did? Obviously not. The jury has said so and Colin accepts that,” Hobbs said. “But it was not nothing, and it was not indifference.” …
Ismael Angulo, whose brother Christian was killed, called the defendant a “complete failure of a father.”
“He made a choice to buy that rifle, he made a choice to ignore every red flag, and because of his choices, my little brother Christian and three others … are gone, and so many others will carry permanent scars for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Terry McElhannon, the grandfather of Taylor Jones, who was wounded in the attack, pointed an accusatory finger directly at Colin Gray while speaking.
“Why are we here today? It’s because of him,” he said, his arm extended. “His action and his neglect are responsible for what happened here. Though he did not shoot the gun, he bought the bullets.”
Victims and their families are very sympathetic and their stories are tragic. Of course they are extremely angry at Colin Gray and want him punished. But that doesn’t mean he is guilty of either murder or manslaughter, although a jury agreed that he was. The idea seems to be that it should be possible to prevent acts such as this if a parent is smart enough, aware enough, good enough, and has enough foresight to know that his son will kill. It’s a judgment call, and Colin Gray showed poor judgment.
More from the judge in Gray’s sentencing, explaining why he gave the number of years he did:
“Mr. Gray committed crimes, but his crimes are tethered to the crimes committed by his son, and that makes the situation a little unique,” Judge Nicholas Primm said in announcing the sentence.
“It matters that you didn’t have actual knowledge that Colt was going to school to do that. It matters that you didn’t intentionally commit a crime. It matters that you didn’t plan an attack. It matters that you didn’t seek to harm anyone. It matters that you didn’t pull a trigger,” he said.
There are actually some internal family issues here that I think were absolutely key in this man’s conviction, but should not have been:
In a two-week trial in February and March, Barrow County prosecutors argued the boy’s father acted with “criminal negligence” and was a proximate cause of the shooting. His defense team argued he was unaware of his son’s violent plans and had taken steps to get him help for his mental health struggles.
The state’s case included emotional testimony from students and teachers, police interviews with Colin Gray, photos showing unsecured firearms and ammunition in a bedroom closet, and testimony from the teen’s mother, grandmother and sister about Colt’s spiraling mental health.
It’s that last sentence I’m talking about. The father didn’t think the son was in so much trouble, and failed to properly secure the weapons. But the rest of the family differed, either back then and/or certainly now. What’s more, there’s no love lost between the two sides of the family:
Marcee Gray, the defendant’s estranged wife, testified their son had anxiety, was easily agitated and suffered panic attacks. She said it was “very obvious” he needed professional help, but her husband “just didn’t want to deal with it.”
Here’s what Colin Gray said:
The defense called just one witness: Colin Gray himself. He said he had scheduled counseling at school for Colt’s mental health issues and did not ever perceive his son as a threat.
“He’s a good kid,” the father said through tears. “He wasn’t perfect, nor was I, but to do something that heinous, I don’t know that anybody can see that kind of evil. The Colt I knew, the relationship I had, there was this whole other side of Colt I didn’t know existed.”
In a tense cross-examination, he acknowledged multiple firearms were stored in a closet, unsecured and unlocked, and he said Colt sometimes kept the rifle in his bedroom. He struggled to explain why Colt did not attend school for his entire eighth-grade year, according to school records. Colt attended Apalachee High School for only a few days before the attack.
I repeat that this sort of thing makes him negligent in leaving the firearms unlocked. But it’s easy to shrug off what a teen says, or teen angst, which is rather common. I believe the father when he says it never occurred to him that his son was capable of murder despite the warning signs. And I don’t think most parents of 14-year-olds can conceptualize their children as being capable of “that kind of evil.”
Colin Gray was certainly guilty of bad judgment:
Colin Gray also admitted he was aware that his son had been physically violent, had a photo of a school shooter on his bedroom wall and had texted a few weeks before the attack, “Whenever something happens, just know the blood is on your hands.”
But the police had interviewed Colt regarding a report of a previous threat, he denied making it, and the police were unable to prove anything.
But what of the mother’s contribution?:
Marcee Gray, the teen’s mother, was not charged in the case. She had lost custody of Colt because of her struggles with drugs and alcohol and did not possess the firearms, Smith said.
“We found what she did to be morally reprehensible. We do not believe she is a good mother, in my opinion,” he said. “But at the end of the day, she did not have custody of Colt, she did not have proximity to Colt, and she was not the one that provided him the firearms.”
Hey, why not charge her with murder anyway, for creating a disruptive family environment through her drug and alcohol abuse and her separation from the child, setting the scene for her son’s violent outburst and obvious anger control problems? I don’t really mean that seriously; but where does the finger-pointing stop?
Colin Gray’s attorney had argued that she bore some responsibility, too:
Brian Hobbs, one of his attorneys, argued his client should not be severely sentenced for his son’s crimes, and asked that he receive 10 years in prison.
“That is not lenience,” Hobbs said. “Ten years in a Georgia prison for a man who never intended to harm a single human being is among the most severe sentences ever imposed on a parent in American history for the act of the child.”
Hobbs also suggested that the teenager’s mother, Marcee Gray, bore more responsibility than his client for fostering his obsession with school shooters. Marcee Gray has not been charged in connection with the shooting.
“Fostering his obsession with school shooters?” Not sure what the evidence was for that, but it’s certainly of interest.
While we’re at it, how about charging the school, which was also negligent? Or the police who could not substantiate that the son made the threat? Here’s the part I’m referring to about the school’s negligence:
Colin Gray’s trial also revealed the shooting was nearly prevented. The morning of the shooting, school officials and resource officers went to intercept Colt after he made several concerning comments. But in a stranger-than-fiction mix-up, they confused him with another student named Kolton Gray.
Negligence on the part of the school?
I believe that one problem in this case is that Gerogia lacks a child access prevention law, so Colin Gray couldn’t be charged with violating one.
More about the actions of the school and of the family on the fateful day:
On the morning of the shooting, a call was made to Apalachee High School threatening to target five schools, of which Apalachee would be the first. The source of the threat was never determined.
During his first period class, Colt Gray asked his teacher how the school would respond to an active shooter. The teacher additionally noticed his backpack was “unusually heavy”. The teacher reported these concerns to administrators and other school staff via email. Gray’s second period algebra teacher, in whose class the shooting would later begin, was not informed about the email from his first period teacher.
At 9:42 a.m., Colt Gray texted his father Colin Gray, “I’m sorry, it’s not ur fault … ur not to blame for any of it. [sic]”. Upon receiving Colt’s texts, Colin called Colt’s maternal grandmother, who was with Colt’s mother at the time. Colt’s mother then attempted to reach Colt by phone and text message, but failed to do so.
Sometime after the second period algebra began at 9:45 a.m., Colt Gray left the classroom after requesting and obtaining a pass to see the school counselor. Around that same time, a different student in the class with the surname Gray and a similar first name also asked for permission to leave. Both Colt and the similarly-named student headed towards the same bathroom. …
At 9:50 a.m., Colt’s mother called the school, warning of an “extreme emergency”, and urged the school counselor to check in on her son. The school counselor told her that Colt had talked about a school shooting that morning.
School resource officers, alerted to Colt Gray’s comments during his first period class, began looking for him. They found the bathroom Colt was hiding in, but incorrectly escorted the similarly-named student to the front office instead. While Colt continued to hide in one of the bathroom stalls, school staff continued to search for him for twenty minutes.
Colt Gray allegedly exited the bathroom wearing yellow gloves, carrying a backpack and holding a white posterboard around his torso. A rolled-up poster, poster tube, or posterboard was used by Colt Gray that morning to conceal his rifle, which he carried in his backpack.
At 10:02 a.m., Colt Gray texted his mother, “I’m sorry”. At 10:18 am, she texted Colin Gray, suggesting he leave work and saying: “They’re going to need you at the school”.
The shooting followed.
[NOTE: This seems relevant, too:
Social-emotional learning and anti-bullying programs don’t reduce the risk of school violence, says a leading researcher. What’s remarkable, writes Hechinger’s Jill Barshay, is that Ron Avi Astor, a UCLA professor, spent years advocating for policies he now thinks are ineffective, and is willing to say so. “We were wrong,” he said at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
On the advice of Astor and others, schools have invested heavily “in social-emotional learning, restorative justice, trauma-informed care, counseling and other efforts to make schools safer and more welcoming,” Barshay writes. …
School shooters aren’t responding to bullying or trauma, Astor told Barshay. They crave notoriety. “Most of them are suicidal, and they decided to be homicidal so that they would be remembered,” he said.
Initially the story on the Columbine shooters was that the two teenage perps had been cruelly bullied in school, and that that was their motivation. That was not the case; their intent was to kill as many people as possible (many many hundreds), and there was also suicidal intent involved but it was very secondary. They actually had plans to get away, but killed themselves instead.]
I grew up in a home with unsecured firearms. I also had issues with anxiety. (Which my mother and father never noticed).
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You have asinine verdicts like this because we now have a critical mass of the legal profession and a critical mass of the general public which reject the implications of personal agency.
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Art Deco:
Yes, but this verdict had to have been unanimous in order to convict. That’s what surprises me. And this was not in a solid blue state, either.
Given the mental health/anxiety of not only youths but adults in our society, what used to be the status quo is no longer relevant.
That means a very severe penalty for not keeping guns/ammunition secured. Having said that, I have a .38 pistol locked in a strong box with the ammunition stored away in a different location (though not in a locked box), but I have two .22 rifles sitting in my closet (though the ammunition is stored in another place). One of them came with a trigger lock, but that isn’t particularly secure and could easily be defeated.
Of course, no kids in the house, but I should get something more secure for the .22’s. A gun safe seems overkill.
Without actually seeing/reading all the evidence, it 15 years seems severe, but what is the sentence needed to make everyone lock up their guns?
From what neo wrote, it sounds like he used a rifle.
That means a very severe penalty for not keeping guns/ammunition secured.
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It means that if risk assessment defeats you.
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Given the mental health/anxiety of not only youths but adults in our society, what used to be the status quo is no longer relevant.
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The suicide rate has hardly changed since 1975.
Is there anything else you want our insect overlords to require that you lock up inside your own domicile, aka, your house? Books, for instance, since speech is violence.
Wrongthink.
When my sons were in high school, it was not unusual to see trucks in the high school parking lot with rifles in racks in the back window. Times sure have changed.
Brian E:
Thing is, in Georgia there apparently is no law requiring guns to be locked up. If they want to require that, don’t you think they should pass a law?
Art Deco, It’s not true that rates among young people under 19 haven’t increased. For example in 1975 male suicide rate among 15-19 year olds was 12/100,000. In 2019 it was 17-18/100,000. But that’s the wrong metric to use in these cases, IMO. Suicide is reacting internally. Shooting someone else is reacting externally, and can have other causes than strictly mental health– though I would say a school shooting certainly show a mental imbalance.
And all mental health issues don’t result in suicide.
The rise in anxiety is one of the clearest quantitative signals that mental health among young people has worsened over the past decade-plus. It manifests less as occasional nervousness and more as persistent worry, avoidance, physical symptoms, and interference with normal development and daily functioning.– Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Maternal and Child Health Bureau.
om, we mandate increased safety for a variety of things. Seat belts. Motorcycle helmets. Arc fault breakers. Airbags in cars. We penalize leaving your keys in your car.
Given the societal cost of school shootings, making sure the firearm is locked in a secure location is a small price to pay for the outsized consequences, even though they’re rare.
While this is unrelated, ATF estimates 266,000 guns are stolen from private citizens each year. While the number of thefts from cars is increasing as more people carry, a gun safe at home would likely decrease that number.
Neo, I would hope gun owners would lock up their guns, regardless of the law.
Especially if they have troubled teenagers at home.
Neo, I overlooked/missed your point. You’re right that it’s being mandated by the courts/legal system rather than the legislative branch where the legislation should occur.
Art Deco, It’s not true that rates among young people under 19 haven’t increased.
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So what?
Brian E:
I would certainly hope they would lock them up, too. That’s why I say that Colin Gray showed poor judgment. Perhaps negligence, although I’m not sure of that. But he should not be given a 15-year sentence for 2nd degree murder.
Brian E adds all the various public safety regulations, building codes, etc. to take aim at one specific unrelated scenario because ‘feels righteous,’ to say so.
How soon he has forgotten all the government overreach and infringement of personal liberty, cough Covid19, under the guise of ‘public safety.’
Lord help us from such misplaced judgement.
om, we’ll always have tension between public safety and personal liberty. Society gets to decide the answer each time the two collide. We have the SC to decide when personal liberty or public safety most aligns with the constitution, the compact on which we have based our society.
That’s why neo’s comment that we want the legislature, not the courts deciding the rule.
Your comment is gobbledygook. At least you got my name right.
Brain E:
What part of in your home do you understand?
What part of recent history of those abusive governmental overreach policies can you recall?
When you stoop to such foolish ‘journalism’ I call you
Long time reader here, never commented before. I am completely down with the father’s conviction. I say that as an extreme right wing maniac who owns more guns than I can shoot in a week. I’m a little surprised by your opposition to the conviction. Let me tell you why I’m not.
Attractive nuisances are a thing. You don’t do this, because it will eat human lives. A locking fridge abandoned in the woods. A pool without supervision or fence. Thankfully the fridges have gotten old enough they are all rusted to the point where they probably ended consuming children, but pools do yearly. Monthly, even, maybe weekly.
Leaving firearms unguarded where mentally suspicious people can get to them is the same fucking thing.
Leaving firearms where people can easily get to them and do evil with them is the same fucking thing. The same exact thing.
I have zero sympathy for the father. A friend lost her brother to a homeless guy who found a gun in an unlocked car and murdered him after the brother lent the homeless guy his phone. It’s an attractive nuisance and those who create them need to feel the repercussions of their actions, or inactions.
2nd Ammendment Wilbur, the libs will use whatever they can to neuter it, or haven’t you noticed.
The feelz are strong and so self righteous.
We had one of the earlier school shootings in our small town– 1996. A troubled teen killed a teacher and two students and injured another student before being tackled by a teacher. The teacher, Jon Lane entered the classroom after hearing the gunshots, confronted the shooter while he was holding the class hostage, grabbed the rifle, wrestled him to the ground, and held him until police arrived. He was the gym teacher and wrestling coach.
Having seen the aftermath relatively close up, it’s hard to have infringement of personal liberty as the hill to die on.
Will this be precedent for charging the parents of trans-whatever teens who kill people, if they encouraged or facilitated the “gender affirming” treatments?
(What an Orwellian euphemism for clear child abuse!)
Brain E wants to inflict his trauma on everyone else.
Brian E does not like the Constitution of the United States. If you follow his train of logic all rights are eliminated under the guise of safety.
The school failed, the father failed, the mother failed. The very least the father could have done is get a biometric safe if he needed access to a firearm for defense.
So when do the parent/parents of black gang members get prison sentences for the crimes their sons commit?
Last month was reading through 1 Samuel in the daily lectionary and came across this:
For I have told [Eli] that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. (1 Samuel 3:13)
(Eli’s sons were doing some seriously nasty stuff. See 1 Samuel 2.)
It caught my attention because in the Hebrew Bible there is an ongoing tension/debate/dialogue between “we pay the price for what our forebears did” and “you only pay the price for what you did”. Then we have the famous passage in Ezekiel that says “it is only the person who sins that shall die” (18:1-4 et passim).
It was interesting to notice a passage that says “you didn’t do anything wrong, but your sons have done awful things, you did not restrain them, and you will also die for what they did”.
Human societies have wrestled for centuries with the questions. “Am I responsible for what my ancestors did?” and “am I responsible for the wrong my children did?” At least sometimes communities and societies have said “you saw what your children were going to do, you saw what your children were doing and did not restrain them, and we will hold you responsible for that”.
Our excellent host raises important questions about who else could be held responsible, and “where does the finger-pointing stop”.
Who saw what? Let’s just pass a law.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
The prosecutor in this case sought a 55 count indictment of this man, which the agents of Georgia criminal procedure eventually whittled down to a mere 29 counts. Here’s a three-fold hypothesis: the Georgia penal code is a compendium of nonsense, the prosecutor is a grandstanding clown, and the modes of criminal procedure meant to screen the issue of the prosecutor’s imagination wouldn’t screen out grizzly bear scat at a water treatment plant. Remember the three dudes (one who did nothing at all) sent up for multi-decade sentences when one of them shot Ahmaud Arbery? It happened in Chatham County, Georgia.
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This Mr. Gray was a terminally obtuse man in his dealings with his son, and, one might wager, in a half dozen other ways. That isn’t mens rea. If you object to his disciplinary practices at home or how he stored his guns, you might just (if you have standing) file a civil suit. Depending on what Georgia ‘law’ allows his attorneys to appropriate, you might just get a chunk of his home equity.
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I’d be pleased to see an audit of the jury selection procedures.
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As for the jury, they might have the excuse that as they understood the jury instructions (btw, were they allowed a written copy to peruse? could they take notes during the trial? was the transcript made available to them) this was the required verdict. Might have.
So when do the parent/parents of black gang members get prison sentences for the crimes their sons commit?
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The 7th of Never. There are no red states in the judiciary and the professional class twits who administer the law have little interest in the injuries done by their pet monsters to ordinary people.
Rick67–To add further nuance, you mention the passage in Ezekiel that states it is only the one who sins that shall die. But in the same book in 2 chapters (3 and 33) there is a warning that if you see the wicked sinning and do not warn them,”their blood I will require at your hand”. The response of the wicked doesn’t impart culpability–merely whether or not one warns the sinner.
Sharon W:
Thanks! Why I always read what you have to say.
“Brian E does not like the Constitution of the United States. If you follow his train of logic all rights are eliminated under the guise of safety.” -Richard Cook
This is just silly talk.
Here’s what I wrote: “We have the SC to decide when personal liberty or public safety most aligns with the constitution, the compact on which we have based our society.”
This is just how our system works.
Let me ask you this. What right is being violated if a law requires you to have your firearm/firearms secured at all times when not under your direct control?
Long, long time reader. I think I’ve only made one other comment, and that was many years ago.
But I feel compelled to say this. The same legal principal should be applied to judges who use their courtrooms as turnstiles to return violent criminals back to the streets. Surely their negligence as a responsible arbiter is no less than the negligence of a responsible parent. Even more so, as judges know the violent history of a criminal whereas the parent possesses no such knowledge.
Maybe I am overthinking this, so I welcome other ideas:
On finding the balance between securing weapons and ammunition against unauthorized access and sometimes needing minimal incumbrance for such access (whether at 3pm or 3am) —-
I suppose keys and number pads and safes, etc. can work for most situations. But with the advant of Q codes and passcodes, plus facial recognition, it would seem a mechanism using such electronic aids to energize releasing clamps or locks, etc., might also help in fast retreival when required but limit those who can achieve access.
Programming for vacation absences, etc., would be an additional layer of protection – something commonly done with HVAC thermostats. Battery powered for power outages. Other considerations??
R2L, they have biometric locks on gun safes now. Here’s one you mount on your nightstand.
https://www.amazon.com/Biometric-Handgun-Fingerprint-Mounted-Nightstand/dp/B0FL7NHVL3/ref=sr_1_4_sspa?
The same legal principal should be applied to judges who use their courtrooms as turnstiles to return violent criminals back to the streets.
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Good point.
I’m ok with consequences for the father’s negligence including possible prison time. But NOT a murder conviction.
Brain E keeps ignoring the essential fact that he is toots fine with the government holding you accountable for the criminal acts of another when that another took an object from your home and committed a crime with it.
You are responsible for the crime another committed; you did not prevent him from getting the object, whatever it may be, gun, knife, automobile?
Must you control every potentially dangerous object you posses, lest a criminal misuse it?
In a Brain E world trust the prosecutor. For the good of the people, and his feelz.
Sharon W – thanks for the reply. I am familiar with those verses but forgot they were in Ezekiel. Excellent point(s).
om, I agree with Neo, he should have been charged with negligence, not homicide– but I do think the sentence needs to be serious enough that people change their behavior on how they store their firearms.
“Must you control every potentially dangerous object you posses, lest a criminal misuse it?” -om
I don’t know. Give me an example of a dangerous object that shouldn’t be kept under control.
Brain E just refuses to accept the fundamentals; that his mindset allows transference of guilt and responsibility, for his feelz.
Knives in your kitchen. Great Britain is calling you Brain E.
Is one lock on your automobile sufficient? Theft from your driveway by a drunk or doper leading to vehicular manslaughter, inconceivable? Trust the prosecutor Brain E?
Brian E; om:
I just wrote this post about the Gray case but more generally about the issue of restricting guns within the home.
Does the severity of the crime dictate culpability? Shouldn’t “bad” parents be charged for every crime their children commit? What if it’s “merely” assault? Or how about fraud? Or shoplifting? I’m not personally aware of a legal principle that ties responsibility to a specific class or severity of crimes. But maybe I’m just poorly informed.
BobS:
Prosecutors have the freedom to charge people; whether the charges stick is another question.
I don’t think parents should be charged with anything except violating specific laws that they have obviously violated. For example, if there is a law in place concerning gun storage in the home, and they violated that law, they should be charged with violating that law and the penalty should be limited to that law and that violation. Parents such as Colin Gray should not be charged with murder or manslaughter, IMHO.
If schools are required by law to do certain things – such as for example certain actions in the case of students who issue threats – and fail to do them, the school should be charged with violating that specific law, period.
But the prosecutor in the Gray case decided to overcharge Colin Gray, and the jury agreed.
om, you need to control your BDS.
Colin Gray’s defense was be he didn’t know his son intended to kill school mates. It’s just speculation on my part, but having dealt with a troubled teenager, I think it’s reasonable that Colin Gray new his son was troubled and should have kept the firearms away from him. But that’s a far cry from knowing his son was going to kill someone.
I don’t know the dynamic of the trial, but a jury decided his negligence rose to the level of second-degree murder. Based on Georgia law, he will be eligible for parole after serving 1/3 of the sentence.
But the core issue here, IMO, is making the access to firearms harder in homes. With biometric locks, it’s not hard to secure your firearms and still have quick access to them in emergencies.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked Richard Cook: What right is being violated if a law requires you to have your firearm/firearms secured at all times when not under your direct control?
It’s time to recognize the current problem with firearms. The amount of firepower they represent. In 1996, in our local school shooting, Jon Lane was able to enter a classroom, confront the shooter and wrestle him to the ground– because the shooter had a bolt action rifle. Had it been a semi-automatic, he likely would have been one of the casualties.
We have a constitutional right to own these weapons, but it seems reasonable that they be secured in a manor that minimizes the chance of unauthorized use.
Brian E; om:
Please see my new post on the subject.
Brain E is stuck in1996 reliving his secondhand trauma.
Firearms technology hasn’t changed since 1996. Ghost guns with infinite capacity maga-mega-zines?
When did this mythical step change in firearms technology occur?
Put up or shut up, Brain E.
And when was the AR-15 brought to market, or the Ruger Mini-14?
1980s, you maroon.
Get a brain.
om, I’ll try and simplify it for you. There is no magic date when everyone had an ar-15 like rifle. But in 1996, the majority of rifles found in homes were bolt action rifles. The number of semi-auto rifles sold has continued to increase each year, where now the majority of rifles sold are ar-15 like rifles (modern sporting rifles).
That’s a crazy idea, neo, following the law! No wonder you left the Democrat party …
Brain E:
I guess that my mistake is trying to reason at your level, sticking to the fundamentals, which you interpret as either ignorance or stupidity.
I am quite familiar with the history. of the M-16 and it’s variants and the weapons that Eugene Stoner developed for the most part in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Remember, you idiot, I am an Army brat, came of age in the later stages of the Vietnam War. The M-16 was a big deal.
You admit that you don’t have any data to back up you 1996 date, and AI couldn’t give it to you it appears.
Consequently, I view you claim about bolt action vs semiautomatic intermediate calibre rifles as additional “journalistic” bad practice.
As a point of reference Brain E the Ruger Mini-14 was first sold in 1973. You do know that it is essentially a wood stocked semi-automatic rifle firing the same ammunition as the AR-15, but not direct gas impengement. It is an inexpensive and quite popular rifle, now eclipsed by all the non-Colt AR-15 rifles. Very, very popular.
1973, bozo.
Brain E has also conviently ignored all the semi-automatic rifles firing the Soviet block AK-47 ammunition, SKS rifles, and semi-auto AK-47s from a plethora of countries. 1980s you bozo, not 1996, that year, seared in you second hand trauma.
Neo:
Indeed I think we agree. The idea of charging someone for the criminal acts of another, even a minor child, is a bridge way too far, unless it can be shown that the person was directly involved in the crime, a situation that is clearly covered by existing law. At the most, I think you could perhaps argue for involuntary manslaughter, but even there, the concept of reckless disregard should be the standard.
Just to reiterate (and making use of the Penal Law of New York as a point of reference).
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Colin Gray was not present and did not kill anyone.
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You might indict him for ‘Hindering prosecution’ if he concealed or destroyed evidence against his son. (Is there any contention he did that?).
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Absent that, you might indict him for an ‘Anticipatory offense’, of which there are four: ‘Solicitation’, ‘Conspiracy’, ‘Attempt’, and ‘Facilitation’. He wasn’t present, so you cannot charge him with ‘Attempt’. If he did not plan the murders with his son, ‘Conspiracy’ is off the table. If he did not importune his son to kill people, injure people, or menace people, ‘Solicitation’ is off the table. That leaves ‘Facilitation’. It would be innovating to contrive a ‘Facilitation’ charge that did not rely on intent and mens rea but instead on conduct deemed ‘reckless’ or ‘criminally negligent’. In New York law, penalties for intentionally facilitating a crime used to run to about 1/10 th the penalties for the crime itself.
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The offense referred to as “Endangering the Welfare of a Child” – in essence, being in default as a guardian of the youth in question – might apply. That can be a class A misdemeanor or a class E felony.
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I’m sure you can come up with defendants facing charges for burglary, sexual molestation &c., fraud, reckless endangerment, and racketeering which might be legitimate. Colin Gray isn’t a hotdogging school bus driver, so reckless endangerment is a stretch in this case. The others are irrelevant.
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He had guns in his home, gave his son a rifle and some accessories, he ignored the picture of Nikolas Cruz in his son’s room, ignored his son’s weird table talk, and for some puzzling reason allowed his son to be out of school for more than a year. He’s densely stupid and an incompetent father. There are lots of penalties in this life for being stupid and incompetent. They seldom involve criminal charges.
Art Deco nailed it.
Line one: “in 2014 at the age of 14”
Your previous post was in 2024 so presume this is a typo.
“It’s a judgment call, and Colin Gray showed poor judgment.” which resulted in prison time, unlike so many perpetrators with much worse judgment and actual criminal actions.
I wonder if there really was a serious dichotomy between how Colt presented himself to the father vs what the female family members observed. He is a psychopath.
The father said:”…to do something that heinous, I don’t know that anybody can see that kind of evil. The Colt I knew, the relationship I had, there was this whole other side of Colt I didn’t know existed.”
Every time I hear about a murder I cannot fathom the killing. The act of ending another life. I can only conceptualize it in an emergency where my life or the life of a loved one was eminently threatened, and even then I struggle.
Presume the father knew his son was “troubled”. Then he should have done “something”. “something” is socially guaranteed to work like a charm every time with zero possibility of even the slightest negative result. Hence, failure to do it is so obviously a matter of negligence verging on malice that the perp is obviously guilty.
But….suppose he’s aware of the various realities available. Juvenile detention resembling the Titticutt Follies. Therapists not entirely connected to reality. Some CPS careerist needing to punch up his numbers and the kid disappears into the “System”. All of which the father has probably heard of happening as he goes through life watching the news.
So…..his choices are…?
Common sense would have locked up the firearms. Failing that should be looked at as a failure. As has been said, the same goes for the car keys. Not sure about kitchen instruments in GB, but wouldn’t be surprised.
Still, multiple charges in the murder line are not appropriate. As I’ve said before, never trust a prosecutor with a yummy, high-profile case lacking a sympathetic defendant.
DisGuested:
Yes, will fix.