As the perpetrators of the deadliest mass shootings in the US are getting younger and younger, questions arise of the role parents play in these incidents.
The issue has been brought to the forefront with the recent Highland Park Shooting, where 21 year-old Robert E. Crimo III opened fire on an Independence Day parade in Illinois. Law enforcement records show that the gunman’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., sponsored his son’s attempt to get a firearms license in 2019, despite incidents in which his son attempted suicide and incited a police response after threatening to “kill everyone.” His father has defended his own actions and said that “I had not an inkling … that this was going to happen.”
According to the Violence Project, more than 50 people under the age of 25 have killed at least four people in a public setting since 1966, not including gang related killings.
Prosecutors and researchers are now focusing on if parents are criminally responsible for ignoring glaring warning signs or providing weapons to their children. Usually, parents are charged with crimes such as negligence and manslaughter only when their child accidentally harms themselves or others with an improperly stored gun. They are infrequently charged when their child conducts a mass shooting.
However, a few scattered cases offer some insight into the future of parental responsibility for their children’s actions. In Nashville 2018, when a 29 year-old man shot and killed four people at a Waffle house, the man’s father was charged with illegally providing the gun used in the incident.
Oftentimes, parents do not know where to get help for their children and their mental health, and do not want to call the police for fears it would go on the child’s record. For example, state reports detailing the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting describe how the shooter’s mother ignored medical expert’s advice on mental treatment for her son and did not restrict his access to guns before the shooting.
According to Jillian Peterson, co-founder of the Violence Project, around 80% of gunmen in mass shootings show changes in behavior, including depression, isolation, and quitting school or work. However, she says that “[gunmen’s parents] did know something was wrong. But we don’t think that a person in our lives could be a person who could do this.”
The issue has been brought to the forefront with the recent Highland Park Shooting, where 21 year-old Robert E. Crimo III opened fire on an Independence Day parade in Illinois. Law enforcement records show that the gunman’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., sponsored his son’s attempt to get a firearms license in 2019, despite incidents in which his son attempted suicide and incited a police response after threatening to “kill everyone.” His father has defended his own actions and said that “I had not an inkling … that this was going to happen.”
According to the Violence Project, more than 50 people under the age of 25 have killed at least four people in a public setting since 1966, not including gang related killings.
Prosecutors and researchers are now focusing on if parents are criminally responsible for ignoring glaring warning signs or providing weapons to their children. Usually, parents are charged with crimes such as negligence and manslaughter only when their child accidentally harms themselves or others with an improperly stored gun. They are infrequently charged when their child conducts a mass shooting.
However, a few scattered cases offer some insight into the future of parental responsibility for their children’s actions. In Nashville 2018, when a 29 year-old man shot and killed four people at a Waffle house, the man’s father was charged with illegally providing the gun used in the incident.
Oftentimes, parents do not know where to get help for their children and their mental health, and do not want to call the police for fears it would go on the child’s record. For example, state reports detailing the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting describe how the shooter’s mother ignored medical expert’s advice on mental treatment for her son and did not restrict his access to guns before the shooting.
According to Jillian Peterson, co-founder of the Violence Project, around 80% of gunmen in mass shootings show changes in behavior, including depression, isolation, and quitting school or work. However, she says that “[gunmen’s parents] did know something was wrong. But we don’t think that a person in our lives could be a person who could do this.”
