School shooter case could change gun crime accountability and societal norms

America has now heard two cases against parents who enabled their son to carry out a mass shooting. Jennifer and James Crumbley purchased a firearm for their son through an illegal straw purchase. They ignored clear warning signs that their child was a risk to himself and others, and they failed to safely store the firearm to prevent their son from gaining access to it. All of these missed opportunities ushered in the mass shooting at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. 

Four children were hunted and killed at the hands of a child who should never have had access to a firearm. Eight more — including a teacher — were injured. An entire community was irrevocably changed because of the Crumbleys’ lethal negligence and irresponsibility.   

The Crumbleys’ trials mark a change in America’s judicial process. Parents are being held accountable for their role in a school shooting. With 76 percent of school shooters under 18 obtaining their firearms from the home, we can likely expect to see more such cases brought to trial. Yet by the time one of these cases is brought before a jury, someone is already dead.

What the Crumbleys did and failed to do is egregious. Accountability can help heal the Oxford community, but we don’t want to see more of these cases; we don’t want to see more children dead. Justice is retroactive, but prevention can give us peace.  

To stop these tragedies before they happen, we need more than policy change and gun industry accountability alone. We need a nationwide change of American hearts and minds. 

America has successfully combated public health crises by collectively reshaping what is considered reasonable in our society. We see this in the law with the principle of a “reasonable person.” This idea is largely established through culture but has real legal implications as a litmus test enshrined in the law. It sets norms and expectations of behavior that encourage members of our society to mitigate risks, not only to avoid legal liability but also to avoid the shame that comes with failure to uphold community standards that protect all members of society. 

Parents are very often held against the “reasonable person” standard for what they allow to happen under their roof. Their responsibility extends beyond their children to anyone accessing their home — particularly other minors.

For example, under the law, it is not viewed as "reasonable" to provide minor children access to alcohol in your home. You can thus be held legally accountable if something happens to a child who accesses alcohol in your home — say, if that child leaves your home and then kills or injures themselves or others due to intoxication. A “reasonable person” will limit access to a backyard swimming pool or risk liability if someone drowns. 

The idea that something is reasonable or unreasonable is largely established through our norms. It was once considered “reasonable” to drive drunk, but in 1980, when Candace Lightner’s daughter was killed by a drunk driver, she initiated one of the most powerful campaigns to change social norms the nation has ever known. She founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving and dedicated her life to exposing the horrors caused by driving under the influence. By creating the very concept of the designated driver, her movement made drunk driving “unreasonable” in everyone's eyes. That cultural shift saved lives. When their national campaign began in 1988, annual alcohol-related traffic fatalities stood at 23,626. By 1994, fatalities had declined by 30 percent. 

Right now, 4.6 million American children live in a home with access to an unsecured firearm. Every single day eight children are unintentionally killed or injured as a result of an improperly stored gun. Family fire refers to a shooting caused by someone having access to a gun from the home when they shouldn’t have it, and the shooting at Oxford High School is sadly an example of family fire.  

There is a solution; there is prevention. Safe storage is the salve that will heal these wounds, and — in a nation with more guns than people — we all have a part to play in shifting societal norms to make firearm storage “reasonable.”  

Ethan Song, the son of one of us, was killed with an unsecured firearm while he was at a friend’s house. He was only 15 years old. His friend had access to his father's three handguns and a rifle for over six months, he even kept one of his father's guns under his bed. When Ethan died, his friend was charged with manslaughter, but his father, the negligent gun owner, suffered no accountability. He got a free pass.

If norms had been different, if it was considered “unreasonable” to live in a home where children can access guns, would my son still be here today? That question keeps us up at night. We never want another family to lie awake wondering the same. 

All it would take is a relatively modest increase in safe storage — locking all household firearms — to reduce firearm suicide and unintentional firearm fatalities among youth by up to 32 percent. Had the Crumbleys locked up their firearms, then perhaps their son could have gotten help instead of killing his classmates. Maybe they would still be free.  

To anyone who says it is not reasonable for a parent to be punished for their child’s actions, we ask you to consider how “reasonable” you can be if you know safe storage saves lives and you still choose to behave recklessly. We are mothers, we are attorneys, and we are Americans, but it shouldn’t take a court of law to determine that it is unreasonable to give children access to guns.

We can change the norm. We can make safe storage the only reasonable way to be a responsible firearm owner by changing the way we store our firearms and by calling upon our neighbors and loved ones to do the same. It only takes seconds to secure a firearm to avoid a lifetime of pain.  

Kris Brown is president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence. Kristin Song’s son Ethan was killed at a friend's house by an unsecured firearm.