At the Intersection of Public Safety and Parental Responsibility
Legal history was made earlier this week in Georgia, when Colin Gray, the father of a school shooter, was convicted of two counts of murder and a slew of other charges for facilitating his son’s access to firearms. Gray bought a rifle for his son Colt as a Christmas present and continued to allow him access to it after being warned that his mental health issues might make him a danger to himself and others.
It was later discovered that Colt was allowed to keep the rifle in his bedroom, and a number of other firearms had been kept in an unlocked closet in the Grays’ house. In September 2024, Colt carried the rifle into his high school and used it to kill two teachers and two students and wound nine others.
This case is one of only a handful in which the parents of school shooters have been held accountable for giving them access to guns, and the first in which a parent has been charged with murder. But the story of unsecured guns leading to tragedy is far from unique. It’s echoed in numerous cases of mass shootings, suicides, and accidental deaths in recent years.
Similar Cases
The first-ever criminal conviction of parents for a mass shooting committed by their child took place last year, when James and Jennifer Crumbley were convicted of manslaughter for allowing their son Ethan to have access to guns. Like Gray, the Crumbleys gave Ethan a firearm for Christmas that he later used to murder four of his classmates in 2021. During the trial, he confirmed that it was unsecured on the day he carried out the shooting, despite months of red flags about his mental health.
In Wisconsin, Jeffrey Rupnow, the father of a teenage girl who killed a classmate and a teacher at her school in 2024, has been charged with intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He bought his daughter Natalie the two firearms she used to carry out the attack. While the guns were kept in a safe, which is a best practice, Natalie knew the code to the safe. Rupnow also admitted he couldn’t recall whether he returned one of the guns to the safe after Natalie cleaned it the day before the shooting.
Similar circumstances have played a role in a number of cases over the years. In the Sparks Middle School shooting in 2013, shooter Jose Reyes used guns that his family kept behind cereal boxes in a kitchen cupboard. In the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018, the shooter knew the code to the safe in which his parents kept their firearms, and used two of them to kill 10 people and wound 13 others. While his parents were not found responsible, the victims alleged in a lawsuit that they hadn’t done enough to prevent him from accessing the firearms. In the 2024 Perry High School shooting, the firearm used is thought to have come from an extended family member, and another gun was carried that was unsecured in the shooter’s family home.
Zooming Out
These stories are just a few of many. The circumstances are so common that a threat assessment carried out by the Secret Service in 2019 found that in 76% of the school shootings examined, the shooters obtained their weapons from their home, and in 48% of cases, these were not securely stored. More recently, the National Institute of Justice reported that over 80% of K-12 shootings were carried out using firearms stolen from family members.
But even more common are suicides and accidental deaths resulting from the use of unsecured firearms. In 2022, researchers at Rutgers University found that unsecured handguns were the cause of the majority of firearm suicides between 2003 and 2018. Meanwhile, the risk of unintentional shootings—which kill, on average, at least 500 people per year—is significantly increased by unsecured firearms. The problem is particularly acute for children and adolescents, for whom unintentional injury is the leading cause of death, with the leading reason being firearms. One study found that the majority of these deaths are caused by firearms originating in the child’s home from a variety of unsecured locations.
Despite these risks, many Americans do not safely secure their firearms. As of 2023, 65% of gun owners kept at least one firearm in unlocked storage.
Safe Storage Solutions
But many states have adopted laws that require gun owners to safely store their guns before tragedy occurs. These vary in strictness—some require safe storage whenever guns are not in use, and others only when a child might have access to them (Child Access Prevention or CAP laws). At present, 26 states and the District of Columbia have laws like these in place.
Numerous studies have shown that these laws significantly increase rates of secure storage and reduce adolescent homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths by firearms. One study showed a 12% drop in firearm suicides by young people and a 13% drop in unintentional firearm-related deaths and injuries. Other research shows that as much as a third of all youth firearm deaths could be avoided if strong safe storage laws were implemented across the country.
What’s more, safe storage laws are among the gun safety measures most strongly supported by gun owners. Our most recent research revealed that 87% of gun owners surveyed thought that child safe storage laws are effective. In our 2023 gun owners survey, 71% of gun owners polled supported requiring guns to be safely stored with a lock in place.
While laws mandating safe storage can play an important role, rules and penalties alone don’t change behavior for everyone. Some people respond better when safe storage is framed as something that’s supported and encouraged, not just enforced. That’s where “carrot” approaches, such as tax credits for gun safes, rebates for locking devices, insurance discounts, or programs that distribute free locks, can make it easier and more appealing for gun owners to adopt safe storage practices. Laws set a floor for safety, but incentives can help reach more people.
Even when laws or other incentives aren’t in effect, those of us who own firearms have a responsibility to our families and communities to keep them secured. There are a range of methods to do this—from safes to trigger locks to separating firearms and ammunition. There’s also biometric technology, something we at 97Percent put our money behind back in 2020. It is now becoming a mainstream product. Many of these methods are affordable and easy to use, and all of them can save lives.
The Bottom Line
Gifting firearms is a time-honored tradition in many families. But federal and state laws still apply, especially where minors are concerned. And being aware of the mental health status of a family member with access to firearms is critical regardless of their age. We all want to keep our families safe; that’s a big reason why many gun owners own in the first place. Safe storage is a reasonable measure that saves lives—and can keep parents out of courtrooms or even jail.