This is an immensely challenging topic. Earlier in 2024 I wrote for a different blogsite about the risk that you and your spouse might be criminally and civilly liable if a child or other resident secured possession of your gun(s) and injured or killed others. At the time, the topic was Ethan Crumbley, whose parents arranged for him to have a firearm and who responded negatively when local school authorities said they were concerned that Ethan might cause harm to himself or others. The Crumbleys have been sentenced to imprisonment because the judicial system found they acted criminally in providing a 15 year old with a gun and taking no action when told their son was troubled.  

We can try to dismiss this kind of case as unique. But word is coming from Austria that the plot to conduct a mass shooting at an Austrian Taylor Swift concert involved people ages 19, 17 and 15. In 2022 Salvador Ramos, age 18, shot nineteen people in Uvalde, Texas. Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two men during a civil disturbance in a nearby state when age 17. Thomas Crooks was 20 years old when he attempted to take the life of former President Trump in July. Nineteen year old Nikolas Cruz shot 20 of his teachers and classmates in Parkland Florida in 2018.  

Most of us regard the 320,000,000 weapons Americans keep in their household as a source of safety.  The data is showing a growing trend that the person who may cause our demise is a classmate, a neighbor or a resident of our home. In suburban Philadelphia this past month a father had left his gun unattended while cleaning it. His two year old got into the room and shot himself while his father’s back was turned. We have a perception that guns protect us from violent crime, yet the incidence of armed robberies and other felony assaults makes clear that this form of crime has declined precipitously since 1990. Reported violent crime rate in the U.S. 2022 | Statista

We view guns as a source of protection but that’s changing fast. The Crumbleys were convicted in connection with their child’s school shooting. Thomas Crooks may have been an adult but his parents are being investigated to see if they have criminal liability for his efforts to shoot former President Trump. Whether your child is two or 20, you need to ask yourself whether the weapon you bought to defend your home could change your life or that of your children forever.