Colin Gray, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, has been arrested in connection to the shooting after admitting to law enforcement that he gifted Colt an AR-15 style rifle last Christmas.
The Apalachee shooting is the latest school shooting to highlight the dire need for gun control in America. The community of Winder, Georgia, has been left devastated after 14-year-old Colt entered the school with an AR-15 on September 4 in a shooting that left four dead. Colt’s victims included two beloved math teachers, Cristina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall, and two bright 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. As with every school shooting, the tragedy has raised outrage as the loss of these innocent lives could’ve been avoided if the country had taken action against rising gun violence.
Republicans like J. D. Vance, who have posed the biggest obstacle to gun control laws, have responded to the tragedy by stating that school shootings are just “the reality we live in.” He would rather classify school shootings as a “fact of life” than admit that gun control poses a solution. As much as Republicans have argued that gun control wouldn’t have stopped the Apalachee shooting, the details that have surfaced about the Gray family confirm that they would have made a difference.
Colin Gray arrested in connection to school shooting
Shortly after Colt was taken into custody, with authorities confirming he would be tried as an adult, Colin was also arrested. He is facing serious charges, including four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children. The major reason for the charges is his egregious decision to allow his minor child to possess a deadly weapon. According to law enforcement, Colin admitted that the AR-15 Colt utilized in the school shooting was a gift from him. He gifted Colt the deadly assault rifle last Christmas.
Not only did he give a weapon to a child, but he gifted it after his son had displayed warning signs. Shortly after the shooting, it was confirmed that Colt was already on the FBI’s radar. Over a year ago, the Georgia police were alerted to school shooting threats Colt allegedly made online. As a result, they interviewed the boy and his father but didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest. At the time, Colin confirmed they had hunting guns in the home but that Colt was not allowed “unsupervised access” to them. The interview took place in May of 2023. Then, in December of 2023, Colin allegedly gifted his son an AR-15.
It’s hard to wrap one’s head around Colin’s horrific actions. Any parent who gives their 13/14-year-old child a deadly assault rifle should face criminal charges. On top of that, Colin knew that his son had potentially made school shooting threats before that were concerning enough to draw the FBI’s attention. He knowingly enabled his son to carry out this act of violence. Meanwhile, few things could reiterate more clearly the urgent need for gun control and a significant shift in this country’s attitude to firearms.
Conservatives have repeatedly pointed out that Gray is 14 and couldn’t even legally buy a gun, claiming it’s proof that he’d have attained the gun illegally regardless of gun control laws. However, if Americans weren’t allowed to attain assault rifles easily, we wouldn’t have unhinged parents gifting their minor children AR-15s for Christmas. The lack of gun control was only one facet of the tragedy, though. It’s also impossible to miss how conservatives’ attitudes toward firearms may have influenced the shooting. Conservatives have glorified guns to the point of posing with assault rifles with their young children on Christmas cards. Guns have been glamorized to the point parents perceive them as Christmas gifts for children instead of deadly weapons.
The story of the Gray family is eerily similar to that of the Crumbley family. Ethan Crumbley was a 15-year-old whose parents had been notified by school administrators of various warning signs he displayed. However, they refused to seek help for their son and failed to secure the handgun in their home that Crumbley eventually used to kill three students. Conservatives are right that children like Gray and Crumbley can’t legally own a gun. However, America’s loose gun control laws make it startlingly easy for parents to give these children access to deadly weapons.
Published: Sep 6, 2024 01:12 pm