Opinion: Parents must be held accountable when children use their guns in school shootings

Less than two months ago, I wrote a letter to the editor imploring Tucson parents to understand the importance of secure gun storage laws following the incident at Alice Vail Middle School in which a student was able to bring a weapon onto campus and show it to friends before law enforcement was able to intervene.

I am once again pleading that we, as a society, collectively demand secure gun storage laws that include significant consequences for parents who provide weapons to their children under the age of 18 following the shooting deaths of three children and a teacher at a Bend, Oregon, school. Officials said these killings were carried out by a 16-year-old who used a firearm that was purchased by his mother for his birthday in August.

The headline that came out of Bend, Oregon, that the shooter used a weapon from home that was given to him as a birthday gift should be shocking to us. Unfortunately, it is not. We have heard this horror story time and time again.

Statistics tell us that school shooters often use weapons obtained from their own home. According to research conducted by the Brady Campaign (an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun sense laws and against gun violence), nearly 80% of youth school shooters or minors bringing guns on campus obtain the weapons from their own home, relatives or a friend, often due to unsecured storage. An even more frightening statistic published by Everytown for Gun Safety indicates that an estimated 6.7 million children in the United States live in a household with at least one loaded, unlocked gun.

Even though we know when weapons are unsecured or given to youth who are not in their right state of mind tragedy occurs, so many continue to respond to these events with empty words of sympathy. This is especially true of those lawmakers who send their thoughts and prayers to the families who are suffering from the trauma of gun violence but refuse to do anything about the issue because they are in the pockets of the gun manufacturers and lobbyists.

Why is it that we do not hold parents accountable when their choices result in the death of innocent people?

If parents were held accountable when their children use the guns they provide or do not safely secure to kill or injure innocent people, change would happen. Parents would think more about their children’s mental state before purchasing a weapon as a birthday gift. They would think more about the possibility of their children disregarding their instructions to stay away from the guns that are in their home if jail time was the consequence of their choice to leave weapons unsecured.

We cannot continue to let preventable tragedies take the lives of our children and educators. It is time that we demand accountability from parents who choose to make firearms a part of their existence. Their right to own those firearms does not supersede our right to ensure a safe school environment for our children and educators. Stop accepting gun violence as a norm in our society and demand that lawmakers pass laws that result in jail time for parents who aid their children in taking the lives of innocent people by being irresponsible gun owners.

I truly believe, like so many before them, the deaths of the Bend, Oregon, mass shooting victims could have been stopped. If there were a law on the books in the state of Oregon that made it possible for the mother to be convicted of murder for the mass shooting carried out by her child, perhaps she would have made a different choice, and five people would have been able to go home to their loved ones at the end of their school day.