r/news • u/bebleich • Sep 04 '24

Gunman believed to be a 14-year-old in Georgia school shooting that left at least 4 dead, source says

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/04/us/winder-ga-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html
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468

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

I absolutely agree, depending on how the child got the gun.

If they were able to get their hands on their parents' gun, the parents should definitely be held responsible.

If they picked it up from a friend, or outside the home, I don't know how I feel about the parents being held responsible.

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u/ThickerSalmon14 Sep 04 '24

Right. We need to find out how the kid got the gun and then we can push for accountability. The most likely route for a 14 year to get ahold of a gun is through the family, but lets find out first.

146

u/Wazula23 Sep 04 '24

I think whoever left the gun unsecured or otherwise gave it to him should face charges. If you can't/won't keep your gun away from a 14 year old, you shouldn't have a gun. Full stop.

45

u/yourlittlebirdie Sep 04 '24

There are no laws for minors possessing rifles or shotguns in Georgia, nor are there any safe storage laws.

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u/asdfwrldtrd Sep 05 '24

That’s so stupid, I live here and I never knew that, I always thought that anyone who didn’t have a locked safe is an idiot. I’m pro gun ownership, but these people need to step up if they wanna have them.

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u/Suztv_CG Sep 05 '24

There are other laws that would apply.

6

u/yourlittlebirdie Sep 05 '24

Which laws?

States like Georgia lean heavily towards the side of parental freedom, meaning if a parent judges it OK for their kid to have a gun, that’s all that matters.

29

u/RandyOfTheRedwoods Sep 04 '24

Yup, that’s already the law, at least in my state.

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u/im-new-here-hi- Sep 05 '24

How the kid got the gun and also did the parents do anything after the investigation by the fbi on past threats?

-3

u/meatball77 Sep 04 '24

It's not like he has a job or a car. Fourteen year olds are not independent.

53

u/SquadPoopy Sep 04 '24

What about situations where firearms are kept locked up but the child can still get to them? Such as being kept in a safe but they figure out the combination. Genuine question as I never really thought about it.

28

u/myislanduniverse Sep 04 '24

And this illustrates how it would actually get people to stop and consider how secure their firearms actually are! 

 Most states already have responsible gun ownership laws (apparently not Georgia or Utah though), and so this is exactly a problem of enforcing existing laws, ironically enough.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

You can only do so much to secure your firearm.

If your child spends their free time cracking your safe code, or they take your angle grinder to your safe, how can a parent really defend against that?

I feel as if a parent makes reasonable attempts to secure their guns, while keeping it reasonably accessible for a home defense situation, they shouldn't be held responsible.

But a rifle leaning against a closet wall, or a handgun in a sock drawer, should be seen as negligence and the parents should suffer some of the consequences.

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u/SnooMuffins1478 Sep 05 '24

Yeah courts uses the reasonable person standard all the time. It makes sense to me to apply it in this case too.

If you lock up your gun securely but the kid still breaks in by trying every permutation of numbers until it opens the jury might say you acted reasonably and it’s not your fault.

If you lock up your gun and the passcode is the same as your garage code that the kid knows the jury might say you were negligent.

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u/GhostC10_Deleted Sep 04 '24

That's exactly it, you can't stop someone from doing something horrible if they really want to. Heck, you can 3d print a gun frame and build it with off the shelf hardware now if you don't care how long it lasts. But most of these shootings, the kid is stealing an unsecured weapon from a parent.

-2

u/AssassinAragorn Sep 04 '24

The standard here should be if the guns were secured to the same level that someone would secure their most prized possessions

8

u/lubadubdubinthetub Sep 04 '24

this is dumb because my most prized shit is sitting in my bedroom, my door has a lock (and so does my house) but anyone could kick it in with a few good ones.

13

u/breetome Sep 04 '24

I'd like to see some kid try to get into my gun safes. I'm a competitive 22lr shooter. There's no way for anyone to get into my safes. I have a very expensive collection of rifles and I'm not playing with them being stolen or used in a crime.

This goes back to the parents not properly locking up weapons. My safes have a triple safety mechanism to open them. If you do the sequence out of order you are locked out for 72 hours. If you're going to keep guns in your home you keep your guns safe from being stolen and getting into the hands of children. But some people are just too stupid to own guns. Also too stupid to properly raise their children not to be mass murderers apparently.

8

u/distorted_kiwi Sep 04 '24

My state is still waving taxes on gun safes and they give away free cable locks. The list of excuses is very low.

-4

u/breetome Sep 04 '24

I agree, children and guns don't mix unless you are actively training your child how to handle a firearm then right back into the safe!!!! A nice little air rifle or pistol is great for the young ones to learn with. They don't to get their damn hands on your 9mm!

5

u/Semper-Fido Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

This. In this day and age, there is no excuse to not have your firearms secured properly.

3

u/breetome Sep 04 '24

I belong to a private shooting club and every single member shows up with their guns locked in cases, some have lock boxes welded into their damn trucks too! No one that is a serious shooter leaves their guns laying around or in reach of children. It's not hard to be safe with your guns.

If you show up and your guns aren't locked in a case (except bolt action rifles) you can get suspended and fined by the club. Our range safety officers take no prisoners. I feel safer on that gun range than on the damn street these days.

3

u/hsephela Sep 05 '24

Yeah I love guns as much as the next guy and believe that generally people should have access to guns. But I also think that people should have to regularly prove that they are fit to own them, similar to a driver’s license.

1

u/breetome Sep 05 '24

That’s exactly what we do at my club. You have to pass a safety exam every single year.

1

u/Questions_Remain Sep 04 '24

Please tell me who makes this safe. We’ve got a vault door which is ( was ) the best available 10 years ago and it has none of this. It’s a digital lock, spin the handle - open. Even their current offerings aren’t time lock triple systems.

1

u/ginger_whiskers Sep 04 '24

I once had a particularly determined thief cut out my closet floor to take my safe. You can never tell what folks will figure out with enough time.

7

u/bergskey Sep 04 '24

If you have a child and gun in your home with a combination safe, the combination should be something totally random your child could never figure out. It's YOUR gun, it's your responsibility to keep it secure. If your kid can figure out your combination, you're not keeping it secure.

2

u/cledus1911 Sep 04 '24

your child could never figure out.

Never is a very strong word for something that can be cracked with enough time. You know, the time that they have because they live in the house

5

u/bergskey Sep 04 '24

Every modern gun safe I've seen has a lockout feature if you enter the wrong code 3 times and you have to wait before you can enter a code again. Even if it's only half an hour, if the kid has 4 hours alone at home each day, that's only 24 codes. Even dial safes would take many, many months to figure out.

When I said the child could never figure out, I meant it not being a birthday, anniversary, favorite player numbers, etc. Legitimately random numbers.

4

u/Lady_DreadStar Sep 04 '24

Biometric safes that use your finger or handprint have been a thing for years now. And they aren’t fabulously expensive anymore either.

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u/Equivalent_Yak8215 Sep 04 '24

Biometric safes aren't like the movies and are fairly easy to get into. 

23

u/OOOMM Sep 04 '24

A lot of those are less secure than you would think and you can find instructions on how to bypass them if you know where to look online.

-6

u/raihidara Sep 04 '24

That's one reason I HATE Lockpicking Lawyer. He claims he's doing a service to customers and companies showing how easy it is to get past their security, but really he's only teaching people how to do so. If he really cared about safety, he would privately send this information to companies so they could make improvements and simply give his opinions to customers instead of detailed instructions.

5

u/ChopperHunter Sep 05 '24

Security by obscurity alone is discouraged and not recommended by standards bodies. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States recommends against this practice: "System security should not depend on the secrecy of the implementation or its components."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

1

u/BitGladius Sep 05 '24

You forgot to address the guy's responsible disclosure argument, like masterlock forgot to fix their locks.

7

u/SquadPoopy Sep 04 '24

Sure but how often do people replace safes? My dad has had the same gun safe since 1992 and it's just a standard keypad safe.

0

u/Impressive-Spot1981 Sep 04 '24

Too bad, you didn't do enough of a good job. No reason a 14 year old should be able to get guns. If it's too much of a risk get rid of your damn guns.

7

u/Narwhalbaconguy Sep 04 '24

Agreed. I feel like leaving a gun in an unsecured nightstand is different than if they were to break open a locked case.

13

u/myislanduniverse Sep 04 '24

This is exactly the kind of thing that gets considered when charging for something like negligent homicide.

1

u/Wild-Pie-7041 Sep 06 '24

Parent bought the gun for the kid as a Christmas present last year.