Parent to Perpetrator: Apalachee Father Faces Murder Charges

I'm all gun , all the time ! But that being said, I would never had bought that child a cap gun much less a AR !!!
Having hind sight is to our advantage, but given all that's come out it seemed like a horrible decision by the father!

First thing is the FBI came knocking about threats and months later he gifts the kid an AR. The same one used in the act. Murder 2 is a stretch and probably will be aquitted on it. However he being foind guilty on all others. The DA may pull the hear stings and get a guilty on thr kurder charges

This is a 2A conversation, but does this open the door on minors driving drunk and hurting or killing people. Without the car being provided they could not drive the car. No sarcasm or assumption in the question. honestly want to understand the difference.

My thoughts/question If the kid was hell bent on his actions he would have procured a firearm somehow, Dad unknowingly made that endeavor much easier. Now, after the FBI visit; would it be fair to say Dad knew OR should have known there would/could be serious issues?..... I "don't" think my son would use drugs, If I heard rumor he was, I certainty would not make them accessible to him. To me it's the same thing. Who would be at fault/responsible/co-responsible if my son overdosed, had I made them available?

"If you're easily triggered, stop now" That should be the thumbnail text. lol. Thanks for the great videos.

No one. Life is chaos. Move on.

Good video. Given the situation as a whole, the father is in deep doo-doo. Is that a legal term?😊 my guess is some of these charges are there as throw-away charges for plea deal negotiations.

Child under 18.
Absolutely; parents are fully responsible.
Federal: <18 cannot own handgun, only long gun.
>21 can own either.
Grandparents can gift to their child and grandchildren as parents can gift to their child.
Case in point: My son entered the AF at age 17. He asked for two handguns. I purchased them for him (NO, IT WAS NOT A STRAW PURCHASE SINCE HE IS MY SON), however, he did not have full custody of them until he turned 21.
THAT is responsible transfer of a firearm to someone who has shown maturity and responsibility.
Nothing less is to be considered.
Parents have ALWAYS been responsible for the actions of their children for decades before I was even born in 1950! No laws have been changed that effects this that I am aware.

Nobody mentions that when you buy a firearm now and you are reauired to attest to the questionnaire. ( Under penalty of law)I am not buying this firearm for another person.

since they are charging the kid as an adult , isn’t he an adult then Why could you charge anyone else

How about holding the schools that are indoctrinating these children behind parents backs?

I live in Winder… when I moved in I had neighbors that let their sons play with their guns…. I had to call the Sheriff out after the kids started shooting up my stable… The Sheriff came out and talked to them… Then the fence war started… I don’t see this changing the attitude… However it may give regress and teeth for the rest when a few choose to bully with our rights.

If my child had an account that was hacked. I would look into the account the determine there was nothing on the account that needed to be reported to the police. I would definitely kill the account, contact law enforcement about any questionable activity on the account. If I didn't know the account had actually been hacked, I would tend to believe the Law Enforcement report. Every gun in the house would be locked up 100% The child might have been gifted a bolt action rifle for a birthday gift. but even that would be locked up when not going to the range.

The age of the child in this is the key issue for me. The father is supposed to be the adult in the room, not the best friend. with the exception of the gun, I was currently carrying my guns were always locked up when there was a CHILD in the house.

Why not find charges for the bullying peers?

Will the government agents who failed at their job in this investigation get charges too? Certainly the dad did more to help this happen however the gov failed to stop it (same ol' he's on our radar - was known to us.) The FBI sent local cops to check in on the kid and he got away with giving the lame excuse of the account being hacked. You mean to tell me the FBI couldn't verify if that was true and what postings came from the account using internet from the area the kid lived in as opposed to from overseas???
Sure with hindsight it's easy to tell the dad picked the wrong thing but considering most sons in GA from that demographic like outdoors stuff, especially hunting he might have thought things were getting better if the kid showed real interest in hunting/firearms. Do we actually know what the father knew about how messed up in the head his kid was? Did he believe the kid just like the LEOs did when asking about the messed up discord posts? I think the charges need to be based on the facts of what he knew about his kid. If part of the reason he moved schools was to help stop his kid from being bullied then why would he think the kid would do something like this at a new school that he had only been attending for a couple of weeks? (I call the kid a kid bc of his age, I'm 100 with him being charged as adult bc no way him getting a few years in juvie is fair. He should be locked for the rest of his life which shouldn't be that long bc of riding the lightning.)

How many of these school disasters are the result of bullying? How much responsibility should we lay at the feet of the bullies?
Please stop the bullying in schools that result in these atrocities!

Funny how my small community holds parents responsible for their children and we don't have many of these problems.

Think of all the gang members fathers get arrested?

Let's get Federal licensing to reproduce/ parenting

Lucille Bluth......🤣

I'm sorry. But yes, dad should be prosecuted for murder. HE MADE IT POSSIBLE. I believe that parenting is the biggest responsibility any of us has, and way too many people do it poorly. Given the feds coming to his home the previous year with accusations that the child had threatened a school shooting, for him to subsequently purchase a firearm for the child, and obviously give him unsupervised access, he should be held accountable for the actions of the child. If you raise an idiot child and then you provide that idiot the tools to do something heinous, IT IS YOUR FAULT, and you should be prosecuted. And Damn the slippery slope argument.

Everyone call the DAs office and tell them off

Come on, you both tippie toe to the extent watching is difficult. Wishy-washy analyses. Personally the only law I see the father broke was allowing access to a weapon without parental supervision. That's how I see it from the laws of Florida. My personal opinions about the father are irrelevant. If you did not break a specific law you should not be punished for it.

"self regulation" is the entire issue.... YOUR GUNS are your responsibility, did Dad commit the act? were His Guns used? can you charge a person for improper use of a tool by another? yeah, this is a struggle issue, MAYBE revoke dad's 2A till he can take a class and prove thru some 2A "probation like" function to ensure that he properly stores his tools? we dont arrest/charge ppl who's hammers were stolen and used in murder... ugh it all comes down to INTENT, did he INTEND to leave the tool out for his KID to have unfettered access to it? did he INTEND to "enable" his child's criminal act?

I would compare this to 2 things. 1. "being ignorant of the law doesn't excuse breaking the law" the father was beyond ignorant he was blatantly and willingly neglegent when he got his son a gun (doesnt matter what kind) after the FBI came knocking and after the son said he is having problems. Also 2. This is almost charles manson esque, minus the encouragement to do the act. The father basically supplied the means and stopped short of doing it himself but at the same time left the ability open to his son.

I agree that an adult can commit conspiracy to another adult. However I don’t believe both should be charged as adults. If the child is charged as a child, then absolutely hold parent responsible as an adult. However if the child is charged as an adult then the parent should not be charged criminally beyond a conspiracy or aiding type charge. Dad needs to be charged for providing weapon to minor.

"The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." (Ezekiel 18:20)

They can't figure out if they want to blame the gun or the father! Democrats hate both, Fathers and guns. They are surely torn.

When people are taught that rights are without responsibility for yourself

There's a movement on the left to depopulate the planet. I can't really think of anything that would make someone think twice about having kids more than making you legally responsible for your kids' criminal actions.

None of this would have happened if the parents had just done the responsible thing and kept their son chained up in the basement.

Not the parent , the kid pulled the trigger

It will never matter how tragic the circumstances are. It will never be ok or even constitutional to charge, let alone convict someone of a crime they didn't commit.

The point raised, "where does it end?" is meaningful. The contradiction of charging this 14-year-old as an adult and still charging his parent as a participant needs to be examined. If 'adulthood' doesn't remove the parental involvement, then could the grandparents be charged for raising a father who acted so irresponsibly?

A parent or parents should only be held responsible if they can prove they INTENTIONALLY knew what was going to or could happen and allowed it , KNOWINGLY knew what was going to or could happen and allowed it , RECKLESSLY allowed a person to have access to an item that caused injury or death to a person or with Negligence allowed a person to have access to an item that caused injury or death to a person . And this includes not just firearms but MVs or alcohol/drugs .
Most States have laws concerning allowing access to firearms by minors and the penalty increases if injury or death occurs . So the father should only be charged with a crime involving reckless or negligent behavior on their part , such as negligent homicide or at most involuntary manslaughter .

I do no think the father is guilty of murder or manslaughter, but he is guilty of letting the child have unsupervised access to the firearm.

Even if he's found not guilty, how much do you think he'll pay in legal fees to defend himself?

Appreciate you addressing this. Not sure this is what the founding fathers intended when they said that bearing firearms shall not be infringed to maintained a well regulated militia. The dad needs the book thrown at him. If you think it is unfair, be a better parent. That said, as horrible as this act is, I think charging the 14 year old as an adult is a stretch. If you know any 14 year olds, especially bullied ones, you know they are impulsive and reactive and should not be held to the standards that a full brained adult would.

Is this different when we hold parents responsible when their children skip school?

When I was a kid probably 12,13-18 years of age I had possession of firearms and ammo in my bedroom I had 870 and rem 700 and .22lr buckmark. Granite no AR most of my friends had their firearms too. This didn’t happen back then. We need to figure out where we started to fail these children and address the issues cause I don’t think this crap is ever going to stop

there are a lot of kids now days who are pretty much left to raise them self. too many $hit bag " parents " who 1. probably had the kid as a result of poor decision making ( was not planned ). 2. are too busy living " their life " to pay attention to the kid. take a moment to stop and look at the parents, as well as the home situation of these kids who are out doing the shootings. I dont believe the majority of them have any kind of actual decent parent in their life. its funny how every time a shooting occurs, it is the guns fault, or social media, or some other kind of media, that is blamed. maybe if you have kids you should pay a little closer attention to what is going on with them. after all, they are YOUR responsibility to raise to be part of society. maybe if parents are held accountable for not just the shootings, but any trouble they may cause, maybe then parents will try to play their part in making sure they turn out decent.

I dont see it...minus texts or other comms showing he knew there was a serious threat.

Not an easy question to answer.

A few years back a young boy took his fathers handgun to his elementary school in his backpack, and while showing it off to other kids shot a little girl in the gut.
She lived, barely, but she will never have a normal life due to complications from the wound.
It raised a question: should the parent in that situation be charged. To me, 100% yes. Parental neglegence all the way. Completely preventable tragedy.

But.

The current event in question comes with different variables.
At his current age, was this boy legally allowed to own a firearm? If no, what measures did his father make to prevent access without knowledge/permission? If the firearm was properly secured, it becomes theft and the parent should not be held responsible for the shooting. If not,... Back to the gray area of whi is more responsible.

In todays world with the more kids today shooting up schools than they did 50 years ago is an issue, removing the parents from the issue is not the answer, and going straight for the parents isn't a perfect solution. A parent is the first line of preventing a school shooting and there are those parents out there that make questionable choices with their questionable kids and things happen. Can all parents stop all shootings, no. But a parent thinking twice and no matter how hard it is do the right thing can still reduce some of the issues. Its a tough corner for the 2A community but it still needs to have a little focus on it

If the state has a law for safe storage, and the prosecution can prove it wasn't stored safely the parent is going to jail.

If the firearm was stored safely, but the kid knew the combo to the safe, or had access to the key. I don't think prosecution has much of a case.

Is the Dad buying a firearm for his son considered a straw purchase?