Nevada Shooter’s Parents Might Be Charged

The Sparks, Nevada shooter’s parents may be charged after Monday morning’s deadly incident at the middle school in the town near Reno, depending on how the now deceased child acquired the gun used.

The Nevada shooter’s parents are among the grieving folks in Sparks, as their son is believed to have shot and killed a staff member before taking his own life in the Monday morning school shooting.

The child used a Ruger 9mm to wound two classmates and kill 45-year-old math teacher Mike Landsberry, an ex-Marine who had tried to intervene and protect other children after the boy started shooting classmates. After ordering Landsberry to “back up,” the 12-year-old shooter shot and killed the teacher before sustaining a fatal, self-inflicted wound.

Sparks deputy police chief Tom Miller admitted “the potential is there,” to charge the parents of the 12-year-old school shooter if he obtained the gun from his home, but added that the family was “fully” cooperating with the investigation despite their loss.

While charging the parents of a school shooter does not commonly happen, Nevada does have in place what is known as a Child Access Prevention (CAP) law, a statute that “prohibits only intentional, knowing, or reckless provision of firearms to minors.”

Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, confirms that even if the Nevada shooter’s parents are not criminally charged, they could be sued civilly due to the gun laws in Nevada — Lowy explains that such a scenario is neither implausible nor uncommon, and is not unique to Nevada:

“It’s a fairly straightforward civil liability case that a parent can be held liable for failing to adequately secure a gun away from a young person, and there have been a number of civil suits over the years, and a number of reported cases around the country of holding gun owners to the highest degree of care in securing their weapons.”

While the possible legal consequences are hashed out, Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez took time out to remember Landsberry, whose actions were described as heroic by those present on scene at the time of the deadly gun incident in Sparks.

Martinez said:

“He was a beloved teacher, beloved father… He will not be forgotten.”

Students at Sparks say the boy who shot Landsberry and two classmates had been bullied, and that it’s possible a bullying incident prompted the shooting.

Do you think the Nevada shooter’s parents should be charged in the deadly school shooting?