Oxford school shooter's parents can face manslaughter trial: two people with masks sitting at table with hands cuffed while policeman looks on from background

A history of holding parents responsible for their kids’ crimes

Just three days before her 15-year-old son carried out a mass shooting at his Michigan high school in 2021, Jennifer Crumbley was captured on security camera leaving a shooting range with the handgun in tow. She had just taken her son out to target practice in what she described on social media as a “mom and son day testing out his new Christmas present:” a 9-millimeter pistol the high schooler referred to online as “My new beauty.”

gun violence killing teens, children: young mother holding picture of dead son

Gun violence claiming more lives of American teens, children

Gun violence is killing an increasing number of American children, from toddlers caught in crossfires to teenagers gunned down in turf wars, drug squabbles or for posting the wrong thing on social media. Experts say idleness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shares the blame with easy access to guns and disputes that too often end with gunfire.

Pile of handguns

Gun Control Movement Experiencing Growing Pains

With the advent of March For Our Lives and the success of pro-gun control candidates in the 2018 midterm elections, today’s gun violence prevention movement is larger and more energized than ever. Meanwhile, the NRA is going broke, losing popularity and under investigation by multiple parties for campaign finance irregularities and ties to the Kremlin.

Gun violence: Gun lying on desk with 3 blue-covered books, paper with word School on it and pencil holder with pens, pencils, ruler; geometry drawing on blackboard is in background.

Applying Escalation Model to School Shootings Can Keep Everyone Safer

The tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 reawakened our national terror of school shootings and renewed a contentious national debate about the need for school safety, gun control and mental health. We are suddenly even more desperate to keep our students safe, mortified by the image of an enraged gunman roaming the halls of our children’s schools.

Gun control: Colorful mural shows positive slogans, young man holding up tiny people on his hands, young woman blowing the seeds off a puffball.

Brooklyn Students Use ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ to Explore Solutions to Gun Violence

It’s early evening on a warm Tuesday in March, and a handful of teenagers are commanding rapt attention in a corner of a Chelsea art gallery. They’ve just performed a short theater piece of their own devising, an exploration of gun violence and the twisting, ricocheting trajectory that one bullet can follow through a community.