Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/gun-laws/)
TUCSON, Arizona — Adriana Grijalva was getting ready to head to class at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2022 when she got a text message from her cousin telling her to stay put. The cousin, who works in maintenance at the university, had watched law enforcement descend on campus and reached out to make sure she was safe. A former student had just shot a professor 11 times, killing him.
In separate trials earlier this year, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents in U.S. history to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a mass shooting committed by their child. They were each sentenced to 10–15 years in prison, the maximum penalty for the crime. Prosecutors argued the Crumbleys ignored urgent warning signs that their son Ethan was having violent thoughts, and that the parents provided access to the gun he used to kill four classmates and injure seven other people at his school in November 2021.
Parents whose children were killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre made sobbing pleads for stricter gun laws before legislators early Wednesday on languishing proposals that appeared headed to stall in the face of a Republican majority.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A first-grade Virginia teacher who was shot and seriously wounded by her 6-year-old student filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence for allegedly ignoring multiple warnings on the day of the shooting that the boy had a gun and was in a "violent mood."
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Armed with two handguns and dozens of rounds of ammunition, 43-year-old Anthony McRae open fired on the Michigan State University campus on the night of Feb. 13, killing three students and wounding five more. Democrats are expected to bring a sweeping 11-bill gun safety package before the Michigan Legislature this week. The package aims to establish safe storage laws, universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders.
A bill that would allow people with concealed carry permits to bring firearms on West Virginia public college and university campuses is heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice after passing the final hurdle in the GOP-dominated Legislature. The state House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation Tuesday. Justice has not said publicly whether he will sign the bill.
Will Keeps was a 15-year-old member of a Chicago gang when he witnessed rival members kill his friend. He escaped the streets and moved to Iowa to help other young people from troubled backgrounds. Now, Keeps is hospitalized and in serious condition following just the sort of violence he has devoted his life to stopping: a shooting that killed two teenagers at the Starts Right Here education program he founded in Des Moines.
The backstories of Sakran and Pep couldn’t be more different. But their survivor stories drive their activism about the public health threat that gun violence poses and prove what some of the most alarming news headlines increasingly suggest: Almost anybody, almost anywhere, is a potential victim of gun violence.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell last year launched the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. That office funds and evaluates efforts to especially reduce gun violence among youth — 15- through 24-year-olds nationwide accounted for most of a prior decades’ surge in firearm-driven homicides — and has partnered in an effort largely lead by public health professionals who are tackling the problem as more than merely an issue of crime and punishment.
Ghost guns — so-called because they are nearly impossible to trace — are sold in parts and assembled by the buyer. Until recently, they were not classified as firearms, meaning there were no background checks and dealers didn’t have to be federally-licensed.
That has opened the door for traffickers, teens and people with felony records to get ghost guns.