Why labeling mass shooters as "monsters" could hurt efforts to stop them
In a Nutshell
Labeling mass shooters as "monsters" hinders prevention by fostering denial of warning signs in everyday people like classmates or family, ignoring their pathways rooted in early trauma, abuse, bullying, online radicalization, and parental negligence like providing firearms. Cases like the convictions of parents in the Oxford High School and Apalachee High School shootings highlight growing accountability for adults who ignore mental health cries for help. Prevention requires early trauma screening, school crisis intervention, mental health support, suicide prevention, guiding youth in online spaces, and holding social media accountable.
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60 Minutes overtime examines who should be held accountable for mass school shootings in the United States. For the past two weeks, this question has played out in a courtroom in Barrow County, Georgia.
This case is about this defendant and his actions.
Prosecutors have charged Colin Gray, the father of a 14-year-old accused of carrying out a deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in 2024, killing four people. Prosecutors say Colin Gray ignored warning signs about his son's mental health and bought his son an AR-style rifle used in the attack.
He should have known his son would, not could, that his son would harm someone.
This case is the latest attempt to hold a parent responsible for a child's school shooting. The approach drew national attention in 2024 after the parents of the shooter at Oxford High School in Michigan were each convicted and sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.
The guidelines do not take into account the complete lack of insight both defendants have for their behavior to this very day.
In both the Georgia and Michigan cases, investigators say there were warning signs from the shooter well before the crime.
James Densley and Jillian Peterson, professors of criminology and founders of the Violence Project, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based nonprofit that studies mass shootings, have the original mass shooter database. They have interviewed mass shooters and people who knew them.
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