The Crumbleys Are Being Scapegoated for America’s Gun Failures

Yesterday, a Michigan judge sentenced James and Jennifer Crumbley to 10 to 15 years in prison for failing to stop their son Ethan from murdering four students in 2021. The cases grabbed headlines because prosecutors aggressively charged the parents with the actual killings, as though they had pulled the trigger themselves, rather than pressing lesser offenses such as child neglect and failure to comply with gun-safety laws. Separate juries had convicted them of manslaughter. The harsh sentences may presage more criminal liability across the country for shooters’ family members and other caregivers, such as teachers and security guards, who theoretically could have stepped in to prevent the worst from happening. The people who possess real power to slow the scourge of gun violence in America—legislators, gun-industry executives, and the U.S. Supreme Court—now have in their hands a new means of pointing blame and evading accountability.

The tragedy occurred on November 30, 2021, when 15-year-old Ethan took a gun from his home and brought it to Oxford High School in his backpack. According to the evidence presented at trial, his parents had bought the gun and taken Ethan to a shooting range just days before the killings, ignoring multiple warning signs that he was experiencing severe psychiatric distress, including mental hallucinations, and contemplating violence. When Ethan asked to see a doctor, his dad told him to “suck it up.” His mom laughed. After the school alerted the parents that their son was searching for ammunition online, she texted him: “LOL I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.” On the morning of the murders, a teacher found a drawing he had made depicting a person bleeding, along with the words “The thoughts won’t stop help me.” The parents were called in for a meeting, but they declined to take him out of school. Shortly thereafter, Ethan removed the gun from his backpack in a bathroom and opened fire on his classmates.

[From the March 2024 issue: To stop a shooter]

Prosecutors calculated the sentencing-guideline range as if the Crumbley parents were each responsible for all four of the murders. “At the end of the day,” Jennifer’s counsel argued, “Mrs. Crumbley shouldn’t be sentenced as if she could control that four people were murdered, or if she had shot 100 people.” She had a point.

Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews emphasized at the sentencing that the evidence went beyond just bad parenting. The Crumbleys ignored “things that make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck stand up,” the judge said. “Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and was ignored. No one answered. And these two people should have and didn’t.” Matthews went on to criticize James for “unfettered access to a gun or guns as well as ammunition in your home,” and Jennifer for having “glorified the use and possession of these weapons.”

But here’s the thing: Michigan law at the time allowed for unlimited firearms access and storage in the home. The Crumbleys acted in compliance with the law. Michigan’s new secure-gun-storage law took effect only in February of this year—long after the murders; by then, the Crumbleys had already served nearly two years in jail. Nobody contended that either of these two parents poses a further threat to society, and if they were hypothetically inclined to repeat their bad deeds (their son is in prison for life after pleading guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, one count of terrorism causing death, and 19 other related charges), a law is now in place to dissuade them.

The Crumbleys are being punished for failing to do what society writ large did not ask of them. For the most part, legislators across the country continue to sit on their hands, routinely peddling “thoughts and prayers” rather than enacting gun-control laws. Congress gets credit for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which bars civil lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, distributors, and dealers for harm caused by “the criminal or unlawful misuse” of a firearm, and says that “the possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system.” The Supreme Court, too, has done its part to perpetuate America’s gun-violence crisis. In 2022, a 6–3 majority struck down as unconstitutional a 111-year-old New York State law that required applicants seeking a concealed-carry license to show a special need that distinguishes them from the general public. Absent a constitutional amendment, the ruling effectively bans states from enacting similar laws in the name of public safety despite voter preference and historical practice.

While Congress, state legislators, gun manufacturers, and the Supreme Court have done worse than nothing, parents are now headed to prison for not taking steps to impose commonsense restrictions on their own at home. This regime has it exactly backwards. In a civil society, laws exist to protect us against our negligence and bad instincts. Putting someone’s mother and father in jail as a warning sign to others is no substitute.