Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat whose Michigan district includes the high school where four students were killed last week, said Thursday night she is considering introducing a bill to hold parents accountable if their children shoot others.
Ms. Slotkin said she is still examining the details but said during a virtual town hall meeting that parents should be punished if they do not do enough to keep guns out of the hands of their children and it leads to a crime.
“When we talk about responsible gun ownership we should actually mean it,” she said. “We’re looking at legislation at the federal level that there be criminal penalties for someone who allows easy access to a weapon that is then used to commit a crime.”
The Michigan Democrat told her constituents to expect an announcement within the next week.
Ms. Slotkin raised the idea of stronger gun penalties after the controversial decision by a county prosecutor to charge Jennifer and James Crumbley with involuntary manslaughter.
Their 15-year-old son, Ethan Crumbley, was charged with shooting and killing four students at Oxford High School on Nov. 30.
The parents committed “egregious” acts, from buying a gun on Black Friday and making it available to their son, to resisting his removal from school when they were summoned a few hours before the shooting, Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald said in charging the Crumbleys.
The National Rifle Association was not immediately available for comment.
Ms. Slotkin said she was “encouraged that Michigan may be setting a precedent by charging the parents.”
She said that she had grown up in a home with a gun and that she carried a Glock while serving in the CIA.
But Ms. Slotkin, who led a moment of silence in the House last week to honor the victims of the shooting, said the families of those killed had told her “they want this whole tragedy to result in some sort of change.”
• Kery Murakami can be reached at kmurakami@washingtontimes.com.
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