Trigger warning: This post discusses two school shootings in which children and teachers were killed.
Three parents are now in prison for shootings they did not commit and did not plan. Two juries, in two states, reached the same basic conclusion. Here is what they decided those parents should have done, and what it means for the rest of us who keep a gun at home.
As is the situation with most criminal cases, facts affected the outcomes of the proceedings.
Michigan, 2021: the Crumbley case
On November 30, 2021, the 15-year-old son of James and Jennifer Crumbley walked into Oxford High School in Oakland County, Michigan, with a Sig Sauer 9mm handgun his father had purchased four days earlier. He killed four and wounded seven other people.
He is serving life without the possibility of parole.
Neither parent was accused of planning the attack. They were charged with involuntary manslaughter, which in Michigan requires gross negligence.
The morning of the shooting, school staff called both parents in after finding a drawing their son had made of a gun, a wounded figure and a line about the thoughts he could not stop. They did not take him home. Nobody looked in his backpack, where they would have found the pistol that his father purchased four days earlier.
Jennifer Crumbley was convicted in February 2024 and James Crumbley in a separate trial the following month. Both were sentenced to 10 to 15 years on April 9, 2024. The trial judge upheld the verdicts in June 2025 and denied their motions for new trials. Their appeal is still before the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Georgia, 2024: the Gray case
On September 4, 2024, 14-year-old Colt Gray opened fire at Apalachee High School near Winder, Georgia, with an AR-15-style rifle his father had given him for Christmas. He killed two students and two teachers. Nine others were injured. In July 2026 he pleaded guilty to all 55 counts and was sentenced to life without parole.
His father, Colin Gray, bought that rifle after law enforcement had already questioned the boy about online shooting threats.
Gray took the stand in his own defense and said he never saw any red flags. Prosecutors argued that he handed a child in visible crisis the exact tool for a mass shooting. A jury deliberated less than two hours before convicting him on all 27 counts: two counts of second-degree murder for the students, two counts of involuntary manslaughter for the teachers, 18 counts of second-degree cruelty to children and five counts of reckless conduct.
On July 30, 2026, Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm sentenced him to 15 years. Prosecutors had asked for 80. The defense had asked for 10.
The judge said the crimes were negligent rather than intentional. He also said this from the bench: "The warning lights were flashing brighter and brighter, and you didn't get him help, and you didn't remove his access to the guns."
Colin Gray is the first parent in the United States convicted of murder over a shooting carried out by their child.
What both houses had in common
Here is the detail that got the least attention in either case, and the one that should matter most to a parent reading this.
The Crumbleys' Sig Sauer was sold with a cable lock in the box. A detective testified that the cable lock was found still sealed in its plastic packaging. No other locking device turned up anywhere in the house. James Crumbley told police the gun case had been hidden in an armoire, with ammunition under a pair of jeans.
At Colin Gray's trial, he acknowledged on cross-examination that firearms were kept in a bedroom closet, unsecured, with ammunition boxes stacked on the shelf above. No gun in that house had a lock on it. Nothing was in a safe.
Hidden. Not locked.
That distinction is what both prosecutions were built on. Both defenses argued the fathers could not have known. Neither jury was asked whether the men wanted this to happen, only whether they took ordinary care.
Hiding a gun is a strategy that expires
So how well does hiding work? Not as well as most of us assume.
Harvard's Means Matter project cites a study in which gun-owning parents said their children had never handled the firearms at home. Questioned separately, 22% of those children said they had.
The numbers on youth access are worth reading slowly:
The law is moving too
Michigan passed a secure storage requirement that took effect on February 13, 2024, days after Jennifer Crumbley's conviction. Penalties escalate if a minor gets the gun and someone is hurt or killed. Everytown has already published an early look at prosecutions under it.
26 states now have a secure storage or child access prevention law of some kind, and the details vary a great deal. Some apply only after a child gains access, others any time the gun is out of your immediate control. The age that counts as a child ranges from under 14 to under 18.
There is still no federal storage law. Check your own state before you assume anything.
Locked and reachable is the whole challenge
Most gun owners we talk to are not resisting the idea of a lock. They are resisting the trade.
You keep one gun accessible for a reason. A safe in the closet solves storage and creates a delay. A cable lock threads through the action and, frankly, can be cut.
Neither one is a bad idea. Either is better than an armoire and a pair of jeans. But we understand why a lot of people look at that trade and decide the accessible gun stays the way it is.
We built SafeGunLock for exactly that standoff. It is solid steel, it locks the barrel, and it is practically impossible to break without breaking the gun. Only you know the combination.
The part that matters most in a house with kids? The lock allows a loaded magazine in the well, but not in the chamber. No fumbling for bullets in the dark. Disengaging takes seconds.
We will say the obvious thing too. A lock cannot notice that your child is in trouble, and it cannot have the conversation neither of these families had in time. What it can do is take one impulsive decision out of a bad morning.
Eight families in Michigan and Georgia do not get that morning back. You still have yours. Never let your unsecured gun get in the wrong hands.
Our mission at SafeGunLock is to save lives by providing the most secure, convenient and portable quick-access gun lock in the world. Join us in preventing family fire. Learn how SafeGunLock's quick-access gun locks can keep your family safe while promoting responsible gun ownership.
Photo credit: Kindel Media
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