The father of the mass shooting suspect accused of killing four people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, told investigators this week he had purchased the gun used in the killings as a holiday present for his son in December 2023, according to two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Colt Gray, a 14-year-old student, is accused of killing two students and two teachers with an AR-style rifle in the Wednesday shooting. Nine more people were hospitalized.

One source told CNN the AR-15-style rifle was purchased at a local gun store as a Christmas present.

  • TipRing@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    So his son was being investigated for making threats to shoot up the school and he decided that the best gift was a gun that could allow his son to act on those threats.

    Charging him in connection with the shooting seems appropriate.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        13 days ago

        I bet physical and/or verbal abuse was abundant in that household, probably spousal abuse as well, up to and including sexual and financial.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          No sexual abuse reported, but everything else, yeah.

          More red flags than a May Day Parade, like usual.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
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            13 days ago

            People don’t agree with what I’m going to say, but nonconsensual *nonmonogamous sexual relationships are physically and emotionally abusive. Physically because they potentially expose the non-consenting to disease, and death by disease. Emotionally and actually financially, because of gaslighting, withholding, gaslighting. And even with laws on the books, all abuse is underreported, and then when it is, there’s the victim blaming mentality, from report to trial, if it makes it that far. *Autocorrect

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Yup they can go the same route as the Oxford, MI shooter and charge the parents. They got 10 years, if more parents got charged parents might wise up. This sounds 100% the exact same situation. Oxford kids parents told him not to get caught next time when he was in trouble for looking at ammunition during school.

    • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Yeah, this is where I have issue. I grew up around guns and hunting. When I passed my safe hunters I got my first 12 gage shotgun and then got a 410 later that year along with a 50 cal black powder rifle and the. Get a few AR’s and AK/SKS’s along the way. I grew up respecting them and it was a normal part of life. People had gun racks in their trucks with guns in them in high school at the time.

      But this kid obviously had issues and they should have been in a safe away from him. I do think holding parents liable with start changing things slowly. I wish it was an over night change but we need to do it more often

    • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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      13 days ago

      I could see if you’re really into guns and you want to teach your kid the importance of gun safety, etc. But that firearm should 110% be under lock and key so that the child has no way to access it outside of parental supervision. This sounds like gross negligence, and a disturbing trend of parents for whatever reason buying troubled youth firearms in what I think most would consider counter to good judgement.

      Edit - Ugh… It’s even worse after reading this part…

      The timeline the teen’s father provided to authorities would put the gun purchase months after authorities first contacted Gray and his family to investigate school shooting threats made online.

      • ModernEraCaveman@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        If your kid is really into guns, then buy them a bb gun for fucks sake. Teach them gun safety with something that won’t kill anyone. What kind of brain dead parents are out there thinking that buying a child a gun is a good idea? THE KID’S NOT EVEN OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE FFS

        • ChillPenguin@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          You know… This whole gun thing. You’re on to something. Some people are absolutely brain dead and have no critical thinking skills. That’s what scares me about guns. Even with the argument that guns are just tools. Have you looked around America and seen the types of people that exist? Now imagine them all owning guns.

          Fucking scary.

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Should be illegal to buy a child a gun until they are 18. You can 2A all you want about defending the country but you fuckers ain’t gonna tell me you will have a child in your militia. Can’t drive until 16, can’t smoke until 18, can’t drink until 21 but you can go out and fire deadly weapons whenever your parents say it’s cool.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        21 now to smoke.

        And hopefully they keep charging the parents. Got kids? Got firearms? They better be locked in a safe and only the parent should know the code…some people are dumb as fuck.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      13 days ago

      Why these people giving weapons to their kids after the sheriff first contacted you to investigate school shooting threats your kid made online,

    • Chozo@fedia.io
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      13 days ago

      I think part of the reason for this is that you have a lot of these dipshit parents who see headlines like this and think “the LiBeRaLs are going to use this week’s school shooting as justification for taking our guns; I’ll show them, I’ll give my children guns and be the proof that guns aren’t the problem”. At least, with how often I see the sentiment of “well my kids have guns and haven’t killed anybody” across social media, that’s my assumption.

      They all think they’re responsible gun owners. And maybe some of them are. Hell, maybe most of them are. But a non-zero amount aren’t, and we need to have safeguards in place instead of “nothing we can do but pray for stronger doors on the schools”.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      13 days ago

      People like this put the “toxic” in toxic masculinity. “Oh, my son is having a hard time maturing and posted school shooting threats online? He just needs to grow up, firearms will help with that!”

      Can we please get gun reform yet!? This doesn’t happen in other countries…

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        imagine how much worse this would be if the child in question went to drag time story hour instead of being given a killing machine! /s

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      I grew up in a rural area with just my mom. We had two handguns and a shotgun hidden in the house. Anytime we went walking in the pasture a gun came with us in case of snakes or wild dogs and a couple of times per year i was required to shoot at cans with each one. I wasn’t interested in them and didn’t like shooting them, but understood her desire for me to feel comfortable using them ‘just in case’. We often took long road trips to visit family and would stop to nap in rest areas for a few hours. The small handgun was always beside the driver’s seat. It was the 70s and early 80s and nothing was locked. 22 in the nightstand drawer, 38 in a dresser drawer, and shotgun behind her bedroom door - all loaded and ready. It didn’t seem weird; it was just what my mom did to try to keep us safe.

      • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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        13 days ago

        Not everybody is fortunate to have responsibility and be mentally sane. Even the father in this case probably told the kid the to dos and not to dos of owning a gun (or not. Idk man). But you know, all this happened.

  • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    My dad gave me a gun for one of my earlier birthdays. It was a bolt action .22 that went right into a gun safe that I couldn’t access…It was a pretty shitty present as I didn’t enjoy hunting at the time but in retrospect I’m glad I learned gun safety and shooting.

    Why the fuck would you buy a 14 year old an AR15 style rifle, especially after he already had a history of making school shooting threats at school? Dude deserves prison for a long time.

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
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      13 days ago

      Respecting a gun as a deadly weapon makes you a pussy. Your gun is like your dick, only better because you can buy a really big one instead of being stuck with what nature gave you.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        One thing I learned in the Army was someone always has a bigger gun. So it’s what you do with the one you have that matters. After all, men have captured entire trenches with nothing but a pistol; while the guys with the big guns spent weeks pounding away to no satisfaction.

        (I see the door but I’m not leaving until I finish this beer. Any attempts to force me will result in more punishment)

  • ElcaineVolta@kbin.melroy.org
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    13 days ago

    it’s odd that they used “holiday present” in the headline, but the article says-

    One source told CNN the AR-15-style rifle was purchased at a local gun store as a Christmas present.

    it’s like they didn’t want christmas in the same headline as the mass shooting or something?

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
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    13 days ago

    AR-15-style

    Sociopaths raising a sociopath. We have to stop the race to the bottom, triggering people isn’t cool, it has serious repercussions, as noted in presidential races, even.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    13 days ago

    If you can Ban someone from buying their CHILD a GUN after that Child makes THREATS TO SHOOT UP HIS SCHOOL that’s SOCIALISM! SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    13 days ago

    I don’t understand why the father would just confess like that, but I suppose I shouldn’t expect good judgement from him.

    • girlfreddy@lemmy.ca
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      13 days ago

      I’m sure he believes in the rule of law, so told the truth. I’m also sure he believes that nothing will happen to him because he told the nice police officers the truth, so the nice police officers will just charge his way-too-young-to-own-a-gun son as an adult and Dad will just go on living his life as he always has.

      Critical thinking skills are not strong in men like him.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      13 days ago

      The kid was taken alive, so it’s likely he’ll just tell them at some point.

  • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    13 days ago

    My father also bought me a gun as a birthday present as a teenager, and looking back it was wholly inappropriate and dangerous. Granted, I never had thoughts of killing people.

    • Cadeillac@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Were you always in possession of it, or did he keep it properly stored until he took you shooting?

      • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 days ago

        I had a shotgun and .223 in the back window gun rack of my truck through middle school and high school (started driving at 14 with a school permit) with shells and rounds in the glove box. Nothing was ever locked where I grew up either; homes, vehicles, businesses.

        Granted I grew up in a town with under 1,000 people and the closest ‘city’ to us was an hour away and had a population of 25k.

        That was forty years ago and I feel a lot differently about things and the world is a different place but when I grew up more students and teachers had guns in their vehicles at school than didn’t. Everyone hunted, I pulled off and shot a coyote in pack that was stalking around one of my teachers herd of cows on the way to school one winter. I took the coyote into class and gave it to him since I had him first period.

        • Cadeillac@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          I totally get it. My dad is from a town like that, if not smaller. Place I’m from isn’t a lot bigger, but it definitely wasn’t like his. They probably still carry hunting rifles to school. They get like a week off for deer hunting season because they wouldn’t show anyways

          • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            13 days ago

            That just gave me some deep seated nostalgia, I forgot how much I enjoyed that week off of school we’d get. I feel so out of place trying to get my sons raised up sometimes. My entire grade size was never over 37 and that was with five combined towns going to the same school. We live in a town of fifty thousand people in a different state and everything feels so big to me even though I’ve lived here nearly twenty years. Anytime I’ve stayed in a real city for more than a night or two my anxiety goes into overdrive, I don’t know how people do it.

        • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          And people wonder why criminals in the US have so ready access to firearms. In some areas, just steal a truck, and get a shitload of material to commit crimes for free!

  • Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    I was gifted a shotgun at 15. It was a double barrel break action shotgun from my grandmother.

    I kept it in a gun rack my grandfather left me hanging on my wall. I never had issues, but if one of my friends wanted access, it probably could have been stolen.

    Lock up your guns.