A new reckoning for parents of school shooters

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Support our nonprofit journalism]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     September 6, 2024 Shortly after moving to the burbs, I struck up a serendipitous friendship with a woman roughly two decades older than me. This woman, whom I'll call Peggy, has since treated my husband and me with such warmth. And for the past few months, I've been hanging with Peggy and several of her friends in town, all of whom are also in their late 50s. We chitchat about, well, everything from politics to raising kids. Our most recent hang was on Wednesday, when, just hours before we gathered, the [latest school shooting in the US killed four people]( and injured nine others. One of Peggy's friends mentioned the shooting, prompting familiar head shakes and our collective bemoaning over this country's ineffective gun control measures. Then one of the ladies turned to me and asked if any of this felt different now that I'm a parent. I've been thinking of this question ever since. The truth is that, yes, an additional layer of horror and specific anxiety now loom over school shooting headlines. But the same frustration simmers. So too does the same numbness, that this is simply a fabric of American life. My colleague Mark Follman takes a look at the role of the shooter's father, who has been charged with, among other crimes, [two counts of second-degree murder](. As Mark writes, these murder charges are unprecedented, the most severe ever filed against the parent of a school shooter. It comes just months after the parents of a 15-year-old school shooter in Michigan [were convicted]( of involuntary manslaughter—also a first. It's a deeply complex trend, one not without pitfalls, especially for mothers and fathers of [minority children]( exposed disproportionately to gun violence. I urge you to read Mark's piece, which unpacks these complexities. It also ends with a reminder that this epidemic is not unsolvable, something I hope to keep in mind in the years to come. —Inae Oh Advertisement [Making the Presidency by Lindsay Chervinsky author of the Cabinet, reviewed in Kirkus]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [A New Reckoning for Parents of School Shooters]( The Georgia suspect's father has been charged with murder—part of a dramatic shift toward criminal liability. BY MARK FOLLMAN MOTHER JONES MEMBERSHIP UPDATE   A HUGE OPPORTUNITY A generous board member just chipped in a $50,000 digital matching gift, and we need newsletter readers to help us make the most of it. [Any donation you make online from now until September 30]( will be matched dollar-for-dollar. You know the stakes right now. And with your support going twice as far, Mother Jones can lead the way these next 60 days in showing the corporate media how to cover the unique danger that Trump represents and not make the same mistakes they did in 2016 and 2020. [Please help with a donation if you can](. Even just a few bucks would make a difference—and it will be doubled. [Donate Now]( [Trending] [Tenet Media shutters after being accused of taking $10 million in covert Kremlin funding]( BY ANNA MERLAN   [Free rein and no guidance: Long Island's cop-enforced mask ban isn't going great]( BY JULIA MÉTRAUX   [Trump won't be sentenced until after the election]( BY RUSS CHOMA   [Feds charged a pro-Russian pundit for evading sanctions. He says they're trying to silence him.]( BY DAN FRIEDMAN Advertisement [The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy by Deondra Rose available now]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [Fossil-fuel funding of colleges is hurting clean energy transition, new study says]( “The academic integrity of higher education is at risk.” BY DHARNA NOOR Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by [forwarding]( it to a friend or sharing it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755