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Are parents criminally responsible for the actions of their child?

21 Comments
By Thaddeus Hoffmeister

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Parents should be held legally and financially responsible for any and everything their kids do for as long as they are underage and/or still living at home.

I agree.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I keep a loaded handgun in an unlocked drawer with instructions that my 16-year-old is never to touch it, but s/he takes it to school one day and intentionally shoots a kid. Not my fault.

I disagree. You either didn't have good enough communication with your kid to know that they may take the gun, or you did and didn't protect it anyways. The gun should have been locked up for both scenarios, so I would put the parents at fault for the above. Criminal negligence resulting in death at the least.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

If you give easy access of guns to your known mentally deranged son. Then yes. You should be held accountable for when your mentally deranged son uses said gun to kill multiple people!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

RiskyMosaic

It's called parental responsibility, a parent should teach their child right from wrong, and seek to instill a sense of ethics , empathy, and morality so that the child grows to be a valued member of the social community, making it a better place for themselves and others.

Too many parents are slack in this regard, and the child - and society - suffer the consequences.

A parent , being of a more mature age than their child, should realize this and be responsible or be held accountable for shortcomings resulting in liability.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

In the poster's scenario, there was no safe-storage regulation.

Welcome to America.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Your communication with your kid is not good enough to know that they may take the gun? Right, because 16-year-olds never keep anything from their parents. You may as well prosecute them for not being mind-readers

If that's the case, then leaving an unlocked gun around the house that your kid uses to shoot and kill someone is negligence resulting in death. In America that may not be criminal, but to anyone else in the civilized world, the idea of that not being criminal is baffling.

blame for a lack of communication in that case would squarely fall on the teenager.

I don't think you've ever raised a teenager. They are often unwilling to communicate, and lack the mental maturity and capacity to take responsibility for said communication. Blaming it on them is like being mad at a cat for not listening to you when you asked them not to scratch the sofa.

Take guns out of it, and I think the criminally responsible, or even negligent, argument falls flat.

Take the guns out of it, and this discussion isn't even happening.

But regardless, even if it's not criminally negligent, it's morally negligent. The parents of kids who use their guns to kill others are morally responsible for those deaths, due to leaving their guns accessible to their kids.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

News flash your kids are your responsibility. Don’t want the responsibility don’t have them. Simple . I hope they get 60 years.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Parents should be held legally and financially responsible for any and everything their kids do for as long as they are underage and/or still living at home.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

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