i ve been married twice. this is the only husband i ve ever had. that s all for this edition of dateline. i m craig melvin. thank you for watching. welcome to the show. i m zerlina maxwell. we begin with a big development surrounding the school shooting in michigan this week that killed four children and wounded seven other people. today the parents of the 15-year-old suspect were each charged with involuntary manslaughter. the county prosecutor ticked off allegations in the case against the suspect s parents. among them the father bought a gun last friday with his son present.
things exist in every country all over the world, we have the unique access and availability of guns. can you speak to the ways in which we often try to deflect that simple truth every single time one of these school shootings happen? the deflection is why we see these things happening over and over again. the truth is the facts tragically and sadly repeat themselves. three out of four of the school shooters get their gun from the home, every single time the research shows, they ve shown warning signs, they re told somebody. the truth is do you know what we re not doing we re not asking every single time, does this student have access to a gun. we re not telling every single parent how important it is to securely store their guns. why is that? it s because of that deflection you spoke about. it s because for decades gun rights extremists have got us so afraid to mention the word firearm and to think that a better world is possible that we don t even ask the question.
shooters get their guns from the home of their family member or relative. this prosecution isn t just about these egregious facts, this prosecution is about the fact that a 15-year-old could go into a nightstand and get an unsecured handgun that he brought to school. yes, there are things we can and should be doug to intervene doing to intervene, but it starts with there s no reason that 5.4 million kids in this country live in homes with unsecured guns. and that s something we could all do something about starting in our school boards, going all the way up to the administration. we all have a stake about raising awareness, raising education, and keeping our community safe by asking are you keeping that gun stored securely. is it locked, is it unloaded, is it set for ammunition. one of the things i think that is uniquely american, it s not mental health struggles, it s not depression or anxiety, it s not video games or movies or music, because all of those
in your opening, you played the audio of nobody asked if he had a gun. how outrageous is that idea that someone who was caught allegedly searching for ammunition on one day, drew a picture of a firearm the other day, no one thought to ask is there access to a gun. and the most devastating fact to me is that gun was sitting in that room in a backpack. and very chilling. it s definitely a chilling detail, i agree with you there. what is it doing you think to kids, to children of ages elementary school up through high school to know that when they go to school they re not safe, when they go to the mall or to hang out with their friends, they re not safe from gun violence. i mean, that has to be something that i think this generation of young people is processing in way that s completely different than my generation. columbine happened when i was a
the teen posted photos of the gun saying, quote, just got my new beauty today. the prosecutor said that hours before the shooting on tuesday the boy wrote a note in class that said, help me, with the image of a gun. his parents were summoned. they resisted taking the boy out of school, and they did not ask if he had the gun with him. charging parents of child shooting suspects is incredibly rare. the prosecutor called this indicates egregious. reading the words help me with a gun, blood everywhere, this doesn t just impact me as a prosecutor and a lawyer, it impacts me as a mother. the notion that a parent could read those words and also know that their son had access to a deadly weapon, that they gave him, is unconscionable. and i think it s criminal. it is criminal.