MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama lawmakers rejected a bill on Wednesday that would impose a criminal penalty on a parent whose child brings a gun to school if the firearm was not secured at home, in contrast with a series of recent prosecutions nationwide that have targeted the parents of school shooters.
The bill’s Democratic sponsor, Rep. Barbara Drummond from Mobile, emphasized that the bill was meant to be a “pro-school” measure instead of a gun control measure.
The bill would have penalized a parent with up to a year of jail if they failed store a firearm using a trigger lock, lock box or “gun safe that requires a key, numerical or alphanumerical combination, or fingerprint to open” before their minor brought it to school.
The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee voted against the bill along party lines.
Republicans said that they supported the intent of the bill but that it wasn’t fair to tell people where to keep their guns and put an undue burden on parents.
“My basic opposition to this particular bill is that it applies a criminal offence to someone based on another person’s actions,” Rep. Ginny Shaver of Leesburg said.
It is still rare nationwide for parents to be held legally responsible when a minor commits a school shooting. But recent high profile prosecutions have bucked that trend.
The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of a deadly school shooting at a north Georgia high school was indicted on second degree murder charges in February. Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley, the first parents to be convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting, were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison last year for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.
There was renewed attention on the Alabama bill in early February after a second grader in Huntsville brought a gun to school that accidentally fired in his backpack, according to AL.com.
The committee passed a bill that would increase penalties for threatening to shoot up a school after a flurry of threats were made last year.
Drummond said that she is a gun owner and always made sure to keep her gun away from the minor that she fostered for three years while he was a teenager.
“I hope none of our children die because of this,” Drummond said after the bill failed to pass.