A 14-Year Boy Used to be Was accused with Shooting Four people are dead We High Schoolon Thursday, officials said InTest InThe latest outbreak of gun violence continues to ravage the country.
The teenager faces four counts of aggravated murder after he allegedly killed two 14-year-old classmates and two teachers at Apalachee High School in the southern state of Georgia on Wednesday.
Citing unnamed sources, CNN reported that the gun used in the shooting — which it described as an AR 15-style assault rifle — was purchased by the teen’s father as a holiday gift.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the suspect would be charged as an adult. He will appear in court on Friday and additional charges are expected to be filed against him, it said.
“The investigation into the shooting at Apalachee HS is still active and ongoing,” the agency said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“This is the second day of a very complex investigation and the integrity of the case is of paramount importance,” it said, adding that post-mortems would be carried out on all four victims on Thursday.
School shootings are a shockingly regular occurrence in the United States, where guns outnumber people and regulations are lax even on the purchase of powerful military-style rifles.
Parental responsibility has increasingly come into the spotlight in recent months in the wake of mass shootings, particularly those committed by minors.
President Joe Biden lamented while speaking to reporters in Wisconsin on Thursday, “How can you have an assault rifle, a weapon, in your home that isn’t locked up and your child knows where it is?”
“If parents give their kids access to these guns you have to hold them accountable.”
In April, the parents of a teenager who killed four people in a shooting at a Michigan school were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison in an unprecedented and closely watched incident.
Jennifer Crumbley, 46, and her husband James, 47, were the first parents of a school shooter to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the United States for the actions of their child.
Surveys show that a majority of voters favor tighter controls on the use and purchase of firearms, but a powerful gun ownership lobby opposes additional restrictions and lawmakers have repeatedly failed to act.