photo #9444577

This mother decided her 16-year-old son needed a shotgun for his birthday. The photo of them together by the waterfall shows a boy who already looked lost and unstable, yet she still put a firearm in his hands.He used that same shotgun days later to force his way into Silver Rail Elementary and open fire inside a special needs classroom. Three children and their teacher were killed before an armed parent stopped him.Parents who refuse to see warning signs and then arm troubled teenagers create exactly these kinds of preventable horrors. The cost of that failure is measured in the lives of the innocent.