A Georgia father sentenced to 15 years in prison for giving his son a semiautomatic rifle is demanding a new trial, and the outcome will determine whether the government can criminalize the traditional act of a parent arming his own child.
Colin Gray was convicted in March of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter after his 14-year-old son, Colt, used the Christmas-gift rifle to kill two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School on Sept. 4, 2024. Colt Gray was sentenced to life without parole. Now the father's attorneys argue the guilty verdict "is not supported by the evidence and is contrary to law and the principles of justice and equity," according to a court filing Wednesday.
The legal theory against Colin Gray is staggering in its reach. Prosecutors did not allege he pulled a trigger or knew his son would commit violence. They alleged he gave his son the rifle, ammunition, and accessories as a Christmas present — and that under Georgia law, that act constituted cruelty to children, which second-degree murder statutes define as causing a child's death. The two second-degree murder convictions cover the deaths of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. The involuntary manslaughter convictions cover the deaths of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53.
Both the Associated Press and SFGATE covered the new trial filing identically — SFGATE simply republished the AP wire. Neither outlet paused to question the legal precedent this conviction sets: that a parent who transfers a firearm to a minor child can be held criminally liable for whatever that child later does with it. The AP noted only that Gray is "one of a handful of American parents who have been criminally charged after their children were accused in shootings," framing the prosecution as part of a trend rather than an escalation with sweeping implications.
What the coverage omits matters. Four people are dead, and Colt Gray is rightly serving life for it. But the state's case against the father rests on the premise that giving your child a gun is itself an act of criminal cruelty — not negligence in a specific, foreseeable circumstance, but a per se wrong. Fathers have passed firearms to sons since the founding. The Second Amendment presumes the right to keep and bear arms; it does not grant the state veto power over which family members may exercise it.
If Colin Gray's conviction stands, the message to every gun-owning parent is clear: the state decides when your child is ready to handle a firearm, and if you get that judgment wrong, you go to prison for murder — even with no intent, no plan, and no knowledge of what was coming.
The new trial motion will test whether a jury's sympathy for the victims can substitute for evidence that a father meant harm. That question hangs over every home where a parent has ever handed down a rifle.
