As a high school student in the United States, the possibility of a school shooting is constantly looming over me. Despite the wide array of safety precautions put in place by my school to keep me safe, I often find myself thinking: “That could have been me.” Before I begin to share my opinion on James and Jennifer Crumbley’s sentencing, I would like to acknowledge my bias. I was raised to question the necessity of civilians owning arms – especially military-grade rifles – within the United States. Despite my beliefs, however, I am open to debate on the topic. 

I am extremely relieved that James and Jennifer Crumbley were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. For those who don’t know, James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to recognize multiple “cries for help” from their son before he proceeded to open fire on his Michigan high school in 2021, killing a total of four students. The Crumbleys ignored their son’s signs of bad mental health such as hallucinating that there was a demon in their house. Additionally, the Crumbleys had been called by the school and asked to collect their son after a teacher saw him drawing a school shooting. On the drawing were the words, “Blood everywhere. The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” Furthermore, a journal was found in the shooter’s backpack that gave his detailed description and plan of the shooting. Most disappointingly, the Crumbleys had bought their son the gun he used during the shooting as a Christmas present.

As I read the details of this shooting in the news, I was appalled and afraid. Something so preventable occurred because of a lack of attentiveness, and it makes an occurrence like this seem that much easier to occur. I thought, “If only these parents had paid more attention, those kids could possibly be alive right now,” and “I was the same age as one of the victims.” As a result, I was put at ease when the shooter got sentenced to life without parole. His sentencing made me have more faith in our justice system, and diminished some of my fear. I don’t want someone who did something so heinous living with me in society. 

The sentencing of his parents, however, made me equally reassured. The sentencing of his parents brings justice (and hopefully some peace) to the victims and their parents. The other change it indicates is the progress our country is making towards a future that is more conscious of gun violence. Hopefully, the sentencing of the Crumbleys sets an example of how to handle similar cases in the future. I also hope that the sentencing of Jennifer and James Crumbley brings to light how parents can – not always intentionally – create a toxic environment for their children, and thus are partially responsible for their children’s actions. 

The purpose of a piece like this is to give others, especially adults, a glimpse into the mind and opinions of an American high schooler. What relates me to all American high school students is that I have had to participate in a lockdown drill. I, like many US students, have been told, “There’s a deer running around the hallways so we have to stay quiet” after an anonymous source called in a bomb or an active shooter at only six years old. In other words, as a child who has grown up in this free and safe country, sentencings like the Crumbley family’s make me feel infinitely safer when I walk into school every day.  

I asked Nano Saulnier, director of campus safety and events to comment on what SLS is doing in response to this event. She sent this in response: “Because of incidents such as this event, it is true that bringing awareness to parent, faculty and staff about mental health of students has become a very big component for keeping schools safe. St. Luke’s over the last two years has enforced locking school doors during school hours, applied special protective film on the schools doors that makes them shatterproof, reinforcing and conducting more lock down and shelter in place drills and have now employed Security personnel.”