As a parent, I know that I have certain responsibilities. One is to do my best to raise my children to be good, decent, productive members of society. My son, at 23, is evidence that I have done well enough in that regard. He’s a hard worker, asks for nothing to be handed to him, and resents anyone thinking they deserve what he has earned.

My daughter is a work in progress, but she’s only 12. She’s supposed to be one at this point.

But sometimes, parents try their best and the kid just doesn’t turn out like they hoped. They do everything they’re not supposed to do and while the parent may try to fix the behavior, there’s not much they can do.

Yet a Kentucky Republican wants to hold the parents responsible if the child uses a gun illegally.

A Northern Kentucky Republican will file a bill in the 2025 legislative session to hold parents and guardians civilly accountable for gun violence or misuse carried out by minor children in their care. 

Rep. Kim Banta of Fort Mitchell, which is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, thinks of the legislation as a “wake up call,” she told the Kentucky Lantern.  

“I have constituents that … tell me their kids are literally afraid to go to school,” she said. “We just need to start kind of zeroing in on: if you’re under 18, your parents are responsible for your behavior.”  

Under her bill, people who are hurt or threatened by a minor using a gun could sue the minor’s parents or guardians and be awarded monetary damages. 

Banta  believes such legislation could incentivize parents and guardians to properly store and secure weapons (or separate them from ammunition), which could in turn lower suicide rates among youth and curb school shootings — and the threat of them. 

Now, I’ve been in favor of efforts that try to encourage parents to lock up their guns. I’ve advocated for several, including educational campaigns and tax credits for gun storage devices.

This, however, goes a bit far for me.

Granted, it’s not an automatic that a kid misuses a gun and the parents will get sued. There are a few conditions that have to be met. However, I’m not convinced this is actually all that much better.

The bill draft says parents and other guardians would be considered responsible and subject to paying civil damages under any of these circumstances: 

• They permitted the minor to have the firearm.
• They know that the minor has previously been adjudicated delinquent of an offense that would be a felony if the minor had been an adult.
• They know that the minor has a propensity to commit violent acts. 
• They know or have reason to know that the minor intends to use the firearm for unlawful purposes. 

The bill excludes emancipated minors or government or private agencies or foster parents who, through court order, are assigned responsibility for a minor. 

“My key motivator is just trying to get people to recognize that even though we live in a society where it is perfectly legal to own and use guns, I just think we need to back up for a minute,” Banta said. “We need to say, ‘Okay, I’m a gun owner, but that is going to extend to me being responsible for my children’s use of the guns.’” 

Now, I can probably swallow the first condition. If you let a kid have a gun and then they threaten or hurt someone with it, you’re the responsible adult in this equation and it’s your butt on the line. I don’t agree with it, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

But the other three are a different matter, especially in the absence of the first condition being met.

What I mean is that it’s one thing to know your kid has violent tendencies. It’s another to be held responsible for what he does with a gun if you played absolutely no role in him getting the gun in the first place.

If you don’t secure your guns but know your kid has committed what would have been felony assault if he were an adult, I could see the argument that you should be held responsible in civil court. 

But older teens may have ways to obtain guns illegally, which they can then use to threaten, injure, or kill someone else. These may be possessed without the parents even having a clue. They might not even cross the home’s threshold, thus making it impossible for the parent to keep a lid on things.

How can you expect the parent to prevent that from happening?

It seems to me that Banta may mean well, but she’s not thinking about the fact that guns are obtained through a variety of means, and while people like school shooters might get their guns from their parents in too many cases, far more incidents involving minors and guns happen than just those. This is going to open Pandora’s Box in Kentucky if it comes to pass.

My hope is that it doesn’t.

There are much better ways to address these concerns that don’t involve penalizing parents for what their kids do when they’re not locked up inside the house.