One day after the Deadly Shooting at Apalachee High School In Winder, Georgia, authorities are releasing more information about the weapon used in the incident that two students and two teachers and nine others were injured.
The suspected shooter, Colt Gray, was the last to a type of weapon often used in mass shootingsincluding the deadly school shootings in Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and Robb Primary School in Uvalde, Texas, as well as mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket and on the Las Vegas Strip.
Here’s what you need to know about the weapon authorities say was allegedly used by the 14 year old suspectwho has been charged with four counts of murder.
What weapon was used in the Georgia school shooting?
Authorities said Wednesday that the weapon used by the suspect was a AR style platform rifle. These weapons, based on the AR-15 design, are lightweight, semi-automatic rifles that are popular with consumers. Though they are often called “assault rifles” — a term gun advocates say is misleading — the “AR” actually stands for ArmaLite, the company that developed the original AR-15.
The high velocity ammunition fired by these types of weapons can break boneBut thousands are sold every year.
How did the suspected Georgia shooter get the gun?
CBS News has learned that police and federal agents in the Winder, Georgia, incident are investigating whether the suspect received the gun as a gift from his father, Colin Gray, in December 2023, according to four federal law enforcement sources close to the investigation.
The 54-year-old father was arrested on Thursday on charges of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
“These charges are based on the fact that Mr. Gray knowingly allowed his son, Colt, to possess a gun,” GBI Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference Thursday night.
During a study in 2023 in online threats of a shootingLocal police spoke with the suspect’s father, who said he, the father, owned hunting rifles but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them, according to incident reports obtained by CBS News.
Are these guns legal in Georgia?
Georgia law prohibits minors from possessing handguns, but there is no minimum age to own a rifle or shotgun in Georgia. The state also has few restrictions on adults who wish to carry firearms.
Under both state and federal law, the teen would not legally be allowed to purchase a handgun, rifle or shotgun. According to the Giffords Center, individuals must be at least 18 years old to purchase handguns in Georgia, while federal law sets the same minimum age for purchasing shotguns and rifles, as set forth by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Is there a lot of gun violence in Georgia schools?
According to a report from the National Institutes of Health and Health Administration (National Institutes of Health and Health), Georgia ranks 10th in the United States for school campus shootings per 100,000 residents over the past decade, and 16th for fatal school shootings per capita. CBS News Analysis from data from the K-12 School Shootings Database and population estimates from the 2020 U.S. Census.
What are the gun laws in Georgia?
Adults in Georgia do not need a permit to purchase rifles, shotguns or handguns, nor do they need to register their firearms with the state. In addition, no permit is required to carry rifles and shotguns, according to the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action.
In 2022, Georgia passed a law that allowed for the unlicensed carrying of weapons, eliminating the need for a permit, fingerprints, or background checks to carry a concealed weapon in public.
Georgia’s laws are among the least restrictive in the country, according to a CBS News analysis.
Does Georgia have a ‘red flag’ law?
Extreme Risk Protection Orders, commonly referred to as “red flag” lawsallow a court to temporarily take away guns from someone who endangers themselves or others. Twenty-one states have such laws, but Georgia is not one of them, according to Everytown, a gun safety advocacy group.
Georgia State Representative Gabe Okoye, a Democrat whose district runs near Winder, told CBS News that a red flag law in Georgia could have prevented the Apalachee High School shooting.
“If there had been a law that had a red flag, I don’t think this would have happened because the child had been flagged multiple times before,” he said.
In some states, family members can file extreme risk protection orders. In other states, petitions can only be filed by law enforcement. Petitions filed by law enforcement are typically successful in court, says April Zeoli, an associate professor at the University of Michigan who studies these laws, and the court can order guns to be removed from the home or stored safely inside or outside the home.
Petitions filed by family members often present more challenges in approval because “it’s easier for law enforcement to understand the whole process than it is for citizens, because they know what counts as evidence and what doesn’t,” Zeoli said.
How successful are ‘red flag’ laws in preventing mass shootings?
Zeoli is leading a six-state study — the largest in the U.S. — of extreme risk protection orders. Preliminary data collected by the research team on about 6,500 cases filed in states including Michigan, Vermont and Florida showed that about 3% of these orders were filed in cases involving minors, Zeoli said. About 10% were filed in cases involving people who made threats to carry out mass shootings, and the majority of extreme risk protection orders were filed for suicide risk or mental health issues.
“What we know is that extreme protection orders for mass shootings are not associated with subsequent mass shootings,” Zeoli said. “Those people are not committing mass shootings.” However, she cautioned that it remains difficult to quantify whether the extreme protection order stopped the shooting, or whether other factors were at play.
Law enforcement also faces challenges on the ground, said Christopher Carita, a detective with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department who investigates mass gun violence threats and other cases that require extreme protective orders. He said he has investigated about 30 cases involving minors and that petitioning “can change lives one to two years down the road.”
Mass shootings that kill or injure four or more people account for only a small fraction of the deaths and injuries caused by guns in schools in the U.S. According to the K-12 School Shootings database, more than 75 percent of deaths and 68 percent of injuries occur in incidents that are not classified as mass shootings and do not receive as much attention.
and Grace Manthey contributed to this report.
