The boy's mother bought the gun legally, according to police. Her attorney, James Ellenson, has saidShe faces up to six years in prison if convicted of felony child neglect and a misdemeanor charge of recklessly storing a firearm. Ellenson said the motherAlthough charges against parents have been rare, the issue has gained more attention with the rising number of shootings, according to Eve Brensike Primus, who teaches criminal procedure at University of Michigan law school.
Twenty-nine states — including Virginia — have enacted child-access prevention laws that allow for criminal charges against adults who intentionally or negligently allow children unsupervised access to guns, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. D.J. Spiker, the NRA’s Virginia state director, said the group’s members already safely store firearms.Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International, which works to make schools safer, said he knows of only a few criminal probes involving school employees after a shooting — and they're recent.In Newport News, the prosecutor’s office is seeking a special grand jury to probe if any “security failures” contributed to the shooting by the young boy.