Father of High School Shooter Found Guilty of Gun Charges

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Father of High School Shooter Found Guilty of Gun Charges

By MARTHA BELLISLE, ASSOCIATED PRESS SEATTLE — Sep 29, 2015, 8:22 PM ET

A federal jury on Tuesday found a Washington state man guilty of illegally owning firearms, including the handgun his son used to kill four of his friends and himself last year in a high school cafeteria.

Raymond Fryberg was convicted of six counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. He was the subject of a 2002 domestic violence protection order that prohibited from having firearms.

The jury rejected Fryberg's claim that he didn't know about the protection order and therefore didn't know he couldn't have guns. Fryberg didn't testify and his lawyers didn't call any witnesses during the three-day trial in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Fryberg's son, 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg, killed three 14-year-old girls and a 15-year-old boy who was his cousin after inviting them to lunch. He injured another one of his cousins, a 14-year-old boy, in the Oct. 24 shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School north of Seattle.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/father-high-school-shooter-found-guilty-gun-charges-34137460

[GGJohn]

1. Good, he deserves it and hopefully will spend a loooooong time in Club Fed. eom.

[mainstreetonce]

2. If the son used his gun

the charge should be murder.

[GGJohn]

3. Not sure about that,

but am open to being convinced.

[Massacure]

4. Why do you say that? And is this case really that black and white?

Did Ray Fryberg think "I never plan on seeing her again anyway so this is no big deal" when he decided not to contest the protection order? Why is a protection order from 13 years ago still in effect? Who's the victim of his crime? What does society gain by ruining Ray Fryberg's life and spending half a million dollars to incarcerate him for a decade? Does the punishment fit the crime, or is this just another example of the prison industrial complex run amok?

Had that protection order expired after 6 months or a year, Ray wouldn't be in the position he is in right now. Had the FBI or ATF denied his gun purchase, he wouldn't be in the position he is in right now and four high school students might still be alive. There's a lot of blame to go around, and Ray Fryberg deserves some of it. In a certain way, he's a victim of his son's actions as well as some of the government's inaction. Ray may have inadvertently enabled his son to commit murder, but he never had any intentions to harm anybody. As such, it's not entirely fair to villainize him. There are definitely two sides to this coin.

[beevul]

5. " Why is a protection order from 13 years ago still in effect?"

That is a very good question.