Colin Gray (54) is alleged to have bought his 14-year-old son an AR-style rifle as a Christmas present.
This week his son, Colt, was charged with the murder of two fellow students and two teachers at his school in Georgia in the US and Colin has now been arrested and faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
The move to make parents accountable for their children’s gun crimes follows on from a case earlier in the year in Michigan when Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents to be convicted in a US mass school shooting when they were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.
The hope among gun control advocates is that the Crumbley verdict would act not just as a punishment but as a deterrent.