Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor spoke to the Washington Post about legal repercussions from the 2023 shooting of a Virginia teacher by her 6-year-old student. A grand jury indicted a former assistant principal with eight counts of felony child abuse, and the injured teacher has filed a $40 million suit against the school district, alleging negligence on the part of administrators. The former assistant principal is accused of disregarding at least three teachers’ warnings that the first-grader might be carrying a gun. “Maybe 10 or 15 years ago people could say, ‘I wasn’t educated. I didn’t know this could happen. I thought the kid was too young to have a gun,’” Astor said. “But in this day and age with all the data, reporting and training, it’s really problematic for a vice principal not to follow up on these warnings.” In another Washington Post story, Astor said that Americans are frustrated by the political impasse over proposals to restrict access to guns and are “just exhausted” by the bloodshed.
Professor of Social Welfare
Ron Avi Astor holds the Marjorie Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs...
