SUCCESSOR wrote:Sounds to me that like some asshole dad scared shitless from a nearby event called the police on a kid who probably bragged too much about his gun collection.Naturally upon raiding the house police assumed by the black powder and "instruments to make grenades" (whatever the hell those are) and an entry in his diary where he admitted his hatred for the school and all the dirty fucks in it that he was planning a massive act of terror. Ha!
He'll go down for it for sure. You just call someone a terrorist in this country and people feel the need to feel like they've accomplished something.
See, I really want to sympathize with your point. However, there's some interesting issues at play here.
People are so horrified by the concept of school shootings that in the aftermath of one some form of preventative action is demanded. The only real preventative action that can be taken is to attempt to find a pattern among the shooters and pay close attention to people that match these patterns. Normally, people don't like the idea of arrests before a crime is committed, but in the current environment the general public is content to accept this so long as there is reasonable proof that the kid could have been dangerous.
Given this environment, people that display the following qualities are considered suspicious:[list=1][*]Social outcasts; people who aren't just alone because they are creepy but because they say they don't like other people[*]White kids because other races are smart enough to kill the one person that pisses them off the most, and they do it at night with no witnesses as opposed to going to a building with lots of witnesses.[*]Fat kids because it causes #1.[*]Angry or depressed kids because generally happy people don't shoot others.[*]Kids with relatively large weapons collections.[*]Kids who write about their anger and hatred in diaries, bathroom walls, desks, etc.[/list]Every condition on that list adds a point to your "Suspicion Counter". The higher the suspicion counter, the more likely there's someone somewhere that seriously believes the child is plotting a violent outburst. I do not suggest this is correct behavior; I am merely pointing out an observation.
Now, with this in mind, if you are a rational person worried about whether you are going to face an investigation, you'll look to minimize the number of items on the list. Angry, depressed white kids with guns are OK as long as they have a few friends and don't make a public display of how much they wish they could kill other people. Hermits who write hate poetry but have no guns are generally ignored. Angry not-white kids with lots of guns and hatred are treated with respect because no one wants to be on the top of their list.
This kid was angry, a loner, fat, white, had guns, and wrote about how much he hated other people. It was inevitable that someone would pull the fire alarm on him, and it just so happens a recent shooting has that area in a frenzy to make their schools more safe. My point is if I were that kid, I would have started storing my guns in my parents' room, tossed out my diary, and anything else to minimize the number of points I have on the above list. Had he done this, there would have been a search of the house, but the kid would have come clean.
The kid shouldn't see jail time because he hasn't really done anything wrong. It is fairly likely he's unstable though, and I think some kind of therapy is an appropriate solution. The mother might deserve jail time simply because buying guns for a mentally unstable individual is ridiculously irresponsible. If I were the judge, I'd let her take 6 months in a weight loss clinic instead just to do her a favor. The father definitely deserves some punishment because failure to report a manslaughter conviction when applying for a gun is a pretty cut-and-dried violation of the law.
