It is not that easy - so they go interview the kid...... “do you want to be a professional school shooter?” He says - “I was just joking”. They refer him to mental health and they get the same response. The school counselor talks to him and he says he was just acting out and didn’t mean it. They expel him anyways.
Now what?
Is it a crime to say that? Have you read the comments lately on youtube channels and MSM news stories? I even read comments here occasionally that make me cringe, but I don’t think the FBI or cops should go arrest the person. For every million “they should shoot them all” comments you read how many people act on it?
I just wrote a long response on another thread a few minutes ago about this from my perspective in law enforcement. I am sick about this incident and others and have probably heard more about some of these incidents than most in active shooter trainings, but I would caution any desire to move towards a police state where “spouting off” or “having more than one firearm” is cause for detention. We cannot remove the rights from 319,999,990 people for the actions of 10. That is likely to lead to more murder than these horrific incidents.
As you know given your tagline and thanks for your service - Jesus would be an answer for such people, but we cannot force that on them or legislate it.
Well you can sure as hell flag him on a watch list ineligible to purchase weapons or ammo
If they can put vets and social security recipients on no- gun lists they can start putting sociopathic commenters on a similar watch
I agree with most of what you said. I had a lot of the same thoughts when reading comments. Law Enforcement should do due diligence when receiving a report, but they aren’t just going to lock someone up who hasn’t commited a crime... yet. And that’s the sad part.
However, I know I’m hedging here, but we aren’t talking about creating a police state where any kid with depression or gun photos gets locked up. This kid really did qualify for a closer look and psychiatric evaluation. He wasn’t just emotionally unstable. He was expelled from school, has a past history of violence, demonstrated a proclivity as well as access to fire-arms, and then actually made threats WHICH WERE REPORTED. The ball got dropped on this one.
Um, how familiar are you with the profiling protocols that are used to separate these really dangerous ones from mere mouther-offs? This murderous kid had several flags in his social media which stand out as markers of his potential murderous mindset. When you become more familiar with the case, get back to us.
A sane, logical response. Now hand me a torch and grab a pitchfork
We CAN’T give up our guns BECAUSE there are people like this shooter out there.
To buy a gun, you have to get a background check. Flag his SSN. Then the FBI can contact him again and ask, “Hey, we’ve already talked, and you said you were joking. What’s the deal with the AR-15?”
Then you report it to the local LEO’s that this guy, who’s made comments about shooting up a school, just bought an AR-15, and you ought to look into school resources officers, because this looks credible.
My kid jokes about shooting up a school if he doesn’t get BBQ chips in his lunch. He’s not trying to buy an AR-15.
It’s how you get from reasonable suspicion to probable cause. Saying you want to shoot up a school, using your own name on the post (who would do that?), and then going out to buy the gun (AR-15s aren’t cheap), are two different things.
I don’t believe in gun control, unless you mean lining up the shot to the extent you blow the shooter out of his socks while he is still in the parking lot.