Boy playing with matches started US fire
What should happen to the boy? His parents? I guess depending on his age reactions will vary - if he’s 4 I don’t see what useful can be done, but if he’s 12 or 14 or 16 … ? Send him out with the fire trucks?
Perhaps we can figure out a way to have him declared a witch. Because we all know what we do with witches …
We should do nothing. This was a kid doing stupid kid things, and this time it got out of hand. That’s pretty much the end of it.
It might also depend on what “playing with matches” meant. If he was in fact deliberately burning things in a forest, it may not have been so harmless. If he was doing it in a shed which he accidentally burnt down which in turn set off the forest fire, you’re right.
Ok, so how do you figure out whether he was trying to burn the forest down? You ask him?
Seems like it’s hard to justify cracking down on the kid.
Well, would it be fair to consider his parents negligent? I mean, depending on his age, they very well may have had the responsibility to keep a close eye on him and keep him away from fire.
This isn’t necessarily what I believe, just a thought that cam to mind.
In the American colonies, we hanged them.
Under the general common law rule, parents are not vicariously responsible for torts committed by their child. Exceptions are made for parents who fail to control the child while in their presence, or who fail to take reasonable care to protect others from known dangerous tendencies of the child, or who fail to prevent a child’s foreseeable use of inherently dangerous instruments.
Well, wouldn’t this case fall under the last exemption you give, Walloon?
The key words are “foreseeable” and “inherently”.
How many kids are out there playing with matches and not starting county sized fires? This is the same case, except that wind and combustibles had it go different.
start banning all children with matchsticks on planes.
This happened to us when we were kids. We started a brush fire by playing with matches. Nothing of this size, of course. It started burning dry grass in a field, and was extinguished fairly quickly. I don’t know what happened to the other kids, but I had to cut my dad a hickory switch. I cut a big one because if you cut little ones, the whipping only lasted longer and had more power behind it.
My immediate reaction was, “DAMN KIDS TODAY!!”
I don’t know what they should do with him. I’m sure the boy didn’t feel much pleasure seeing the distruction he caused. It’d be interesting to see how the authorities tracked him down, though.
So what do we hang as well as witches?
We just can’t let kids have matches after 9/11.
Build a bridge out of 'em!
Was the boy an Al-Qaeda terrorist? Fox News said he might be.
Can we still blame it on Beavis and Butthead?
Drapes?