Unless he’s adopted, it seems to me he probably got the short end of the stick on both nature and nurture.
You know, when I link to a peer reviewed, published scientific article by a noted expert, I am always surprised when some layperson simply ignores it in favor of their own theories.
Especially when i say that “gun culture” certainly has blame.
Experts say media has blame here. That does not mean gun culture has no blame at all.
Sure. But has that been reported? I am likely overly sensitive to people trotting out “mental illness” as an explanation/excuse for bad behavior.
Anyone else think that was a pretty nice looking home? I wasn’t expecting trailer park, but that looked more upscale than I expected from what I had read of their work histories. Just shows that wackadoodles can give a normal outwards appearance.
Based on the letter to Trump linked above, these were certainly not the redneck variety of wackadoodle. Given that she was a realtor, perhaps more astute than most in picking up a nice property at a good price and/or getting financing?
Personally, I think people who do spread misinformation should be held accountable. If you spread lies and misinformation that kill people, then you should to jail.
Plenty of blame here- the shooter first, the parents, “gun culture”, the media and yeah, the school kinda fumbled the ball.
Don’t forget long hair on boys and rock and roll!
And who can forget that plague of kids eating mushrooms and jumping on people’s heads that arose in the late 80s?
Ohhhhh, no, can’t have that. Like @pkbites said, the reason these school shootings happen is because of lily-livered prosecutors who indulge in plea bargaining rather than prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law, or those weak-kneed liberal judges who hand out slaps-on-the-wrist instead of double-life sentences without the possibility of lunch, never mind parole.
Nothing specific, just speculation based on what he did and that it was obviously premeditated. The fact is that he’s not the first kid to be the victim of horrendously bad parenting, nor the first to be victimized by a malignant gun culture and awed with the power of guns to carry out insane fantasies. Most such kids end up pretty messed up, and may well descend into crime for some or all of their lives, but they don’t go shooting up schools.
As for the later question of what “intrinsic mental issues” is supposed to mean, it means neurological issues as distinct from learned behaviours and reactions to terrible parenting, which clearly were also major factors driving his psychology. Anyone who creates a drawing like he did with the legend “the thoughts won’t stop, help me” is either portraying someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia or is perhaps genuinely expressing his own despondency.
I’m not trying to make a big deal out of this, but just suggesting that mental illness may well have been an aggravating factor affecting his reactions to a very bad home life. But I could be wrong. Indeed, one of the strong arguments supporting gun control is that there’s no such absolute as “normal”, and almost anyone can be driven to extreme and irrational actions under conditions of sufficient stress. The point remains the same: a 15-year-old who is not yet a fully-formed human cannot morally be held as fully accountable for such actions as an adult, and moreover, for the same reason has much greater potential for rehabilitation.
The impression I get is for many of these school shootings, the shooting itself is the first time the shooter has been prosecuted. So who specifically did the prosecutors let off that might otherwise have prevented this crime?
Ask @pkbites. He’s the one who offered this premise up that it’s not the gun laws (or lack thereof) but the inadequate enforcement and prosecution of them. Frankly, I was unaware that people who shot up schools, stadiums, malls, etc. were being handled with kid gloves by these namby-pamby prosecutors and judges, but he being a cop, he’d know, amirite?
Yes, my intention for mentioning Bath and Columbine was to show the difficulty (and rarity) of bomb attacks. Sorry if I was unclear.
Your post was clear. I only commented the second time it came up because then it was cited in support of the opposite contention, that bombs in student backpacks are a likely threat.
No, he can indeed be sentenced to life without parole. Currently, 19 states allow juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life without parole. Michigan is one of them. And the newly Trumpified Supreme Court has a different take on these cases than the SCOTUS of a few years back.
No doubt about it, Ethan Crumbley had terrible parents. They’re probably going to end up serving time for that. I don’t think that will get EC psychiatric treatment with no prison time, however. I suspect he’ll be found Not Guilty on the terrorism charge (Because the jury won’t want to view what he did as terrorism–not because he’s a kid, but because egad, most of these school shootings would be classified as domestic terrorism, and we can’t have that, can we?). He’ll be sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, which will be denied when he first becomes eligible but will later be granted.
I realize that you are being sarcastic. But plea bargaining could mean, for example, 25 years before a chance at parole instead of life; still a significant punishment. Prosecutors in states where death is on the table may get a defendant to agree to a life sentence simply to stay alive. A plea bargain in a case isn’t meant to suggest that the person would be let out without a serious sanction.
He can answer for himself, but my recollection was that PKBites was referring to lesser gun offenses, such as those that allow a teenager to acquire a handgun in the first place. I don’t believe he suggested that school shooters are treated lax, but was saying that these parents were already breaking the law, so trying to pass laws to make them act more responsibly wasn’t an effective response to the kid getting access to the gun.
Ohhhh, perish forbid that we punish a teenager for having a handgun! The Framers knew that the fate of their aborning new nation would depend on any and every pimply-faced teenager having access to a firearm. Why, half the Continental Army serving under General George Washington was probably under the age of twenty-five. If you sentence modern teenagers to ten years for acquiring a handgun from the local jock, you’ll make every statue of George Washington cry!
Don’t worry. They can still get rifles.
what part of “sHaLl NoT bE iNfRiNgEd” is unclear to you?
(Please ignore the whole bit about a “well regulated militia” that’s just foreplay)
Abridged Too Far?