Just one example: “Authorities say a California woman was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport after she made threats on board a flight arriving from London.”
Have studies been done to link the making of threats with the more serious act of carrying it out?
It seems to me that most people who make threats are really just boasting or being defensive or egotistical. It also seems to me that most people who really intend to do harm will not warn their victims with a threat first (it would be counter-productive.)
I sorta understand why it’s illegal to make a threat but I can also see that in many ways it’s really “speech.”
When you make threats, there are people who have to assume the threats are credible, investigate, and determine that you are in fact, full of shit. The costs of those investigations ought to be borne by those who make idle threats.
I agree that most threats are false alarms from the deranged and/or douche-y. But some aren’t, and the consequences of letting a real one pass are sufficiently severe to warrant an investigation into all of them.
Probably a topic that’s highly debatable, but basically: People don’t want to live in a world where random threats appear. We want the security of knowing what is a genuine threat, and what is not.
A common joke is using a handgun to force info from or elicit behavior from someone. Where guns are legal, such behavior isn’t allowed – If you have a genuine threat, you make the choice to pull your weapon, aim, and fire, to wound or to kill. If the gun owner thinks that’s an excessive response, then they keep it holstered. The grey area of threats is something an adult is supposed to have gotten out of their system in the schoolyard.
Threats (along with various other statements and actions) made on board an airplane are in a whole different class from those made in everyday life. There is a much narrower range of nasty speech/behavior that will tolerated, and the authorities (including the flight crew) have pretty wide latitude in dealing with it. Threatening to blow up a plane is about the stupidest thing you can do while you’re actually in it.
I always thought “I’m gonna punch your lights out” is the sort of comment that often precedes a punch being thrown. Similarly, “I’m going home to get my gun” usually means the person will be back, with a firearm.
Very simple - a threat is often a precursor to action. It is used to intimidate whether it is serious or not. That’s the point of a threat - it’s intimidation, you don’t know for sure the person will not carry it out, but you may feel a need to not find out. Using explicit intimidation is and should be a crime. Forcing people to not do something, either by force or threat of harm, should be a crime.
So how do you know if it is intimidation or just some moron shooting off their mouth? You don’t, unless you find out the hard way they meant it. If the threat was ridiculous, then likely the judge will let them off or give a minimal sentence. Police also have a moderate amount of discretion in arresting the person. However, in a world full of whackos who do totally unpredictable stuff, you can’t afford to ignore any threat.
Just like, if you swing a baseball bat around in a threatening manner, they should not have to wait for you to actually hit someone before arresting you. Intent as apparent to the law’s “reasonable person” should count for something.