Yet another shooting thread

[Bronzeage]

I have said before, many times, and it bears repeating. Nothing will change because of this latest school(or workplace or country music concert) shooting and it will happen again.

It doesn't matter how the shooter obtained the gun, or how many people were killed or injured.

 

[bilby]

Criminals in countries with strict gun laws likely have the same desire to obtain guns as those in the U.S., but the critical difference lies in access.

Nope. The difference lies in the lack of desire.

In countries with strict gun laws, guns are seen by most criminals as a severe liability.

It's very easy to get an illegal handgun in the UK. But criminals generally don't - because having such a thing will get you put away for ten years, if you are lucky enough that the Crown Prosecutor cannot prove that you ever fired it, or threatened anyone with it, or carried it in public.

If you did carry it in public, that's another seven years in jail. Threaten anyone with it, and that's another ten years inside.

Use it with criminal intent; or to resist arrest; or in the commission of a Schedule 1 offence? You can go to prison for life.

And you need not even have fired it. Or loaded it. Or ever had any ammunition for it.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.u...g-guidelines-for-firearms-offences-published/

A simple break-and-enter might get you three years inside; For a first offence, and with a good lawyer, you could avoid a custodial sentence altogether.

Even a dumb criminal doesn't want to carry a device they probably won't use, when doing so can turn a community service order into a life sentence.

If you outlaw guns, even outlaws don't want guns.

 

[bilby]

The suspect: Officials said the suspect, identified as Colt Gray, 14, would be charged with murder and prosecuted as an adult.

Kids aren't prosecuted as adults. They're punished as adults.

What do you mean by that? Of course some kids are prosecuted as adults.

In the same way that of course some fish are birds.

 

[bilby]

In LA County, a shooter killing four people would not be charged as an adult even if he was 17 years and 364 days old because of the far-left DA's policies. Is that justice?

No, it's just facts.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was just going to post a link regarding the father's arrest, to clarify the charges etc. I imagine this is in other sources of news, but Axios Atlanta emails me sometimes.

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/05/ge...&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts_atlanta

The father of the 14-year-old Apalachee High School student arrested in connection with a massacre that killed four people and injured nine others has been arrested, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday.

The big picture: Colin Gray, 54, has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, per a GBI post to X.

• The charges against Colin Gray, who was arrested Wednesday and remains in custody, stem from him "knowingly allowing" his son Colt Gray to possess a weapon, Chris Hosey, the GBI director, said at a news conference Thursday evening.
• The charges are "directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon," Hosey said.

Maybe Kemp should reduce regulations a little more.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

The suspect: Officials said the suspect, identified as Colt Gray, 14, would be charged with murder and prosecuted as an adult.

Kids aren't prosecuted as adults. They're punished as adults.

What do you mean by that? Of course some kids are prosecuted as adults.

In the same way that of course some fish are birds.

I don't think I understand your point. If someone under age 18 is prosecuted in the adult justice system instead of the juvenile system, how are they not being prosecuted as an adult?

Youth Tried as Adults | Juvenile Law Center

Around 250,000 youth enter the adult criminal justice system each year, despite research showing treating youth as adults does not reduce crime.

jlc.org

 

[Playball40]

Minors shouldn't be tried as adults. Their brains are NOT the same as adults and should not be treated as such. If the crime is so egregious (as I agree is the case in this shooting), then address it with the juvenile justice system.

 

[bilby]

I don't think I understand your point. If someone under age 18 is prosecuted in the adult justice system instead of the juvenile system, how are they not being prosecuted as an adult?

They are. But I resile from the suggestion that they should be; And am even more horrified by the idea that this injustice deserves the label "of course", as though it were normal and sensible to simply disregard facts we dislike.

The law makes different provisions for children than those it has for adults; And it includes clear (albeit arbitrary) boundaries between childhood and adulthood.

If you have rule of law, you need to change the law if you dislike the consequences of the law.

If the law says no child can be sentenced to more than five years in jail, and the law says anyone under the age of eighteen is a child, then it is unlawful to sentence a person who is seventeen years and eleven months old to five years and a day in jail.

Whether that is reasonable is a matter of opinion. But if it's not, the recourse is to change that law. You could redefine "child"; Or set a higher maximum semtence for certain crimes when comitted by a child.

What you should not (of course) do is ignore the rules if you don't like their consequences, and just declare that somebody should be considered an adult, not because they meet the legal criteria for adulthood, but because their status as a child comicts with your thirst for vengeance against them.

How would you feel if you got a ticket for driving at 35 in a 55 zone, because the prosecutor decided you should be tried "as a speeder"? A speeder is usually defined (rather arbitrarily) as someone who drives faster than 55. But they really want to punish you, so they decided that 35 was "fast enough"?

How is declaring that a 14 year old should be tried as though he were over 18, substantively less insane than declaring that a 35mph driver should be tried as though he were over 55mph?

 

[Elixir]

Minors shouldn't be tried as adults. Their brains are NOT the same as adults and should not be treated as such. If the crime is so egregious (as I agree is the case in this shooting), then address it with the juvenile justice system.

I agree that it doesn't serve to try a 14 year old in "adult court". But definitely - charging the father is the way to go. It's the only thing that could come out of this making everyone even fractionally safer.

 

[TomC]

I agree that it doesn't serve to try a 14 year old in "adult court". But definitely - charging the father is the way to go. It's the only thing that could come out of this making everyone even fractionally safer.

Colt Gray is a multiple murderer.
Keeping him away from the rest of us, permanently, is going to make us safer.

Colin Gray is a huge part of the problem and I'm totally good with prosecuting him thoroughly. He bought a high powered gun for a kid who had already demonstrated violent tendencies.

Yeah, there's no good answer here. But giving Colt an education in criminal activity, AKA juvie, then turning him loose on the rest of us is worse than some others.
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

Do we know what prompted this terrible act?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Part of the problem with treating criminal juveniles less severely than adult criminals is juveniles abusing that loophole. calculating that they can get away with criminal acts and if caught, be lightly punished.

 

[Bronzeage]

Part of the problem with treating criminal juveniles less severely than adult criminals is juveniles abusing that loophole. calculating that they can get away with criminal acts and if caught, be lightly punished.

This is just another symptom of lack of judgment and foresight that characterizes juveniles in general. A juvenile criminal is a failure on the part of specific adults and adults in general. This nation gave up on rehabilitation of adult criminal centuries ago, but we still have faint hopes of saving children. The alternative to a juvenile justice system is to relegate children to the warehouse system that prisons have become.

If an adult were on trial for murder and the court found they had the maturity level and mentality of a fourteen year old, the law would require this person to be given consideration for this disability and reduce their level of responsibility. Now we are in the position of treating a fourteen year old as a grown person who is fully responsible for their actions.

 

[Elixir]

Colt Gray is a multiple murderer.
Keeping him away from the rest of us, permanently, is going to make us safer.

Sure enough. It's foregone that he won't be doing anything similar any time soon.
But some other adult is going to give some other kid access to more guns, and that kid is going to do something bad.
Throwing the book at dad might cause the next adult person tempted to do that, to think twice.
Meanwhile, I am expecting a pardon promise from Vance, or something like that.

 

[Bronzeage]

Do we know what prompted this terrible act?

The thread that runs through everyone of this kind of thing is we never get a answer to this question. This case is a little different in that the shooter is still alive. Even so, I doubt he will be able to give a satisfactory answer.

 

[laughing dog]

Do we know what prompted this terrible act?

The thread that runs through everyone of this kind of thing is we never get a answer to this question. This case is a little different in that the shooter is still alive. Even so, I doubt he will be able to give a satisfactory answer.

Any truthful answer is satisfactory. Maybe there are mitigating factors, maybe not.

 

[Bronzeage]

Do we know what prompted this terrible act?

The thread that runs through everyone of this kind of thing is we never get a answer to this question. This case is a little different in that the shooter is still alive. Even so, I doubt he will be able to give a satisfactory answer.

Any truthful answer is satisfactory. Maybe there are mitigating factors, maybe not.

The mitigating factors are the known facts. He is fourteen years old and someone gave him free access to a deadly weapon. There maybe some mental or emotional health issues, but there are millions of mentally and emotionally disturbed fourteen year olds in this country and they haven't murdered four people.

This is of the same order as the parent whose child gets their driver's license at the earliest possible age and is then given a Mustang 5.0 or a Charger. To any objective observer, this would appear to be a foolish and dangerous thing to do, but the parent believes their child is somehow more mature and responsible than the average teen ager.

 

[laughing dog]

Do we know what prompted this terrible act?

The thread that runs through everyone of this kind of thing is we never get a answer to this question. This case is a little different in that the shooter is still alive. Even so, I doubt he will be able to give a satisfactory answer.

Any truthful answer is satisfactory. Maybe there are mitigating factors, maybe not.

The mitigating factors are the known facts. He is fourteen years old and someone gave him free access to a deadly weapon. There maybe some mental or emotional health issues, but there are millions of mentally and emotionally disturbed fourteen year olds in this country and they haven't murdered four people.

This is of the same order as the parent whose child gets their driver's license at the earliest possible age and is then given a Mustang 5.0 or a Charger. To any objective observer, this would appear to be a foolish and dangerous thing to do, but the parent believes their child is somehow more mature and responsible than the average teen ager.

No offense, but it may not be as straightforward as you think.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Do we know what prompted this terrible act?

The thread that runs through everyone of this kind of thing is we never get a answer to this question. This case is a little different in that the shooter is still alive. Even so, I doubt he will be able to give a satisfactory answer.

Any truthful answer is satisfactory. Maybe there are mitigating factors, maybe not.

The mitigating factors are the known facts. He is fourteen years old and someone gave him free access to a deadly weapon. There maybe some mental or emotional health issues, but there are millions of mentally and emotionally disturbed fourteen year olds in this country and they haven't murdered four people.

This is of the same order as the parent whose child gets their driver's license at the earliest possible age and is then given a Mustang 5.0 or a Charger. To any objective observer, this would appear to be a foolish and dangerous thing to do, but the parent believes their child is somehow more mature and responsible than the average teen ager.

I think this would be of the same order only if the teenage driver had threatened to run over pedestrians and his keys weren’t taken away.

 

[southernhybrid]

Do any of you know that a bunch of other kids have been charged with making terroristic threats, related to the 14 year olds school shootings? This is insane. The AJC doesn't allow me to gift articles, but I'll quote part of it, and some of you can probably slip behind the paywall or read most of the article if you want. This is some crazy shit. I lived in Gwinnett country about 26 years ago. All I can say is WTF is going on in these kid's heads and WTF is wrong with Kemp and company that they won't even discuss making gun laws more reasonable! At the very least demand that guns be locked up if their are minors in the home and establish an age for gun possession. You can't buy one if you're 14, but you can possess one, how crazy is that!

https://www.ajc.com/education/threa...ulting-in-arrests/K35EHT7IMZC7BINES2B3NUJJBI/

More than a dozen juveniles and one adult in Georgia have been arrested and accused of making school threats in the days after four people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting at Apalachee High School.

The students — who range in age from 11 to 17 — were arrested in Clarke, Forsyth, Gwinnett, Hall, Hart, Jackson, Newton and Oconee counties and charged with making terroristic threats. If convicted of a felony charge, they could face fines or jail time, in addition to discipline from their schools.


“You’ve got these 11- and 12-year-old kids that don’t understand the consequences and the far reach of what their words can cause,” Oconee County Sheriff James Hale told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Two Oconee County Middle School students were charged after making potential threats of school violence. “These kids don’t understand that by saying that, it puts into motion a machine that is a runaway train sometimes.”
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