UK Man in Jail for Threatening School Shooting on Facebook

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RaceGamePlayerX

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May 23, 2012
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Good for the UK! That guy should have been locked up, and they did the right thing.
One question though.... what's this doing on a tech site?
 

kinggremlin

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Certainly cats__Paw. The likely the scenario here is that the FBI was monitoring this facebook page, not that someone associated with a school of 3000 kids saw the posts and contacted the local authorities.
 

bunz_of_steel

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Sad to hear folks making statements like that to our future generation. Not sure how the FBI heard about it but guessing this kinda stuff is reported on a blotter somewhere that is up channeled. Or local authorities/citizen reported it and thus making it a federal offense? Either way good to have the FBI & Metropolitan Police Service taking positive reaction.
 

buzzrattie

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What ever happened to free speech or the Bill of Rights, I don't condone what this person has done, but when people type something on a blog or facebook message, its called free speech. If he had acted on his words, then that is something entirely different.
 


Not if it breaks the ToS of the website or blog site and certainly not if it breaks the law of the land. You might want to check out the legals of that before you reply.
 

SirGCal

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This proves two things:

1) Nothing on Facebook is private. If you even think it is, you're an idiot. They will find out, track it, etc. That's why I got off Facebook when they changed their privacy policy a few years back. Don't need it. And yes, the FBI, etc. has sniffers to find this type of stuff specifically. This, political threats, national threats, etc. And not just on Facebook...
2) Some idiots really deserve to get busted. Seriously?!? Let's just threaten a bunch of kids. In what universe is that ever cool?!? Ever?!? Anywhere?!? You double-dumb-@$#... Sit and rot... Turning yourself in should just possibly prevent the needle, but you should still sit for more then 2 years IMHO.
 

SirGCal

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And not only that; but the UK doesn't have a bill of rights or a constitution as the US does that I am aware of; so that's about the dumbest argument I've ever heard TBH...
 

PedanticNo1

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The legality isn't in question, what he did was illegal. But does anyone honestly believe he was planning to do it? He was trolling. This happens all the time; people capitalize on the tragedy of others to get a laugh.

Being robotic about the law and interpreting by the letter is irrational. There are extenuating circumstances that no written law could ever hope to cover for any given situation. So yeah, the kid is an idiot, but he doesn't deserve two years in prison for being an idiot. That will probably make him into a criminal, if not embitter him. Kneejerk reactions ftw I guess.
 

falchard

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This guy would be free if he lived in the US. Since there was no way for him to carry out the threat making it a simple statement and would mean that it falls under free speech.
 

blackened144

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Just like the freedom of speech doesnt cover yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, Im pretty sure it also doesnt cover threats to murder a bunch of kids at school.
 

FreeSpeech

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People need to learn that their statements carry consequences and that they cannot hide just because the people you are talking about are not standing face to face with you. And trying to say he should have been able to hide behind Freedom of Speech in the US just tells me that the people saying this have no real clue what that freedom actually means. I would guess that was a failure of the US school systems because I doubt those same people will take responsibility for their mistaken belief.
 
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