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Drawings of Weapons Led To New Jersey Student's Arrest
First time accepted submitter gannebraemorr writes with this news, snipped from a CBS News report out of New Jersey:"'The Superintendent of the Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School District said around 2 pm Tuesday, a 16 year old student demonstrated behavior that caused concern. A teacher noticed drawings of what appeared to be weapons in his notebook. School officials made the decision to contact authorities. Police removed the 16-year-old boy from Cedar Creek High School in Galloway Township Tuesday afternoon after school officials became concerned about his behavior. The student was taken to the Galloway Township Police Department. Police then searched the boy's home on the 300 block of East Spencer Lane and found several electronic parts and several types of chemicals that when mixed together, could cause an explosion, police say. The unidentified teen was charged with possession of a weapon an [sic] explosive device and the juvenile was placed in Harbor Fields.' If 'chemicals that when mixed together, could cause an explosion' is a crime, I'm pretty sure everyone's cleaning cabinets are evidence just waiting to be found. Bottle of Coke and Mentos... BRB, someone knocking at the door."
Think of how safe everyone will be when EVERYONE is locked up!
For drawing giant killer robots, ninja's, tanks, spaceships with tentacles & housing of poor construction quality when i was 8.
If he rats them out maybe he can cut a deal.
The closer you are to the code, the happier you are. - Ancient Geek Proverb
At a shed , one being for the tractor the other for the plant. Having two chemical substance which when mixed can cause explosion and a few electronic part means *nothing* without a context. The question is : do the authority exagerate the context to make a case, or was it a real plan from a disturbed teenager, or was it a disturbed teenager which would never have gone further but now whatever MAY happen will be forever marked as that "insane guy which wanted to explode a school" ? Wihout further info none of us are able to say. But I am willing to bet there will be a media circus.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Although the story seems disturbing, it never goes into any detail about the student's behavior which prompted the search nor does it say what exactly was found in the student's home. Without more details the story, left this vague, is borderline sensationalism. The student could have been exhibiting some extreme behavior which the school could have been subsequently been lambasted for not following through with.
That treatment will certainly help him become a well-balanced member of society.
In which of the following ways would you have been arrested if your child-self had gone to school today:
1) possession of a chemistry set;
2) possession of a pocket knife;
3) terroristic threatening ("Man, I'm gonna kill you at Mortal Kombat tonight.");
4) all of the above
Am I glad I don't go to school in this modern age!
Back in MY day you could bring your (real) Katana to highschool (and leave it in the office) for martial arts practice afterwards.
I used to draw fighter jets and machine guns and all sorts of stuff when the teachers were being boring, but that was probably in grade school.
Now if you DRAW A PICTURE OF what "appears to be" a weapon and have an interest in electronics and chemistry you get charged.
I guess that liking science before college is going to be outlawed soon...
This is the kind of environment that the gun-control nuts want to create for the rest of us. Imagine having to justify every substance in your home under presumption of guilt.
I'm sure glad they weren't this paranoid when I was a kid. I remember sketching various nuclear weapon designs and discussing them with my physics teacher after class. I suppose it was OK because I didn't have a supply of fissionable material.
In related news, half the school was arrested on suspicion of rape, after evidence of drawing penises was found.
The harm done is to the Constitution, which is the only thing (not our safety) that public servants/government employees are actually SWORN to protect.
We're going to spend the next 10 years as a nation obsessing over guns in schools. We're going to talk non-stop about arming teachers, arming janitors, putting cops with assault rifles in the halls, defining exactly what assault rifles actually are, glorifying the idea that those with guns stop crimes, making movies and TV shows about the topic, design special gun models for school protection, and perhaps even speculate that students themselves should be allowed to carry guns for their own protection.
But on the other hand, the first time any student mentions the word "gun" in class, they're pulled from class, suspended for weeks, arrested, put in psychiatric care and scarred for life. Seriously, this is like one level down from the brainwashing scene in A Clockwork Orange.
Imagine what they'd have found in my room back in the '80s... Chemicals of all sorts, the more boom the more fun after all... electronic components disassembled from old broken unrepairable stuff and sorted into categories, ready to be assembled in new things. This including 'scary' stuff like CTV line transformers etc. Half-repaired electronics. A charged tractor battery under the bed with some carbon rods (from old batteries) to be used in carbon arc light experiments. A functional pulse jet engine, scarily-looking, cobbled together with moped parts to be auto-starting. An air gun. An electric guitar made from more moped parts and some pay phone speakers for pick-ups. Need I go on?
And to think that I've never even had so much as a speeding ticket...
Of course I lived in the Netherlands, and it was 30 years ago...
--frank[at]unternet.org
Unless there's a boatload of details absent from that account, it really is time for me to find another country to call home... while I can still emigrate without being renditioned for being a traitor/terrorist.
If he wasn't going to do anything with these chemicals, then fine, no big deal, no harm done.
No harm other than the kid being removed from school, arrested, charged with possession of a weapon, and then sent to juvenile hall.
yeah.. no harm at all.
Its people like you that are wrong with this country.
"His name was James Damore."
This is the kind of environment that the gun-control nuts want to create for the rest of us ?
I hear the NRA thinks we should be investigating video games and movie. Last I heard there were such things as movie and game ratings, but the NRA hates gun control... ANY gun control. That's what the NRA wants: No bounds on any weaponry but Tom and Jerry can be blamed for the violence in the country.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
I remember drawing pictures and B-52s and mushroom clouds. These days I'd be in Gitmo being waterboarded.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
"If 'chemicals that when mixed together, could cause an explosion' is a crime, I'm pretty sure everyone's cleaning cabinets are evidence just waiting to be found."
This is the reality of how the BATFE interprets the laws surrounding guns and explosives; the regulation of both is derived from some of the same laws. Having the parts to make something constitutes intention to make it, and is punished the same as if you had made it.
The state of BATFE's regulatory interpretations of the law allow for farmers, or even just gardeners, to be prosecuted for having ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel because they could be assembled into a bomb, regardless of whether they had a detonator, or knowledge of how to do it, or intent, or a motive. It gets even more confusing and nonsensical when it comes to their published regulation of gun parts. If you own a pistol, and a means by which to attach a butt-stock to it, then you're in possession of an unregistered short barreled rifle, regardless of whether you've ever assembled them.
Thought crime is alive and well in the BATFE, and has been for decades.
You do realize that something as simple as soap flakes in your powdered laundry soap can be used to make explosives.
If you arrested everyone that had explosive chemicals in the house, then you would have to arrest everyone that cleans anything.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
"Cedar Creek opened in September 2010 as a magnet school with programs focusing on engineering and environmental sciences and specializing in hands-on learning."
You sir are an idiot - of course there was harm done. An innocent, intent, driven student was arrested for no good reason other than sheer lunacy by faculty with delusions of grandeur.
I used to draw weapons, space weapons, combat aircraft, tanks, spaceships - all in combat - blowing shit up, etc...
I built model rockets (missiles), had high explosives (rocket engines) in my possession lots of times, hell,I even made some with explosive warheads and fired them for fun. Note I said fired, not launched. I had rocket tubes on my dirt-bike. I could fire these horizontally at whatever my bike was aimed at. They made very cool explosions on impact (old tree stumps, falling over barns, etc). Good thing I had teachers that were happy to have students that learned and experimented (in safe ways). They encouraged learning about anything and everything.
I read up on chemistry in old encyclopedias. By the time I was 13 I could have made nitro-glycerin in my kitchen.
Knowledge and materials are not crimes. Using said would have been.
Without people that know how and what can be used, we can no longer prevent others from doing the same.
This school's administrators should be cuffed and stuffed for harming a youth's ambition and drive to learn.
Today's government wants to lock up *dangerous* knowledge. They want to make everyone a specialist and end generalist behaviors.
If no one is a generalist, they cannot see the big picture for what it is.
... you would have to arrest everyone that cleans anything.
Whew. I'm safe.
If the government keeps that bullshit up there will be more terrorists than they can handle.
Thank you very much for being the voice of reason. Your post is, of course, the most sensible here.
I wager that, despite Slashdot's sensationalism, the authorities began their actions out of due caution. That they are indeed cable of reason and did take context into consideration. I'm 80% sure that this was not about soap in the cabinet, but that this kid was indeed attempting to manufacture explosives. I'll take it a step further and say that, just because he may have been trying to make explosives doesn't mean that he was planning any harm whatsoever.
I recall my own middle school years. I had an intense fascination with explosives and weapons. Fire crackers were awesome and I went to great lengths to increase their yield. What happens when you take the powder from 4 M80s and build a single large 'M320'? What if you sink it in a pond before it goes off? (Awesome!!!! ...Then the fish float up. Run!)
I fondly recall the fit my mother threw when she found me drying my own home made black powder in her oven. 'Relax! I know what I'm doing. What could possibly go wrong? It's just a little black powder. Sheesh.' She didn't know about me taking my half pound of home made "explosives" to the school bus stop the next morning where me and my friends enjoyed blowing up anthills and lighting long lines of my concoction(epically smokey). Mean while my friends wielded "flame throwers" made of cans of deodorant and Bic lighters.
Despite all that, no harm was ever meant to anyone but ants. No one was hurt(save for minor burned fingers), No one became a terrorist, arsonist, or anything else. The next year, girls redirected our attention and life continued as normal.
He operates under the implicit assumption that generally if people are arrested, there are good reasons to do so.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Where does this sound familiar from?
the new post columbine hysteria has started. They are going to ruin far more kids lives than kids who died in the last shooting, or shootings in general.
We need to put our foot down, and stop this cycle of scape-goat finding based on stereotypes being passed off as valid research and response NOW.
oh. wait.. it did not come out right.
Every classroom should be secured by a policeman armed with a picture of a weapon. How about that!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why don't we sentence that student to a picture of a prison.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
When I was in high school, I had sketchbooks that I filled to the brim with detailed drawings of planes, battlemechs, rockets, Warhammer dudes, and yes, lots and lots of weapons. Many of them attached to planes or in the form of swords and axes being held by fantasy roleplaying types, but also plain-old modern day guns. I think I turned out pretty well, and in my entire life I've never even so much murdered anybody. I was even still in school when the Columbine shootings went down, and even after that fact with all the paranoia swirling around, nobody cared about me or my notebook. Do you know why? Because it didn't fucking matter. It's what boys of that age tend to do, and back then people still managed to understand this.
This is knee-jerk paranoid reactionist ego-stroking BULLSHIT of the highest caliber. This poor kid's harassment and arrest is in no way, shape, or form designed to keep anyone safe or protect anybody from anything, but to intentionally scare people and stoke a bunch of "it could happen here" sensationalistic paranoia for the sake of inflating some school administrator's ego. The real intent of this, which is going to have real-world consequences of ruining this kids future -- Which, I hasten to point out, this superintendent and his cronies in no way care about or will show responsibility for -- is propaganda. To create the appearance that the school administration is "doing something!" and being "proactive and tough on violence!" to direct attention away from the fact that, back here in reality, this kid's school is undoubtedly zero percent safer today than it was last Friday.
This is why we are constantly blindsided by headline grabbing violence int his country: We are SO paranoid about not letting the imaginary "bad guy" in the front door that we're diverting all our attention to chasing shadows and tilting at these goddamned windmills. Meanwhile, the real enemy is free to sneak in the back door whenever he feels like it.
(Obligatory "that's what she said," by the way.)
The people who did this to that kid are the ones who need to be arrested -- every last one of them. Stripped of their ranks, stripped of their certifications, their badges taken away, and relegated to flipping burgers at McDonald's for the rest of their pathetic little lives, because people who straight-facedly make such poor decisions as these have NO BUSINESS BEING IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY, period.
And a police-state presence in every school. And a registry tracking all people treated for mental disorders. But not a registry on guns.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As that same picture isn't part of the original story I choose to believe that's a bit of creative editing by the NY Daily News. Nothing makes an article like this even scarier than adding in a nice picture of lots of unlabeled containers in a basement next to something odd that is cooking away. It doesn't help that the picture is labeled with the generic title of explosives.jpg http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1223534.1355938579!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/explosives.jpg
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What they need to ban is knowledge of how to commit violent crimes. They need to remove the words used to describe violence from our language so people can't talk about it and teach each other how to be violent.
Anyone with a bit of education knows that knowledge is power so we need to control knowledge. It's for the children.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
I find America a very baffling place, sometimes. In one news story, a child whose parents belonged to the militia movement who were stockpiling weapons goes on a killing spree in a school, and one of the most vocal responses is "it wouldn't happen if only there were more guns in school- armed teachers, armed kids, armed minimum wage guards on the door!". And anyone suggesting that gun possession might be a bad thing is shouted down for trampling on our freedoms. Then in the next news story, it's a criminal offence to be a teenager who draws weapons and has common household chemicals in their house. Also, we should ban (in no particular order)- violent video games, nudity in films, rap music, and skirts that end too far above the knee.
Very odd place.
I'm 62, and the direction this country is going makes me absolutely sick to my stomach, but if you were to leave for another country, where would it be? As bad as America is getting, its still FAR better than 99.99% of the rest of the world. Take Australia for example.. I visited there twice back in the 70s, once on US Army RnR from Vietnam and once on temporary duty with my Army unit, for a total of just over 2 weeks. I was so taken with the people, the VAST open spaces, and the opportunity, I came very close to emigrating there. When I was there I read the papers (Sydney) and saw virtually no violent crime during both visits. But now, I read that violent crime is WAY up, since the Australian people have, essentially, been disarmed, like Britain. Not to mention, all of the Orwellian stuff that the current Australian (and UK) governments are constantly trying to shove down the peoples throat... TL;DR; I have NO idea where you could go that's any better than the USA..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Assault rifles are pretty much illegal to own, and have been since before WW2. Scary-looking rifles that resemble military weapons, but are functionally identical to some hunting rifles are legal (and both the subject of the modern debate, and what was used to shoot up that school) are legal.
Note that I own three ACTUAL military rifles today. All three are bolt-action....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I know almost nothing about the NY Daily News, but if they have a news story about weapons followed immediately by an active plea to fill out a petition to ban weapons, I'd have to say their motives for printing not only the story itself but the uncited photograph fall very short of journalistic neutral positioning... so I gotta see that uncited photo for what it is: unrelated unless otherwise specified.
"Here's a photo of some explosives in a basement. I'm not saying it is from this kid's basement, but I'm not NOT saying that either, and we're leading with the photo, anyway. You figure it out."
Oh no! They found out that I have a bag of flour in the pantry and some old party baloons and a book of matches in the junk drawer! OH noes! They found the funnel!
(Clicky)
Oh noez! I hope they don't find the bottle of dilute battery acid (sulfuric) in the automotive supplies cabinet in the shed! Why, they might think I intended to concentrate it and mix it with sugar! Certainly not to top up my wet cell automotive batteries in the summer at all! (Like it says on the bottle.)
(Clicky!)
Oh NO! Not the 9v battery and the steel wool! Oh shit, they found some wire too!
(Clicky)
No, they found the scott's brand nitrate grass fertilizer! They are asking me all kinds of questions about being a terrorist, with all this stuff in my house!
Seriously, WTF.
Have they checked the schools MSDS sheets for chemicals that if spilled or combined with others could be hazardous. Let's see if they have any chlorine and ammonia on hand, or maybe some sodium hydroxide in the bathroom cleaning closet. If they do, they better call the police to haul the school staff off.
Passionately Indifferent
I think you're narrowing your view a bit too much. I agree that UK is going down the same insanity route as the US (dunno about Australia, haven't followed that too much), but there are hundreds of other countries on the planet. For example, I liked Amsterdam very much when I visited it this year, although this city might be a huge culture shock for typical US citizens.
People are scared stupid, and are punishing children for doing things that are completely normal for children. Also, seeing bombs where they are not.
Stupidity is more dangerous than malice.
But somebody needs to have the knowledge, in order to know what is too dangerous for people to know!
And if it is too dangerous for people to know, then we can't allow them to know it, so we can protect the children...
But they need to know it in order to know what is too dangerous to know....
(Head asplode!)
No, I suspect there are good reasons to arrest this guy because, usually, the police have good reasons when they arrest someone.
Where there is smoke there is fire, huh? Guilty until proven innocent. I just hope you're never on a jury.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I think we had better close down all the schools in farming districts where people have large amounts of potassium chlorate and also have sugar in their kitchen...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Irritating. Even the mother didn't seem to clarify what was found, or the newspaper purposely stripped the info. I've read at least 30 stories on this and the are all very list on info including the mothers response below.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20385390/fi
Hell, I could have been that kid.
I have serious doubts about the picture sorce myself since it is not cited and there is a link about a weapons ban found below the story. If so, that's pretty dispicale.
I used to make explosives when I was a kid and this does not remind me of anything that I got up to unless that is sugar and he has put the potassium chlorate in liquid type containers. I did not grow up to become a terrorist even though I enjoyed blowing things up. I agree that it is a dangerous hobby and he should be questioned etc, but enough of the witch hunt already.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Better lock up all the farmers, they might have dangerous fertilisers that really can blow things up. Just as well they don't also have access to diesel fuel, or they really would have a bomb.
So, as a non-american, explain to me the logic of locking up children who doodle a gun, as we all did, but allow everyone slightly older to have assault weapons. Are you sure you are sane?
Already enacted "zero tolerance" policy + "OMG! Kids were shot! Do something!" == "well, we have run out of sensibled things to do to increase security a long time ago, so...."
Essentially, we have locked down schools that are essentially jails for children, coupled with officious authoritarianism as the established policy, being told to "do something! Kids aren't safe! OMG!"
More illegal to draw a gun than own one.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There are lots of places to go actually. It sounds like you haven't traveled enough (recently) to know that. Would it make you feel a little better to know that much of the rest of the world is not paranoid and afraid like we are here in the US?
No strip searches or sexual violations to get on airplanes. No one arrested for drawing something or saying something. No roadblocks on the roads. I'm not sure I could 'prove' that most of the other countries I have traveled in and lived in really are freer, but they certainly feel that way living there day to day.
I've lived in various countries in Asia and Latin America (don't want to name them out of paranoia), including a couple of communist ones and with the exception of one communist country I felt freer and less afraid of the police and government than I feel living here in the US. Living in the US can feel a lot like living inside of a large prison, but there are many places in the world that do not feel that way. Even in that one communist country where I certainly did not feel free, the police at least were not angry or violent and not typically thuggish like the police are here in the US. Police in most other countries are just normal guys doing a job. They don't hate you or see you as their enemy. They aren't out to prove how they are bad motherfuckers by kicking your ass for looking at them the wrong way. In countries that I've lived in outside the US it seemed like the government for the most part left you alone. At least that's how it felt. Knowing this, I actually do want to leave the US forever. Unfortunately I was born here and don't have citizenship anywhere else. It takes more effort living as an expat on a tourist visa. It gets tiring after a while. Although there is nowhere that is perfect I have found a few places where I could long term non-tourist visas. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to make a break for the exit while I still can.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Oh, without question!
Producing PETN from formaldehyde is much safer. (And the result is much less touchy, but far more explodie too.)
Of course, its so hard to get good, clean formaldehyde these days.
If this article from a local rag is indeed showing a picture of what they found, this may have been warranted.
No, actually, that counts as the entire problem - Not warranted.
Even if this kid planned to blow up something big, the entire chain of events that led to police finding whatever they found make it all the fruit of the poisonous tree.
IANAL, but drawing pictures of guns just doesn't count as sufficient evidence to get a warrant in any sane world.
Fuck, what the hell has this country come to? I used to keep a goddamned "kill list" in junior high - And somehow, I made it through our country's socialized babysitting prisons without going on a murderous rampage. "Wishful thinking" doesn't equal "homicidal intent". Funny, that.
I don't have any kids, but if I did, the last thing I would be worried about each day is them going to school and being the victim of one of these freak-occurrence events where some nutjob stomps into a school and unloads a couple guns on the students and teachers. Statistically, I'd be far more worried about teachers, coaches, scout leaders, and religious authorities sexually molesting them.
About 300 people (not just students) have been killed in school shootings in the last thirty years, in this country. Something like one per million or one per three million odds of being killed in a school shooting (source: http://www.teenviolencestatistics.com/content/school-shootings.html ).
About 4 to 10 percent of all children have been molested or sexually abused in some way by teachers.
(source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/02/is_sexual_abuse_in_schools_very_common_.html )
What video games, weapons, television shows, movies, books, or society influences are to blame for these teachers sexually molesting children on such a mass scale? Where's the investigation into that? Where's the rational concern and moral outrage over that compared to the irrational concern that your child might be the freak statistic that is killed in a shooting? How the lizard-brain might initially fear the school shooting far more, how does it reach the point of discussion and legislation on a society-wide level without the common sense acknowledgement that 1:10 or 1:20 is far fucking greater than 1:1000000 to 1:3000000?
The Daily News cannot be described as a newspaper anymore, it's a 'tabloid', trying to stay alive by printing sensationalist stories. It used to be a reliable newspaper, then the internet happened along...
For fact-checking you'll need to refer to The Daily Mail or The Sun.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I did that plus I had a pretty elaborate chemistry setup in my basement. I used to make a variety of explosives in small quantities for backyard fun.
I had a copy of the anarchist's cookbook and some rockets too.
I also had a few electronic devices for a model railroad too.
What happened to being a healthy boy?
You didn't think that once they started going after the Second Amendment because of school shootings, they'd leave the other amendments alone, did you? Thow one out, throw all of them out.
"run out of sensible things"
Even before the NRA came out with their little statement, I was already saying that we need MORE weapons in schools.
That principal who lunged at the shooter? That was brave. It was admirable. The lady knew she was going down, but she refused to go down peacefully, or silently. She lunged at the shooter. No one has said how close she came to getting her hands on him.
Imagine - if she had a .357, or even a .38 at hand, she wouldn't have had to lunge. Pull that sucker out of her desk drawer, or handbag, take aim, and squeeze.
Likely, she would have been hit by the semi-auto fire, but she could have died a real heroine, having put down the dog that threatened her students.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Photo is a stock photo of a Palestinian bomb making operation: http://www.apimages.com/OneUp.aspx?st=k&kw=NOEL%20JABBOUR&showact=results&sort=relevance&intv=None&sh=10&kwstyle=or&adte=1356199851&pagez=60&cfasstyle=AND&rids=54170f7043e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb&dbm=PY2000&page=1&xslt=1&mediatype=Photo
Confirmed: that photo has NOTHING to do with this story. It's an Associated Press photo from the 1998 discovery of a bomb factory in the West Bank:
http://www.apimages.com/OneUp.aspx?st=k&kw=98011301827
"Plastic containers holding explosives and the chemicals used to manufacture them, are stored in a room in the town of Nablus in what is described as the biggest bomb factory ever discovered in the West Bank, Tuesday Jan. 13 1998. Police said that three quarters of a ton of explosives were seized and four activists from the Muslim militant Hamas group were arrested."
That's truly disgustingly shameful photo selection by the NY Daily Times to try to stoke fear.
The picture I see is a bunch of yellow containers and a pan filled with a white powder. Photo credit is "NOEL JABBOUR/AP". A search for Noel Jabbour reveals a Palestinian photographer "based in Berlin and Nazareth". Unless this is some OTHER "Noel Jabbour", I'm guessing the picture has nothing to do with the story.
A search for "Noel Jabbour" on apimages.com turns up a very similar picture, labeled "mideast palestinian bomb factory". The Daily News image is a crop from that image. In other words, the NY Daily News is sensationalizing the story. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Mod parent up! nydailynews should be punished for the misleading picture.
Nope, it's just NY Daily News being assholes, see this pic: http://www.apimages.com/OneUp.aspx?st=k&kw=NOEL%20JABBOUR&showact=results&sort=relevance&intv=None&sh=10&kwstyle=or&adte=1356199851&pagez=60&cfasstyle=AND&rids=54170f7043e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb&dbm=PY2000&page=1&xslt=1&mediatype=Photo
Because of them many people now think the kid is guilty.
LaPierre attacked video games and movies, but did not call for an investigation of them. I'm more concerned about his calls for a "national database" of the mentally ill, which sounds rather authoritarian.
Step 1: National database of mentally ill.
Step 2: No rights for anyone who is on the list.
Step 3: Everyone gets put on the list.
Fortunately I can pick and choose and be for what the NRA wants for guns, but against what they want (if restrictions are indeed what they want) for speech. And since the NRA spends the lions share of its lobbying money on gun-related stuff and not speech-related stuff, that's still a big plus for the NRA.
If you arrested everyone that had explosive chemicals in the house, then you would have to arrest everyone that cleans anything.
So most slashdotters have nothing to be afraid of!
I don't think so. If this never gets to court or if he's acquitted, the constitution is fine.
The constitution that allows such an arrest is not by any definition "fine".
You can walk into any house in America and find what they allegedly found. Gasoline, cleaning fluids, flour (yes flour), steel wool scouring pads, and matches, wires for the lamps, cell phones, the list of things that police can designate as bomb making materials is endless.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
This.
An armed society is a polite society.
For ever nutter that want's to go on a rampage there are several hundred that just want to live long enough go home after work.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"When they took the 2nd amendment, I was silent because I didn’t own guns. When they took the 4th amendment, I was silent because I didn’t deal drugs. When they took the 5th amendment, I was silent because I was innocent. Now they've taken the 1st and I can't say anything about it."
Now imagine some six-year-old kid pulling that sucker out of her desk drawer, thinking that it's a toy, and killing somebody. Even in the best case, more guns in the hands of teachers would just replace a handful of occasional massacres with a much larger number of accidental shootings. The body count doesn't decrease; only the concentration does.
Now if you had said an armed guard, I might agree—someone trained to use weapons, carrying that weapon on his or her person at all times. As soon as it is in the hands of someone who isn't physically in contact with the weapon at all times, however, it becomes a far greater threat to the children's safety than the threat it is trying to prevent, statistically speaking. Far, far greater.
There's no better proof of that than what happened last week. The very first victim was heavily armed. That didn't help her any; in fact, that's probably why she got killed in the first place. Weapons are only useful for defensive purposes if you have them out, in your hand, ready to use, and you're awake and not distracted. Locked away in a closet or cabinet somewhere, they're useless.
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When they took the 5th amendment, I was silent because I was innocent.
Sorry. Once they take the fifth amendment away, you're no longer allowed to stay silent.
Now imagine some six-year-old kid pulling that sucker out of her desk drawer, thinking that it's a toy, and killing somebody. Even in the best case, more guns in the hands of teachers would just replace a handful of occasional massacres with a much larger number of accidental shootings. The body count doesn't decrease; only the concentration does.
When I saw this the first thought through my mind was that the teachers should have the weapon in a proper holster on their body. Then you went on with this:
Now if you had said an armed guard, I might agreeâ"someone trained to use weapons, carrying that weapon on his or her person at all times. As soon as it is in the hands of someone who isn't physically in contact with the weapon at all times, however, it becomes a far greater threat to the children's safety than the threat it is trying to prevent, statistically speaking. Far, far greater.
There is no reason that any teacher or other adult at the school could not serve the role as an armed guard along with their usual duties. The training required to safely handle a handgun is simple. The training required to hit a target with that weapon is just slightly less trivial. The hard part is maintaining that skill over time. This takes practice. With the general lack of shooting ranges in many urban areas in this federation of ours this can be a problem.
I also dispute your claim that firearms in schools somehow pose some sort of statistically greater risk to students. If kids are picking up firearms and playing with them like toys then kids need to be trained. This seems like a good idea to me even if we don't arm the teachers since in this modern world we live in there are going to be firearms around.
I believe it is much easier to gun proof the kid than to kid proof the gun. Train the kids on firearm safety, whatever is appropriate for their age. In most states children of 12 years and older are allowed to hunt with a firearm. That tells me that the states have already decided on an appropriate age to teach children how to safely handle a firearm. Under that age they need to be told to not touch.
Locked away in a closet or cabinet somewhere, they're useless.
Agreed. Any school teacher that wishes to be armed in the classroom should be able to do so. I believe the school should set policies on the training and the holsters used in the school but that should be left to the school to decide. Leave the federal government out of local issues.
There is a fallacy that the federal government disallows firearms on school property. The law allows anyone to have a firearm so long as they first obtain permission to do so from the school. Now we have the President giving his VP the task of coming up with more gun laws to "protect" the schools. The problem is that the federal government has criminalized the act of self defense in our schools. We need to repeal some laws, not make new ones. I doubt this will happen since the tyrants in our government can not "let a good crisis go to waste".
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/20385390/fi
He drew a glove with flames on it.
From what I've read elsewhere, he was an honors student, a scout and he played on a Christian basketball team.
What profile does that fit?
I think the poster above is suggesting that just reading those materials safety datasheets will show what nasty stuff is in the school.
These worries come in waves. A school I went to in the 1970s had a relatively large stock of sodium and the word came down from on high that it had to be disposed of due to potential danger. The principal crumbled it up and poured it all over an anthill full of fairly nasty biting ants, then the next day after they had dragged it underground he turned on the sprinkler. It was interesting to watch even from a long distance, even though it didn't all go up at once. Someone doing that today would probably lose their job even if all precautions were taken (the principal not only knew a bit of chemistry but had spent some time in the military and had respect for things that go bang).
where have you been the last thirty years or so?
Thirty?
Try a bit over two hundred. Attacks on our liberty started with the whiskey rebellion.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What AC has already stated. She made a heroic effort, but she didn't make the heroic preparations.
Our heros who die on the battlefields spend weeks and months in preparation, so that they know HOW, and are EQUIPPED to die as heros.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The first victim was unarmed, and murdered in her sleep. She was not armed. Despite the fact that I own a number of weapons, if I travel to New York by way of an aircraft next week, I will be unarmed while traveling, and while in New York.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"Armed guards" are authority figures. Children are already indoctrinated to see uniformed armed men as authority figures. This is not a good thing. Children SHOULD be conditioned to see teachers and principals as authority figures. They should not be conditioned to accept any damned fool in a uniform and carrying a weapon as an authority.
I invite you to meet some security people, and get to know them. Get acquainted with the people at a security service company.
I've met many over the years. Security personnel are very underpaid. Very, very, very underpaid. Sanitation workers are better paid. Your auto mechanic is better paid (unless you go to a shade tree mechanic with no real training at all). In this underpaid line of work, you find uneducated people, lazy people, dumb people, even stupid people. You can find, with little effort, people with delusions of grandeur, people who are borderline psychotic.
While there ARE a percentage of security guards who are bright, hard working, and stable, there is no guarantee that those are the people who will be working in a school. It's far more likely that those stable guards will be sitting in their home office, filling out rosters, taking phone calls, making field trips to assess new assignments, and things like that.
Have you looked at the TSA? There are a lot of examples of idiots put into positions of authority, who never should have been.
Teachers, on the other hand, are far more likely to be dedicated, hard working, intelligent, and caring. Note that I don't make that claim for all teachers. I merely point out that they are far more likely to be so.
Arm the teachers. I trust most teachers more than I trust most security guards.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I disagree: everyone who passed high-school chemistry should know how!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I think you're thinking of Robert Heinlein's Beyond this Horizon. I thought there were interesting parts in that book. For example it was one of my first exposures to the ethics of controls in experimentation (I was in my mid teens when I read it). There was the idea that you could apply the scientific method to investigate life after death. But the "armed society is a polite society"? Look at US politics, the Tea Party, road rage shootings, Trayvon Martin, and countless other situations, and tell me that the USA isn't a counter-example to Heinlein's assertion.
Too many people get a feeling of power from wielding a gun, and let it get to their heads. As an armed society, the US is a trigger happy society. First competent person to escalate and draw wins ("You're dissing me man!" over a small disagreement). When people in the US are polite, it's more likely a question of golden-rule upbringing and self-discipline than a respect of possible weapons at disposal.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
I would expect to find fixens for homemade firecrackers in the average teenage boys control. That's nowhere near evidence he was going to hurt anyone. If he was building pipe-bombs then he was trying to hurt someone.
I, for one, turned the local baseball field pitchers mound into a pitchers crater every 4th of July for a good 5 years. It was really stupid to establish a pattern like that, the last year we go lucky and didn't have to run. We saw the slow fuse light the fast fuse right as a cop car prowled by. Casual but fast walk waiting for the boom that never happened. Waited a half hour then reset and detonated. It was good to be a kid.
I had both stick figure flip porn and stick figure flip murder on the edges of my school books. Just what I did to the cover of 'Julius Caesar' would have got me committed if I did them today. Get stabbed that many times and you would have guts hanging out and a dangling eyeball. I was a gifted young artist.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'