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4 Calif. Students Arrested For Alleged Mass-Killing Plot
The New York Times reports that four high school students in the small California town of Tuolumne, about 120 miles east of San Francisco, have been arrested, but not yet charged, for planning an attack on their school, Summerville High School. According to the Times, three of the four were overheard discussing this plot, and a fourth conspirator was later identified. Their goal, according to Toulumne sheriff James Mele, was "to shoot and kill as many people as possible at the campus"; they had not however been able yet to obtain the weapons they wanted to carry out the attack. From NBC News' version of the story:
"Detectives located evidence verifying a plot to shoot staff and students at Summerville High School," Mele said. "The suspects' plan was very detailed in nature and included names of would-be victims, locations and the methods in which the plan was to be carried out."
Are you trying to cleverly imply that since the presence of the law doesn't stop people from breaking it, the law should go away?
I mean, we have laws against murder, but murder still happens, so I guess we should do away with the law. People drive over the speed limit, and speed in school zones, I guess we should get rid of those laws too.
There might be reasons to get rid of that law, but this reason is stupid.
Then why did you click the link? You could have spent 3 seconds reading the headline and scrolled on to the next article.
The school was designated a gun-free zone.
That totally misses the point. Planned massacres, like terrorism, make up only a very small proportion of gun deaths. The reason for keeping weapons such as knives out of schools (or anywhere else) is to reduce the chance of fights escalating and becoming deadly. It has nothing to do with the lesser problem of killing sprees.
And the idea that schools in the US even need "gun-free zone" signs is bat-shit crazy. On the other side of the world, I did not need any sign or rule to know that if I sneaked my dad's shotgun into school, I'd be facing certain suspension. (That was before secure gun safes were mandatory.)
I come here for geek/tech news.
Thats odd. Most people come here to read the comments. Nobody reads TFA.
Spoken like someone who wasn't around when Jon Katz was writing his "Voices From The Hellmouth" columns, after the LIttleton massacre when nerdy teens were suddenly public enemy #1. As an old-timer, this looks exactly like the sort of story I'd expect /. to link to and discuss.
I read stuff like this on real news sites.
Not really. The only reason "terrorism" is relevant here at all, is that Americans are get so scared they shit themselves all over the Constitution whenever terrorism is mentioned. Unless your so-called news site basically says, "some insignificant statistic happened, so get ready to give up more freedoms and/or expect people to start discussing terrorism again", then it's not a real news site.
Wake me up when terrorists kill more people than peanuts. People aren't afraid of dangerous things like cars, but shit themselves over terrists.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways