STOP REFERRING TO SWATTING AS A PRANK. IT IS NOWHERE NEAR A PRANK.
Also, it clearly is a prank. A dangerous and reckless one, but the idea is still to have a giggle at someone's expense.
I don't see how mischaracterizing the intent of this act will help us fight it.
That's not pranking someone.
How so?
If the people on doling out the calls are laughing at other people's expense, then it certainly is a prank. It's just a tasteless and dangerous one.
So swatting is arguably a prank (in the sense you write about) but people don't like the label because it is dismissive of the danger created by the swatting.
Says who?
Examples of irresponsible and dangerous pranks abound.
More to the point, the intent is still to have a laugh at someone's expense which fits the dictionary definition of "prank" quite well: a practical joke or mischievous act.
In anticipation of the nitpicking over the term "mischief", I submit the google definition thereof: harm or trouble caused by someone or something.
Sorry, but the fact that calling this a prank should get people so upset is really, really bizarre.
I'm the one saying it carries that connotation for the reason I followed up with. Feel free to think I'm wrong.
The intent is obviously not to kill the target, but I also doubt that the perpetrators would feel any remorse if it ended up in a death (they would rationalize it away as the police's fault, not their own).
It's classification as a prank by the (teenager, gamer, 4chan, etc) culture that encourages this isn't helped by the fact that this is just an escalation of other "use a phone call to rain disorder onto someone's life" pranks:
* Placing large pizza delivery orders for the target.
* For a while you could order free boxes off of the USPS website, and I remember it being a thing where people would get a group to order a ton of boxes and send them to someone.
Many people from that sub-culture see swatting as basically the "nuclear weapon" of those types of revenge "pranks." I can't say that I've personally witnessed the escalation to SWAT'ing, but it seems to be people from that sub-culture/mindset that see SWAT'ing as a funny joke to throw at someone that annoys them.
Why else would you send a paramilitary force to someone's home, if not to hope they get shot?
The motive is clearly to have a laugh at someone's expense. Where I come from, that's qualified as a prank, and does not preclude the act from also being attempted murder.
The extent to which everybody wants to play with words wrt this issue is puzzling.