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Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

To me, this is the equivalent of blaming a person when a fanatic kills in response to some perceived offense to their belief system written by that person.

There's absolutely no way that an anonymous call alone should lead to a death except in a freak, extremely rare accident.

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The poster above comments on 'casual evil'. Can you identify what you think takes swatting out of the 'casual evil' bucket and puts it any other bucket? Because, it definitely stops being a 'prank' when multiple guns are involved.

There are literally no good consequences from a swatting, only bad consequences. I would argue that most actions that have literally no chance of good consequences, and high probably of bad consequences (minimum ruining a persons day and wasting police resources), are pretty good candidates for evil.

I know that nowadays "evil" has been debased a lot, but I wouldn't consider "wasting police resources" evil. Wasting a person's day shouldn't happen either - at most, a couple of hours.

It's not the wasting police resources that are evil, it's the causing a dangerous situation to happen where people can get shot.

Fault isn't a binary thing. It's the parent's fault for not raising their children better, it's the children's fault for not knowing better, it's the police's fault for shooting, it's everyone else's fault for perpetuating a society in which this happens.

I cannot down vote, and would rarely do so if I could, but I would here. You are blaming the hurricane on the butterfly. One guy pulled a trigger and killed someone.

I couldn't think of a more absurd reply to this incident. The whole point of swatting is to get the cops to break into your house and shake you up a bit. Anyone who's been online for the past decade knows just how trigger-happy police in America can be, and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. This was a game of chicken fueled by a remarkable lack of empathy and conscience.

You don't get to wash your hands of the blame just because you didn't pull the trigger.

It is not even close to blaming the hurricane on the butterfly.

While it should not be possible for such a prank call to lead to a lethal outcome, it currently is entirely possible and realistic for such an outcome to occur in our society today. The perpetrator knew that was a very probable outcome, and used that knowledge to intentionally instigate such a scenario in order to achieve that outcome.

Just because he didn't pull the trigger doesn't mean he doesn't share any blame.

The world is not the perfect, logical, orderly fantasy-land you seem to think it is.

Moral fault? Possibly, but minor. But I certainly don't think it should be a legal fault - at most, a fine for wasting the police's time.

Wasting the police's time is calling them to arrest the kid next door for stealing an apple from your tree.

Calling the police for a large armed response for a fake domestic violence situation is on a whole other level. IIRC, domestic violence calls are among the most dangerous that the police face, so I guess it wouldn't be a huge leap to think they would be on edge in those circumstances.

I'm sorry, wait, what? Swatting should be at most a fine? I hope I misread that.

Nope, you didn't.

This should be the legal equivalent of involuntary manslaughter. I certainly hope that's how it is prosecuted.

I agree with that - the cops should definitively be prosecuted under that charge.

I honestly don't know how to respond to your level of moral apathy towards the person who initiated a series of events that could predictably, and indeed did, lead to the completely unnecessary death of an innocent person and traumatization of a family and a police force and a city.

The police definitely share some blame, but swatting is absolutely abhorrent. It is not a victimless crime, it is not a casual prank, it is unacceptable, and your indifference is incomprehensible.

You forget that in any normal - I repeat, NORMAL - country, police would not have killed an innocent person no matter what.

I get sick when I think that one phone call and a random address can get INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS killed. Is this the American idea of being the greatest nation on earth?

If swatting deserves more than a fine, then you're living in a deeply fucked up society and should probably focus on fixing that first.

What you're suggesting would sound utterly ridiculous to someone in Europe.

People who make hoax bomb calls in the UK get prison sentences.

12 week sentence, suspended for 18 months. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales- news/bomb-hoax-caller-tells-judge-13811047

18 week sentence, suspended: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-42255427

12 month sentence (not suspended, I think) http://www.legalcheek.com/2015/02/breaking-news-nazi-bomb-ho...

2 years for a combined bomb hoax and blackmail: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/29/g4s-employe...

Swatting is clearly harmful intend that goes way beyond wasting police resources.

Calling what they did "swatting" is already a perversion. They made a phone call. Deploying a SWAT team is not, and can not be their decision.

Knowing that the situation could very easily escalate to a lethal outcome and using that knowledge in order to attempt to achieve that outcome is not a moral fault?

What's your evidence that they had the intention of achieving a lethal outcome?

That's for the court to determine. Practically speaking though, it's hard to imagine any other reason for doing what he did.

You can't be serious. I hope the swatter spends several years in jail for this.

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