Hacker News Reader

Comment by arp242 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I read that the other day. I never claimed he is innocent, but "life" is a long time. I don't know the kid or any details, but are you really sure he's still going to be a danger in 10 years? Or 20 years?

> He's also not a child. He's 17 years old, and fully capable of understanding the risk of harm he exposed hundreds of people to.

It's not. Brains keep developing until the age of 25 or so. Age of consent and age of $lots_of_things is 18 (arguably too young, IMHO).

Trailing people as adults when they're considered too young to vote, buy alcohol, etc. is quite frankly ridiculous.

View on HN

It's not like he just did this once or twice. He has apparently engaged in this activity some hundreds of times. Purposely putting people's lives at risk, probably specifically hoping to cause as much harm as possible. He literally offered his "swatting" services on Telegram. This isn't like some one-off bad decision, this was a persistent extremely malicious intent and could have resulted in substantial loss of life. Yeah, I don't think he should be jailed for life, but this is a person who should not be walking free in society until he has proven substantial fundamental change.

> I don't think he should be jailed for life, but this is a person who should not be walking free in society until he has proven substantial fundamental change.

Fully agree with that; obviously this is all very serious. But that is a fundamentally different position than "he should be locked up for life!"

Yeah for real, a life sentence is a pretty over-the-top suggestion.

> but are you really sure he's still going to be a danger in 10 years? Or 20 years?

Nobody knows, but the person lost the chance for society to give them the benefit of the doubt.

They know it’s wrong. They did it HUNDREDS OF TIMES.

Sociopaths cannot be cured.

SWATing is literally equivalent to shooting at someone with the intention to kill.

Until there is serious consequences for people who do it, it won't stop.

I never said there shouldn't be serious consequences. Ya'll treating this as some sort of binary choice between "lock a teenager up for life" vs. "give him a slap on the wrist".

It's far from certain he actually is a sociopath. Half the teenagers out there are semi-sociopaths on account of being teenagers. And it's really not the same as shooting at someone, much less "with the intent to kill". SWATting is SWATting, and comparing it to other things is silly because other things are, well, other things.

Neither is being a child or an adult a binary. Yes, the law generally makes a sharpe distinction based on age, but it does sometime recognize that someone who is close to the age of adulthood and who has been charged with particularly high impact and violent crime can be treated as an adult.

Whether an adult should or should not be imprisoned for life is a different question, but I cannot see treating this person a “child” appropriate.

What an absurd position. Comparing things helps calibrate the response. You compare situations to others you've experienced in the past to come up with an appropriate reaction.

What's the intent of SWATing? It is attempted murder.

And no, half the teenagers are not sociopaths. Sociopathy is a well defined condition that cannot be cured.

You're clearly neither a doctor nor a lawyer and have chosen a weird hill to die on, but carry on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com