School Threats

This article was written about a child who threatened a school and tried to acquire explosives. It states that he could spend up to nine years in jail. Nine years in jail would make him twenty seven when he gets out. That’s a third of his life wasted in jail over a bit of anger that got out of control. Even if he didn’t plan on actually blowing the school and it was just a statement made from his anger, the court will still take you seriously and they wouldn’t show any clemency. After reading “Teen Arrested in Potential School Threat Charged” by the associated press I made a connection to some personal experiences I had with school threats which lead me to ask the question, are school threats taken to seriously. I believe that in most cases people take the average school threat to seriously. I can see why they acted strongly on this threat because he tried to buy explosive but other statements that are somewhat threatening are taken too seriously. I have friends who have gotten in a bunch of trouble because they made a remark about causing violence towards a school in a jokingly way. One of my friends had to go to court and now has to go to anger classes because he made a joke about shooting up a school and a teacher over heard him and took it seriously. Another friend of mine said he was going to kill another student in a joking way but a teacher over heard of him and he got suspended. Another example of people being too uptight was when I told my best friend I had a surprise for him but he wouldn’t be able to find out till after school. He thought I meant I was going to beat him up so he told a teacher and I got a half day in school suspension. When I said I had a surprise it was really some money for a birthday present. I believe that everyone is to up tight about the average threatening statements because most of them are jokes. I think that in some cases it’s alright to take further action on these threats if you have good reason to believe they are actually going to go through with the actions they say they are going to do.