I've known this kid for about seven years. We used to go to the same school right nearby, and then we both transfered to this other school about half an hour away. He has had a pretty hard time socially; at neither school he really fit in.

Online chats. So monday evening, all these kids get together, and start making fun of him online. Its really quite terrible that such an event would occur, but so goes high school I guess.

So the next day he comes to school with a ****ING GUN. A shotgun. He threatens two of the kids in who were in the chatroom.

Needless to say, he is suspended indefinately. However, should he be expelled?

Its really quite terrible that someone has to actually shoot a gun for it to become national news, and a terrorist attack actually has to go through because it becomes a national tragedy.

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To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

As long as no one was hurt, I'm glad they got the **** scared out of them.

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Is Wayne Brady going to have to choke a *****?

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited May 19, 2004).]

Not only should he be expelled, but he should be charged with assualt with a deadly weapon at the very least. I'm sure there are other charges to be pursued as well.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

That's one effed up kid.

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WOOSH|-----@%

amen. they deserved it.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

Here's the line.

<points at floor>

There's the kid. Yep, that's him the other side of said line, mooning it.

I'd say something worse but am trying to keep it family language around here, and the filters just remove any comedy value...

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If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.

He can't be charged with assault unless he actually fired the gun or swung it at them.

This kid must have weak self-control. Common sense would tell you to not do something stupid like that.

On the other hand, the other kids shouldn't have been making fun of him to begin with. They're all guilty as far as I'm concerned.

It's too bad some people just can't keep their cool and take the "compliments" with pride.

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for(i = 0; i < 00; i = i + 1) Print("massassi is good");
PrintInt(i); //print the integer value of infinity

Wait a minute. These kids teased him, right? Sure, that's a crappy thing to do but I highly doubt it's deserving of having a shotgun waved in their face. Now the kid that brought the shotgun to school needs to be either prosecuted severely, psychiatiric counselling, or both.

I realize that some kids have a very tough time. Some kids might have problems that certain A-holes take advantage of. Sometimes their personalities attract the "extra" attention. I'm not giving the other kids a total pass but the biggest thing that caught my eye was that the teasing you're referring to happened online. That is TOTALLY avoidable. I do feel bad for the kid because he must have some serious problems in order to pull a stunt like this but I don't think that is an excuse to not deal harshly with him in this situation given this small ammount of information.

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Have you forgotten ...

All he has to do is tell them he is going to blow their head off with the shotgun he has in his locker after class. As long as they feel threatened(which anyone would be), he can be charged with assault.

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Is Wayne Brady going to have to choke a *****?

As long as no one got hurt its OK? Gee, if its really OK, maybe I'll pull out a gun on anyone that offends me, and as long as I dont actually shoot them, then they deserved it!

This was not OK... we dont even know the level of teasing the guys were doing, but even the most horrible things they could have said about him weren't life threatening. A gun, however, is very life threatening. It's so easy to laugh it off and say "heh, they got what they deserved, picking on a kid like that," but everyone has picked on someone at some point. Even people who are low on life's "Totem Pole" find someone lower to raise their self-esteem a bit. And if there is anyone who has so much confidence in themself that they never pick on anyone, then they surely wont go pulling guns on people who try to irk them.

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"Guns don't kill people, I kill people."

You don't have to pull the trigger to be charged with assault. Threatening someone ith a weapon is enough.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

I don't think anyone here can say anything about it. We don't know what they said, if there were any past offences, etc. There's always the excuses like "He could have left anytime" or "He should have more self-control", well those don't matter. It could be most of this was from a previous engagement, and all of this was only eventual. As for self-control, nobody has self-control anymore, nobody has to. Why should he have any more than the idiots who don't have enough self-control to keep their comments and opinions to themselves?

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There is no signature

It takes about 5 seconds or less to ignore someone on an instant messenger. This kid deserves more than what he is getting.

I never used to fit in. ever. anywhere. then i started givng people a chance to see what kinda person i am, and nowdays i dont know one person who doesnt ever pick on me unless we both know we're just kidding, and im friendly to everyone, and they're friendly back. kids nowdays need to learn that people will not change if you just 'wait it out'. you need to take charge of your life if you plan to not be miserable all the time, and give into people's stupid remarks.



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There are two asses in Massassi... and I'm one of them.
The Matrix Unplugged|My Portfolio|My Levels

To clarify, this is by no means an isolated incident. He's been treated cruely for years in two seperate schools. He has issues, which lead to him being made fun of, which leads to him freaking out and bringing a gun to school... its kind of like the opposite of a catch 22, where everything just builds up. If people didn't make fun of him, he wouldn't have issues, and if he didn't have issues, people wouldn't make fun of him, but alas, both are the case.

These issues, by the way, were until today treated as just the issues of someone who was bad at socializing, not the issues of a crazed person who is bringing a weapon to school.

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To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

Imagine the whole world is against you. What would you do? How would you react? That's what it feels like when you're picked on in school. You might go a little insane. You might start thinking, "if the world wants to bring me down, I'm going down fighting."

Kids like this needs help, not punishment.

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Because you're as bored as I am
"This world is made of love and peace!"
"Let's live today, let's live tomorrow, and let's live the day after that, even if it means living in eternal pain."
- Vash the Stampede

People these days are forgetting how to socialize. People like this kid are having hard times in high school because they do not realize that in order to fit in, you must be able to stand up for yourself and if someone is giving you trouble, you must be able to make sure that the offending person has his a** handed to him. You can't learn that if you never go out in the world and see how it really works. With the internet, people are becoming very adept at isolating themselves from the world and because of this, their abilities to socialize effectively are diminished and they become introverted nerds, for the lack of a better word. Nice guys believe the pacifistic bulls*** that says that it is wrong to act agressively, that you must instead hope that people will leave you alone, and that bullies hate you b/c you are smarter than them, etc. The real solution to this problem can be found by going back to our roots. Human nature cannot be broken in this way; when people realize that they have to stop fighting their natural agression and stop rejecting what they are by being overly nice, then this problem will go away.

The ideal balance is someone with passive-aggressive behavior. Someone that is only passive will be exploited through life until they snap (as is the case with this kid). Someone that is only aggressive causes these problems in the first place. The ideal balance is someone that is laid back but will not take s*** from anyone, and conveys this to everyone without having to verbally tell them.

These passive people are usually nice guys that are in a sense afraid of their testosterone. Others perceive this as weakness, so those who are stronger dominate those who are weaker. It's how it works in nature, and as humans with a higher intellect than the rest of the animals, we are still not all that different.


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Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

[This message has been edited by Pagewizard_YKS (edited May 19, 2004).]

Like I said, we can't tell from the little we know enough to accurately address his situation specifically. He needs help, I'm sure, but this action cannot be tolerated. I really do feel bad for the guy because he's obviously overwhelmed but that doesn't change the facts of what he did.

Poor kid.

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Have you forgotten ...

they need both. if you just give them help then they think that when they mess up in life, its okay because you're nuts. thats not the way it should work. They need to first know that what they did was wrong, be punished, then fix the problem.



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There are two asses in Massassi... and I'm one of them.
The Matrix Unplugged|My Portfolio|My Levels

When kids from my moron town try me on aim I verbaly tear them up but yeah. Honest to say he should have used the gun.

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All your my forums, belong to me.
Duel Roadkill
Who wants to play BOOM 3?
BOOM 3

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All your my forums, belong to me.
Duel Roadkill
Who wants to play BOOM 3?
BOOM 3

Actually, it would "intended assault" or something of the like.

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Prowling out of the tundra, swinging a jeweled meat hammer, cometh Outlaw Torn! And he gives a gutteral bellow:

"I'm seriously going to hump you until you scream like a banshee!"

There's a right way and a wrong way to deal with any situation, and that kid definitely chose the wrong way. Now he's gotta live with the consequences.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

Technically, shouldn't the parents be charged (assuming he's a minor) If he is, it's his parents' fault that he had possession of the gun. Sorry if something like this has been said or clarified, didn't have enough time to read all the posts.

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Maker of the Levels:
Sand Trap
Sand Trap (Night)

Writer/Author of the fanfic: Dragonball Aftershock

_.~'AKA DBF_SuperSaiyan'~._

Depends on the situation. If the gun was locked up and such, then the parents are in the clear. IF they left it out where the kid could get his hands on it, then hey can be charged with some sort of negligence. Still, the kid shouldn't get out of this with out some sort of punishment.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

They need strong punishment. You don't bring a gun to school, period. He needs to be expelled to teach others the lesson of think before acting. This kid should have thought about the consequences of his actions. By high school you are quite aware of right and wrong. He can't weasle his way out of this one. If he needs help, then I have no objections to that but discipline first.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

no matter what anyone would say about me i would never bring a gun into it... fists maybe... words definately

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

I nver leave home without my fists.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

I take mine off every night before bed.

Yeah, I'm some kind if robot. And I use my powers for awesome.

I really don't understand your logic at all.

He should have used the gun.. you're pretty much saying he could have killed me. Do you realize what happened? Eye for an Eye, tooth for a Tooth... that is not the case here. We are talking someone thinking the way to equate someone making fun of them online is threatening their lives.... and then actually backing up that threat.

Obviously there is more to the reason for his reaction than just that, being as he has had quite a few years of bullying, but its not like he has found nobody to bully either. Infact at one point, when I was lower on the 'social totem poll' than him, he made it very clear that he was going to monopolize on that.

Please... Don't be ridiculous. Do folks honestly beileve that he made a mistake because he didn't use the gun?!

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To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

I'm not sure that the parents should be charged with anything even if they left the weapon unsecure. The reason I'm saying this is we don't have any reason yet to believe that his parents thought he had mental defects. He also might have been trained and taught the proper use and care of the weapon and it may have been accessible to him for home defense purposes. That's all conjecture but my point is we don't know enough about the situation at this point.

And Eversor, like I said above, people are just going off what they know at this point. I do highly doubt anyone here wanted him to use the gun but some people have a knee jerk reaction because those "poor" Columbine gunmen were bullied so it's really not all their fault. I personally could not disagree with the point of view more but it's not like it matters now.

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Have you forgotten ...

He should get a beating... everybody knows you don't take your weapon out unless you're gonna use it.

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Drugs & Stupidity, Tons of it.

The columbine incident happened when i was a freshman.


Everyone who picked on me when i was in middle school apologized and gav me deferance after that. it confused me very much.

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<Dormouse> there are very few things quite as comforting as smelling like a close friend.

We are only human, perfect in our imperfections. - Erin amie du Dor

<Dormouse> it's really cute in the way that a sherman tank with a fuzzy steering wheel is cute

He can actually be tried for criminal threatening and he should be. Being mentally unstable is no excuse to get him off the hook. It's more an excuse to put him away so he doesn't do it again.

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Baby Mama's Drama

Pagewizard is completely right. Taking years of bullying, then finally fighting back is not the answer. You need to fight back everytime it happens, and they will learn you can't be picked on. At worse they become your enemies, but will at least leave you alone.

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"If there's one thing I've learned it's this - you just can't shake hands with a fist" - David Allen Coe

Have a source? I was told otherwise in a law class I took in college. According to what I'm told, an actual attack attempt has to be made, not just a threat.

This child should be locked up forever, and never let out. Someone without enough common sense to refrain from bringing a firearm to school because someone made fun of you means that you're unstable. Give this kid the responsabilities of Alcohol and he'll actually end up shooting someone for calling him a "*****" or something equally harmless.

Besides, shotguns are futile. Words are of far more damage and prolonged pain.

JediKirby

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<]-[ellequin> Nothing is quite as satisfying as placing a .177 lead pellet in between the eyes of a cat.
<]-[ellequin> I think I will leave it's corpse there, to warn all the other cats to keep out of my hibiscus patch

Live on, Adam.

Shoulda ****ing shot them in the *** . I don't take that kinda crap, and it makes me feel even worse when I see it or hear about it. Blah...

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"A tiger? In Africa?!"

"True as toasted toads!"

Here's one. This one is military law, but it offers a decent general definition of assault.

Most states also have their criminal codes posted online. Here's Florida's, for example: 'An "assault" is an intentional, unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to the person of another, coupled with an apparent ability to do so, and doing some act which creates a well-founded fear in such other person that such violence is imminent.'

The key factor is that you do something to give the victim a reasonable fear that you're going to harm him. Pointing a gun at someone and threatening his life qualifies.

[This message has been edited by Argath (edited May 20, 2004).]