A 19 year old was arrested for making a post on the internet site Snapchat saying that after he was done at the firing range he was going to his university campus to enact a "Columbine" (alluding to a mass murder). Presumably the message was a joke and not serious, but authorities are assuming it is serious. John Hagins attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. ( news article date December 9, 2021 ) Two students had reported worrying messages they saw on a group chat to the university's campus security team. The two students were part of a group that received the group message. After emergency responders were informed by campus security at 4:10 in the early morning police rushed to where the suspect lived and detained him as he was coming out of his apartment. He was arrested for supposedly "plotting to shoot up the campus". Hagins was charged with written threats to injure or kill, terrorism, and attempted first-degree homicide. Hagins did own a rifle. Some opinion about this story: I suppose it is understandable that police and authorities want to be careful, and there is the mentality of "better safe than sorry". It is sad that simply joking around by making a post on an internet site has to be criminalized and can lead to someone being put in prison. That does not seem to go so well with the idea of "freedom of speech", or even freedom in general. And one does have to ask what this type of policy really accomplishes. Individuals who are actually planning to commit a mass murder are not likely to public announce it beforehand, if this is going to be the standard response. Of course in this climate of modern paranoia, if someone already owns a gun, it barely takes the tiniest thing that could be perceived as a threat or flimsiest excuse to see them as a danger. So in some ways, this is part of the anti-gun mentality in disguise. (obviously if someone expressed online the notion of stabbing someone else with a fork it would not be seen as such serious threat, since forks are ubiquitous and nearly everyone has one) related threads: Two schoolboys arrested for "plotting" school shooting, probably should NOT have been arrested overreaction and tough response to school shooting threats Man arrested over video that carried "implied" threat, $250,000 bail
I would say that constitutes making threats, which is a crime. Some school shootings have in fact occured after the shooter made threats to go on a shooting spree at school. Clearly kids make dumb decisions and joke publicly about things that are wildly innapropriate and alarming, and that should be taken into account when dishing out sentences for making 'threats'. But this guy is 19, aka an adult. I don't support sending this guy to prison, but I do support with enthusiasm placing him under arrest until it can be made certain that it was in fact only a joke, and possibly putting him on probation or something, because making threats is and should be a crime with an objective consequence, and 'I was joking' should not be an easy excuse for threatenning violence. I don't think whether he actually owns a gun or not is relevent. I would support the above for someone who didn't own a gun as much as for someone who did. There's plenty of people who don't officially own a gun but still have access to one, whether its a friend's or family member's or whether its an 'off the books' gun they have stashed somewhere. Just because he has one that is known about doesn't make him objectively different than anyone else.
I wonder, should "making threats" even be a crime? I can see when it is done to harass someone, or to intimidate someone into doing or giving something (which is extortion), but that was not the case here. The comment in this case wasn't even really made publicly but was within a private group. These days, with the internet and everyone carrying around computerized portable phones, it's easy for anyone to make a post that could constitute "a threat". Almost too easy.
A private joke, where all involved know it to be a joke, is a joke. A public joke where everyone doesn't know it's a joke, is a problem. This topics subject is a case in point. Authorities did what they had to do.
Well the next morning while he was under surveillance he headed for school with his backpack and inside was this.
“I’m going to shoot a place up”… is not a joke. There are moments when it can work but it’s not really that funny.
That's not exactly what he said. People are taking statements far too ridiculously these days, and it's getting insane. Freedoms being thrown away in the name of "safety". We're living in a climate of paranoia.
Correct but this is what he actually stated. “He said once he was done at that firing range he was going to campus to enact a Columbine so that’s what we are dealing with.”
people are getting away with death threats, that needs to stop, it's getting insane this is up there with yelling fire in a crowded theater, not about freedom
yes, making death threats should be a crime, especially threats of mass shootings imagine churches were being shot up and someone threatened to shoot up the Sunday School children at the church, should that be a crime? of course, it should be, that is not a joke
I see why his friends were worried and reported him "Students who reported troubling Snapchat messages thwarted a potential mass shooting at a Florida campus, officials say" https://localnews8.com/news/nationa...shooting-at-a-florida-campus-officials-say-3/ "The friend, according to the affidavit, told police that Hagins showed them the gun and said, “I finished my back-to-school shopping.”"
There was a time, not all that long ago, such a statement would be one up man ship. But back then students would bring rifles to school to participate in target practice as a school activity and none of us ever thought of shooting another student, we where too normal to do something that mentally ill.
If he was indeed joking I don't think you should face in the charges and it should be pretty easy to find out. But yeah jokes like this should be taken seriously. And it should be turned German to whether or not they're actually jokes because I bet that's a good way to get away with doing it even after being addressed by police. This goes with my viewpoint that social media like this is probably not a good idea.
But he wasn't joking the next morning he loaded up his backpack with his new gun and a few mags of ammo to go to school.
Maybe, but I don't know if that's entirely fair to judge by. One of the dirty police investigators could have put it in the backpack so they would have an excuse to arrest him, knowing that otherwise they might not have enough evidence. (Something like this happened to one of my family members) Maybe he commonly went to the shooting range carrying the gun in that backpack. Maybe he was simply storing that gun in the backpack in that room. I know that may sound strange, but I have two backpacks in my closet with personal belongings stored inside them. Backpacks can make a great storage bag.
