Teen Indicted

[KD5NRH]

To be a prohibited weapon, it had to be something other than a standard family 22. Maybe sawed off, maybe automatic, maybe just the stock cut off short, but certainly not just a regular rifle.

Could also be a zip gun. Homemade firearms aren't that much of a stretch for a 17 year old.

[seamusTX]

A zip gun cannot be a rifle. Very few people have the skill and equipment to make a rifled barrel. Zip guns are usually made with plumbing pipe.

- Jim

[KD5NRH]

Aha:

Inside they found a 17-year-old male hiding in a closet and a high-powered rifle believed to have been used in the shooting. Officers also found a sawed-off shotgun.

http://www.panews.com/local/local_story_292103315.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looks like he also had five warrants issued for other stuff in the last few months:
http://www.co.jefferson.tx.us/jp/jp_warrants_s.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[seamusTX]

The warrants were for truancy and failure to appear in court, not exactly heinous crimes. However, it seems this young man is well on his way down the wrong road.

- Jim

[seamusTX]

It just seems to me we are going to lock this kid up to "teach him a lesson" and he is going to get out and be mad at the world and most likely commit a real crime, thanks to his free education at the school of hard knocks.

You're a liberal. You just don't know it yet.

I agree that prisons are a finishing school for criminals. I don't know what to do about it, either. Many ways of reforming young hooligans have been tried over the years -- transportation (to North America or Australia), compulsory military service, prison farms, "tough love." All of them work some of the time. None of them work of all the time.

These days, first-time offenders nearly always get probation unless the crime was notorious. Then they come back for their second chance, third chance, etc., until they get hard time.

If the news reports are correct and the kid was telling the truth, he bought the weapons without his parents' knowledge. I doubt he was going to go deer hunting or skeet shooting.

- Jim

[KD5NRH]

The warrants were for truancy and failure to appear in court, not exactly heinous crimes. However, it seems this young man is well on his way down the wrong road.

Given the issue dates for his and the person above him, I'd feel safe in saying that he had either a lack of parental guidance, or parental guidance of entirely the wrong sort.

[seamusTX]

Keen observation.

Anyone can screw up, get busted, and deal with the issue; but failing to appear indicates a lack of respect for the justice system.

- Jim

[Oldgringo]

Keen observation.

Anyone can screw up, get busted, and deal with the issue; but failing to appear indicates a lack of respect for the justice system.

- Jim

That pretty well sums it up. Life is all about choices and Demontae Deshawn Sutton, age 17, chose to diss society and the system and now the Piper should be paid and Demontae should be shown the error of his ways...IMO.

[seamusTX]

... Demontae should be shown the error of his ways...IMO.

If he is found guilty as charged in a court of law and sentenced, only time will tell whether he gets the message or just chalks it up to "the man" oppressing him.

I think a big problem with the criminal justice system is that those who get caught in the wringer literally don't understand what is happening to them. They get a public defender who doesn't take the time to explain the situation, even if they tried to understand.

- Jim

[juggernaut]

Prison doesn't rehabilitate criminals. It may allow some people to rehabilitate themselves but more often inmates learn how to live a life of crime. The best thing I can say about prison is the inmates are off the streets for a while. Encouraging victims to shoot the criminals is much more effective in the short and long term.

[03Lightningrocks]

LOL...I am fairly certain I am not a liberal. I find it frustrating when we as a society turn a young man into a criminal through mindless enforcement of the law. The plot does thicken as we learn more of him. If I am understanding this right, the weapons were his and were illegally purchased by him? My thoughts about him being a threat to society are changing some. When I made my first post about not sending him to jail for an accident, I was working under the belief that he had gotten his hands on weapons someone else had brought into the home.

[srothstein]

Aha:

Inside they found a 17-year-old male hiding in a closet and a high-powered rifle believed to have been used in the shooting. Officers also found a sawed-off shotgun.

That clears up the prohibited weapon. The article said he used a high power rifle for the shooting and they also found the sawed off. We jumped to the conclusion that the prohibited weapon was the one used. With so many of us having more than one gun, I am ashamed to have made that mistake.

[seamusTX]

LOL...I am fairly certain I am not a liberal.

Yield to the dark side, young Skywalker.

I find it frustrating when we as a society turn a young man into a criminal through mindless enforcement of the law.

Society does not turn people into criminals. Some parents fail to do their duty, and some children are bad seeds no matter what the parents do.

The courts are really quite forgiving, for the most part.

- Jim