The article said that the kid had stuff with Nazi and white supremacy symbols and words on it. I’m pretty sure he’s not innocent in any of this.
He’s in middle school. 13 year olds’ political beliefs don’t typically extend beyond whatever news channel their parents watch, and whatever pipeline YouTube has pushed them down. Could he cause a lot of damage with those political beliefs? Absolutely. But those beliefs didn’t spawn out of the ether. He didn’t just casually stumble upon them. They were put in front of him.
Well, kids learn from thier parents. Unfortunately he was taught to hate. I don’t think he is to blame. But of course he can’t just go free either.
Kids also learn from unfettered access to the internet, which it sounds like was a big factor in this case.
I had unfettered internet access and even checked out stormfront and other Nazi communities out of morbid curiosity (it was the 90s – I really didn’t think they’d ever be relevant again), but then I also didn’t have social media, infinite scrolling, or dopamine jacking feeds, so fuck me maybe I just got lucky.
Agreed. We really should have better mental rehabilitative services, especially for youth but who am I kidding with how this country is going.
He’s 14. He’s about as innocent as every other child. While he should certainly be educated and corrected, allowing a child to fall into that shit is the fault of their guardian.
Do you remember all the stupid shit you thought and believed at 14?
Kids do dumb things and hopefully learn from their mistakes but I dont think actively planning to shoot up a school is one of those things you can argue as innocuous.
The article doesn’t say whether he originally had these thoughts or if it was pressed onto him by his mother. It definitely sounds like he was at the very least encouraged to do extreme violence by his mother and he said himself that he looked up to other shooters and thought he would be famous.
The kid needs some mental health counseling at the very least in my opinion.
