←back to thread

Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

(www.wired.com)
242 points LinuxBender | 2 comments | 18 Nov 24 00:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.511s | source
Show context
plagiarist ◴[18 Nov 24 01:29 UTC] No.42168920[source]▶
It should really not be possible for a single anonymous phone call to dispatch a heavily armed response team to break down someone's door.

Aside from that, people who do so are despicable. 20 years is a light sentence. Taking money to put people in situations that could easily become deadly.

replies(5): >>42168950 #>>42168973 #>>42168992 #>>42169045 #>>42169561 #
rgmerk ◴[18 Nov 24 03:46 UTC] No.42169561[source]▶
To be ever so slightly sympathetic to American cops, unlike just about anywhere else in the developed world, it is plausible that the person behind the door is armed with anything up to an automatic rifle, and any random person they stop may be carrying a concealed firearm.

Given that, if I was busting down doors in the US, I’d want to be armed to the teeth, equipped with the best body armour money can buy, and wouldn’t waste a lot of time on niceties until I was sure that nobody was going to attempt to kill me.

Blame the Second Amendment as currently interpreted.

replies(4): >>42170533 #>>42172701 #>>42172778 #>>42173644 #
GuestFAUniverse ◴[18 Nov 24 07:40 UTC] No.42170533[source]▶
Simple solution: only allow weapons that existed during the creation of the Second Amendment.
replies(4): >>42172648 #>>42172716 #>>42174570 #>>42175130 #
smolder ◴[18 Nov 24 17:20 UTC] No.42174570[source]▶
That's actually a bad solution. Weapons weren't much less brutal then, mostly just less precise. You'd have people accidentally shooting bystanders in armed conflicts.
replies(1): >>42174897 #
1. larkost ◴[18 Nov 24 17:50 UTC] No.42174897[source]▶
We already have that: spray-and-prey is common, as are bystanders killed (even those who are just going about their lives in their own homes). But the weapons of the day were single-shot before reloading. In your argument we would only be reducing the number of bystanders reasonably shot.
replies(1): >>42177630 #
2. ndriscoll ◴[18 Nov 24 22:05 UTC] No.42177630[source]▶
The repeating air rifle with a 20 round magazine that Lewis and Clark brought on their expedition was invented over a decade before the ratification of the US Bill of Rights. If you're worried about capacity for indiscriminate violence, there were also cannons and grenades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle