So if I put on a nazi blog that said something akin to um I’m going to kill all of you… Given I don’t know who they are beside username and where they are at would I be arrested? How is that different from what the 20 year old did? He was just more specific as far as I can tell.
“In order to grant you a warrant, I’ll need proof of reasonable suspicion.”
“They said they were going to to it”
“Works for me!”
They can hold him and search his house, but they’ll need to find something that “proves” that he was being serious. Proves is in quotes because even if the threat was just a joke, and he was collecting guns for other legitimate reasons, that could be considered proof, and real charges could follow.
Where I live you can be charged with “uttering threats” and you can have the addition of “with weapons”, or “with deadly weapons”
I suspect that the mere utterance is enough for it to be a threat, even if a rational person would know it was not serious.
But what if he was just pissed off and letting off steam? Would it really require this much effort from law enforcement?
How do you expect the police to know the difference between “letting off steam” and a serious threat?
Depends quite a lot on the orifice.
If you let it out through the mouth, all the laws apply. No excuse. Especially stupidity is no excuse.
If you let it out of the other end: less harm.
Let’s say you’re the cops and someone tells you about a threat. Would you rather investigate the threat and find that it was nothing, or ignore the threat and have to explain why you didn’t do anything about the mass shooting that you were warned about?
UUhhhhh, both of those happen regularly and inside the same police force. Sometimes with the came cop.
Depends was it from a 20 year old kid who only said that specfic quote once? Then probably not. If he went on with his normal game probably not would visit him and just pretty much write it off. Now if he went on and on and wrote a manifesto online and everything they I would do more the just visit him.
I recommend looking into how much warning ACTUAL mass shooters usually give.
I totally believe your friend didn’t mean anything by it, but assuming the cops would just feel the same way without knowing anything else about him is delusional.
Please do not call him my friend. Do not hang out or have never been that pissed at something to take someone elses life. He was just near us. But thank you for the engagement