1776 Bomb Plot

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Driving home from dinner, I heard on NPR about the 18-year-old high school student in S.C. who bought 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate on eBay, and had obtained bomb-building plans and materials, planning to blow up his high school (and himself). He had taped an audio message to be played after his death. According to the report, he was a straight A student, and didn't appear to have any problems. His parents discovered what he was up to, and called the police.

He is now facing multiple federal charges including intent to use WMD, and if convicted of all charges could get a life sentence (according to the NPR report) or 2 to 15 years (according to the online report).

Now, here's where my sometimes liberal leanings show.

The kid is sick. He needs psychiatric help, and not just a bottle of pills. If you throw him in jail with no or minimal counselling, he will never have a chance at all, and he'll eventually be turned loose bitter. If he goes to prison at all, it may as well be for life, because any prison sentence will be a life sentence, which doesn't seem fair because he's obviously sick.

Shouldn't we find out first if it's going to be a lifelong illness? Or if it's curable?
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