Nikolas Cruz, who shot up the school in Parkland, Florida had said he was going to become a professional shooter. Surely that is a terroristic threat.
And, one that should be taken seriously.
As we discuss whether people should be arrested for making threats against other people's lives and health and well-being, though, it becomes apparent many of us make idle threats. Are we going to haul someone off to jail every time they say, "I'm going to kill you"?
I think you make a distinction, when you can. You specify in your law that if the threat can be taken seriously, then you prosecute.
I do, also, believe there is danger in such idle threats. How often has someone said, "I wish he were dead" and another person has said, "Oh, you do not," and the person has responded, sincerely, "Oh, yes, I do." Such a statement is a sincere expression, a sincere wish, though it is not likely to be something the person would act on. He or she wouldn't take another person's life just because they wished them dead. But, again, there is in such a statement the seed of what does become -- not usually and not often, but it does happen. There will be, indeed, times that such a statement grows in a person and the person does reach a point of considering ways to end another person's life.
So, such statements are not healthy. And, discouraging them is the right thing to do. Yes, make the law state that there must be reason to believe the threat could be carried out. Still, whenever the idle threat is investigated -- and no charges are filed -- suggest to the person an alternative feeling, suggest that it is not that they want that person to die, but rather that they just want that person away from them and out of their life.
And, whenever a threat was intended, or could be taken to have been serious, the person making the threat should be prosecuted.
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