Arianddu wrote:Behshad wrote:I disagree Voyager
It had to do with gun control.
You don't lock a gun away from an eleven year old , the chances of something like this happening doubles. Not to mention the fact that a gun totally increases the chance of killing someone rather just injuring them.
The gun makes it easier to take out the "target" than a knife or a "sledge hammer while asleep "
Nevertheless, if the dad didn't know that the kid had issues , I doubt if this family would have had a bright future.
Hopefully this sends out a message to all stepmom and stepdads out there , specially the ones who don't treat a stepchild as their own
Agreed. I'm not denying that the kid has serious issues, but there is a big difference between taking a gun and pulling a trigger, and picking up a sledge hammer and battering someone to death or stabbing them with a knife. The gun puts distance between you; you pull the trigger but the bullet does the damage. I can see a lot of people pulling a trigger in cold blood; it's much harder to picture them coldly battering someone to death.
I can also see the kid getting on the bus and going to school, and later lying about what has happened. The brain is very good at denying trauma. They say there is a 10 minute window on suicide in most cases; from the impulse to the act is about 10-15 minutes and if not acted on in that time frame, then it isn't likely to be acted on at all. I have a feeling the same thing happened here; maybe a fight happened, maybe the kid spent the night dwelling on the situation, and the idea just came 'if she wasn't here...' No follow through thought, no consideration, just impulse and do and then the brain just denies what just happened.
I used to do a lot of volunteer work helping with relief care for familes where a family member (usually a parent) had cancer. The 8-12 year olds were the hardest for me, because they were old enough to grasp the concept of someone dying, but not old enough to understand what it means to have some die. "Dad is dying" meant Dad was going to die, to go away, wouldn't be there, they were able to say that, and understand it, and be upset by it, but it was on the same level as "Dad is leaving". When the death did occur, very often those kids didn't start really grieving until they were in their late teens or early twenties, because that's when they finally 'understood' what it means on an emotional level. I can see for this kid, shooting someone with a gun is to a certain extent still 'bang bang you're dead' - in the moment at least. He understood what he was doing enough to deny it after the act, but not to fully understand the enormity of what he'd done, or to understand the consequences properly.
Not only that, but 10-13 is probably the most amoral time in our lives. Most kids that age steal, lie, tease, bully and torment at some point. For some it's a one-off thing, for others it becomes habit. It seems to be part of growing into an adult; it's like we lose the shackles of childhood obedience, but haven't yet grown up enough to have our conscience or 'in-built' morality kick in.
I'm not trying to excuse the kid, just trying to get my head around how this could happen. Two things are certain: 1. There's more to the story than we know so far and 2. there's no way the kid fully comprehends the consequences of what he's done.
If that's true, then trying him as an adult is unfair. That being said, I think this kid needs to be put away forever, however it's fair to try him. He's not safe to be let back into society. If there is some sort of psychosis going on, it'll rear it's head again later.
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