CowboyT wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2024 8:13 pm I never *dreamed* of shooting another kid, even when I was upset with that kid.

A book named The Cross and the Switchblade came out just as I was going from elementary school to Junior High. (No, I didn't go to Middle School, whatever that is. I went to a proper Junior High.)

After I read it, (someone suggested I read it, but now I don't remember who) I wanted a switchblade, but they were illegal in Washington State. I ended up with a folding knife, but when push came to shove, the enormity of what I was contemplating overwhelmed me, and I never stabbed anyone.

senorgrand wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2024 11:21 am People are held accountable for the crimes of others all the time. I'm not sure what you aren't understanding. If someone tells you they are going to plant a bomb, and you have an opportunity to stop said crime either directly or by notifying the authorities, and you fail to do so, you can be held accountable. If you agree to be the getaway driver for a robbery and one of the robbers is shot dead by the police, you can be criminally held responsible for the death. Many people are "mandated reporters", who are bound by law to report suspected abuse to authorities and can be criminally prosecuted for their failure to do so. You did not plant the bomb, shoot the robber or abuse the child, but you can be held criminally accountable for the crimes. This is nothing groundbreaking.

Been thinking about this post. I'm not sure I agree that people are held responsible for others all the time.

This is the first time I've heard the term "mandated reporters", but I can see how they could be necessary-- certainly a cop who witnesses a crime is obligated to act, but can a cop be prosecuted for failing to act in such a circumstance?

Yeah. I'm a retired teacher, and we're tasked with mandated reporting in California.

CDF

Now I'm interested. This seems to go beyond how I thought the world was, and how I expected it to be.

Can one of you explain the concept of mandated reporting from beginning to end for me, please? I haven't run into it before.

Once a young woman wrote a piece in my class that described her mom placing the woman naked standing in a wash tub while the mom poured ice water over her as a punishment. I reported it to my chair. The young woman never said anything about it nor ever wrote about her life again in that way; I never told her about the report. When I got the job, I was told I held a position of public trust and there were things we were mandated to do, and this was one. The chair never told me what happened. But I felt for that young woman having that happen to her from her mom. You can see how it works when you read about kids, gender identity, and school districts.

CDF

The difference is that there is a specific law that covers schoolteachers due to their position of public trust and "in loco parentis" legal authority over other people's minor children. We have a similar law here in Virginia, and perhaps (IANAL) there's also a Federal law that requires this, too, for schoolteachers and certain other professions. They are indeed legally required to report any possible "abuse" that may come to their attention, and if they don't, they can be prosecuted under the law.

That is not the same, though, as trying a parent in court for murder if his or her child kills someone with some weapon. It's apples and oranges.

If a teacher has a mandated duty to report, why hasn't there been a teacher prosecuted for every student that shoots up a school?

Ylatkit wrote: Sun Sep 08, 2024 7:24 pm If a teacher has a mandated duty to report, why hasn't there been a teacher prosecuted for every student that shoots up a school?

That's really a good question. I've not encountered a situation that would help me answer that. I would suppose, however, that if evidence existed that the student told the teacher about violence being planned and the teacher did not report it--and it could be proven, then that teacher would be toast. But that is just supposition without evidence on my part.

CDF

As a former mandated reporter, the law requires certain occupations such as school workers, health workers, child care center workers, youth center workers, cops, firefighters, dentists, clergy, prosecutors...to report even suspected abuse and neglect. Not just of children but of vulnerable individuals, such as the retarded or disabled and the elderly. State laws vary, CA laws are very broad. They are investigated by county social services in CA and police and courts may be brought in.
https://www.childwelfare.gov/resources/ ... alifornia/

Well, then, if I understand this correctly, there are "mandated reporter" laws on several versions of the books, but no one ever enforces them. (Supposition on my part. They could be prosecuting failed mandated reporters every day, and I probably wouldn't have noticed. But I've never heard of such a prosecution.)

I gotta tell you, so far this conversation about prosecuting someone for the crimes of another is showing me large, gaping holes of moral logic in the existing patchwork of laws. In a situation that strikes me as reminiscent of the death penalty, we have this sweeping mass of law that has enormous power in it, but it sounds like it's not being used with any more moral validity than that death penalty. Both sound, at first reading, like cogent, reasonable (if extremely powerful) sets of law, until someone tries to implement them. Then things go to hell in bucket.

Because both sets of law are rife with the opportunities for the very worst kind of law-- a set of law that can masquerade as legitimate until one looks closely enough to see the bungled attempts at applying that law, at the inequities in the way it is used, at the huge, screaming potentials for abuse present in both sets of law, at the utter lack of not just consistency, but of any attempt to write consistency into that set of law, and mosts attempts to use both sets of law seem to reveal flaws when the blinding light of a real case in a real courtroom is shined on it.

There's another whole web of rabbit holes here-- because a mandated reporter law strikes me, at first glance, (remember, this thread is the first time I've heard of mandated reporter laws, and I am now engaging in the time-honored internet tradition of posting a howling rant about a subject I just found out about eight minutes ago, fueled by my emotional reaction to that discovery, and I'm doing so the same way Donald Trump does-- unbound by any facts that I don't know about, and ignoring any facts I do happen to be aware of.) as an attempt to define a crime that is morally not a crime. And that always leads to a twisted mess of law that pulls convoluted loops of contradicting law into a ball that gets tighter and tighter until it makes no sense to anyone, which is when they usually just dump that section of law into the tax code and forget about it.

Our system usually tries to require a non-ambiguous, thorough description of exactly what constitutes a given crime when a given law is passed.

It's struck me before that if you're having trouble defining, explaining or defending your criminal law, it's because you're trying to write a law about something that isn't a moral crime.

And these folks we're talking about aren't criminals. In fact, it could be argued that in general, mandated reporters would usually work out to be some of our very best, and we're talking about prosecuting them for actions they failed to take when they were doing jobs that were themselves large, ongoing attempts on their part to help, to contribute more to society than they take.

That all said, I can see large, wide striations in the caseload. There would be a cop who just had a bad day and failed to report something he or she simply missed. And that cop would be in sharp contrast to someone who, say, ignored the words "I can't breathe". I suggest that one is a crime, the other is a mistake.

These two systems of civil and criminal law respond many times to the "we have to do something" type of mindset. I suppose the proper approach is to continue to refine the civil and criminal systems so they work better. To me, one trouble with moral law is that morals of different tribes are different. And that's a challenge with Federalism as well: We have a system that's supposed to work well for everyone yet we see that it doesn't. It would be neat to have a set of guidelines that interpret and refine systems, including Federalism. My position on Federalism is to allow the greatest possible latitude of freedom while protecting the right of that person to do that freedom. So, if that freedom infringes upon someone else's freedom, then states may reign in that freedom with limitations. But the person being infringed upon actually has to be a person rather than a zygote or what not. To refine further, "I don't like what you do" is not an infringement. It's only an infringement if we can demonstrate some kind of actual harm to the person.

CDF

You might object to the politics of Georgia, but between the DA and the defense no one is going to ignore any abuse or neglect of Colt Gray by his parents. And child abuse can be extended to school bullying if the high school and the district or its employees knew or suspected there was bullying and didn't take action. What Colt Gray did was horrendous and no matter what he was feeling, nothing justified taking 4 human lives.

highdesert wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2024 1:55 pm You might object to the politics of Georgia, but between the DA and the defense no one is going to ignore any abuse or neglect of Colt Gray by his parents. And child abuse can be extended to school bullying if the high school and the district or its employees knew or suspected there was bullying and didn't take action. What Colt Gray did was horrendous and no matter what he was feeling, nothing justified taking 4 human lives.

You are totally correct in that there is no justification for taking those four lives. We're examining upon whom to heap responsibility, and we must consider how much responsibility a kid may accept. The age of 18 may be the compromise. If 18 is that compromise, then the parent must accept responsibility. If the kid is tried as an adult, then he is taking responsibility, yet it is the dad ultimately who supplied the weapon. Morally, I don't think a kid can make the call, so it falls upon the parent.

It appears that unfortunately I'm veering into the case, but I will broaden out the morality. If this American tribe determines that 18 is the age at which we must accept adult level responsibility, then someone younger must be routed into treatment, and routed to become more educated about the situation he found himself in. Yet again, if an under-18 cannot yet accept the burdens of adulthood, then he also cannot buy a gun. Then we must look to the parents. The parent did not do the shooting but supplied the weapon. Perhaps treatment and education would be appropriate for the parent as well?

We cannot bring back the murdered people. What can we do to prevent such instances in the future? Is "treatment and education" a sufficient deterrent for would-be parents? Perhaps not. But "second degree murder"? Under a Federalist system, would each state be allowed to generate its own laws and punishments as long as no infringement of others' rights take place? That may be morally justified in our American tribe.

CDF

I can see the father being charged as an accessory to murder since he bought the gun and gave it to his son.

CDFingers wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2024 3:34 pm
The age of 18 may be the compromise. If 18 is that compromise, then the parent must accept responsibility. If the kid is tried as an adult, then he is taking responsibility, yet it is the dad ultimately who supplied the weapon. Morally, I don't think a kid can make the call, so it falls upon the parent.

Seems like at least two points here, whether or not we should use separate justice systems for children based on age and if we do, what age should we use, are big enough that we could easily fill 100 pages yammering about them. So that's deep water, but I like deep water. I'm willing to go there and go all the way to bottom if you folks are. It's your last statement here that intrigues me-- "Morally, I don't think a kid can make the call,..."

Then there's the standard boilerplate-- I think a moral kid would make a better call than an immoral adult, so on and so forth, yadda, yadda. At least part of the questions facing us in these new issues (ancient issues, but "new" to this thread) are questions like "can separate justice systems ever be moral?" and "if this is about the brain's physical development, how can we tell whether a given child makes decisions like an adult or like a child?"

I recall that the Supremes said that separate is not equal when talking about education systems split by race, so how can splitting the justice system by age be moral?

It turns out that that ARE real, significant differences between the physical decision making capabilities of an adult vs. those of a child, but I have never been convinced that a separate justice system is the moral answer to that problem. Separate legal options for all parties, yes, a separate system, no.

CDFingers wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2024 3:34 pm Yet again, if an under-18 cannot yet accept the burdens of adulthood, then he also cannot buy a gun.

Uh, oh. Let's see. Okay.

I've been thinking about modifying my position on at least one of these issues, and maybe today is the day I hash it out.

My core belief as of this morning: Any sane adult has the right to self defense.

No distinctions between races, religions, country of origin, legal status or criminal histories. All sane adults. If his sentence isn't finished, put him back in prison. If his sentence is finished, give him his gun belt back. All sane adults. Even the ones with no I.D., the "illegal" immigrants, the adults who switched sex and the adults who dress in those weird clothes and even the adults from those nationalities that dress their men in skirts.

"Self defense" includes both access to learning the skills and access to any weapon that adult deems necessary.

The reason I've been considering modifying this position is the same thing we're talking about with the children-- how do you tell how a given person makes decisions? How do you tell if they make their decisions like an adult or like a child? And the real question, how do you tell how this person makes decisions? A child who kills demonstrates how tough this can be-- not even their parents could tell. That's a major sticking point in all issues, and is also a fulcrum that should be used to stop the prosecution of one person for the crimes of another-- you simply can't tell how another person makes their decisions.

And finally, there is the on-point moral question that if you could tell how someone makes their decisions, what are you morally obligated to do with that knowledge?

So as not to dominate the thread, the short paragraph after this link refers to the much longer tale contained there:

https://www.theliberalgunclub.com/phpBB ... ch#p247245

It's a fictionalized account of when I was fifteen. It was I who shot the bird on impulse, and it was I who was horrified. I was not hunting the bird. Rather at a certain moment I saw the motion, whirled and shot. That incident plus meeting a guy, drove me five years later to become a vegetarian, where I still am. Full disclosure: over the last fifty+ years, on average I ate a bit of my mother in law's turkey on Thanksgiving and a bit of my father in law's prime rib at Xmas. It turns out I've eaten fish tacos about on average about ten to fifteen times a year.

Back to the reply.

I think teens have poor impulse control, and we collect that control as we get older. I think this can be shown via statistics and via insurance costs for under-24 drivers, especially male ones. It seems that young women's lack of impulse control leads to more children. Just an observation.

I think we need to acknowledge how and how fast people mature, and I think our tribe needs to see that and to make laws that match. We crawl before we walk, walk before we run, and during those changes, get banged up in the process. The nature of maturation should not include allowing kids to shoot others just so they can learn not to. Death is permanent. As far as I can tell, anyway.

CDF

And that's really a matter of childrearing. My Dad raised me to believe, "Son, don't start nothin', but don't take nothin', either." Basically, if it's a matter of self-defense, do what I have to do to defend myself...but don't initiate a fight. Personally, I consider that good advice. Dad was right. Mom wanted me to turn the other cheek. Nope, that wasn't gonna happen! Someone put their hands on me, it was fisticuffs until the matter was settled. Then it was over.

Dad kept a pretty close eye on me as I was growing up. He noticed everything. He viewed that as his job...which, of course, it was.

That's how it used to be, by and large. That's how it used to be. And that's what we, as a "tribe", need to go back to...proper parenting.

I agree that we need better parenting. I doubt you'd find anyone who disagreed with that.

Where we disagree is what better is. And as long as that's true, (and this one is, believe me, eternal) there will always be a wide range of success among parents.

CDFingers wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2024 7:49 pm I think teens have poor impulse control, and we collect that control as we get older.

I've been thinking about your post, and this is the line that stuck in my mind.

Never occurred to me to phrase it as "collecting control". What an elegant phrase.

I would just say "and then I got the shit beat out of me, again and again, over any number of subjects, and now I have more control than I used to." (Don't even ask. Recall that I was the guy who joined the army to get away from home and stop taking orders, and that I told the second female officer on the Seattle force that no woman was going to take me to jail. But you're right, now I have more control.)

You're born with some types of control, but I may be splitting hairs or confusing my labels. (Everyone knows how I hate hair that is still full-round. I've never met a hair that I couldn't shave something off.) Fear of falling, for instance.