Damn...this is the first time in years I was on an AOL site, totally forgotten they still existed.

There are some crimes that children commit that should not be treated as an advlt crime.

Murder is not one of them. Sorry kid, you need to be in Jail.

In fact, I would go so far as to charge the parent(s) with a crime too.

Guns are tools with one purpose. Killing. Even a knife had a thousand uses, only one of which is killing...but guns are very clearly intended for one thing. You cannot equate them to "youth sized forks and knives" in any way, shape, or form.

I don't think minors are capable of the responsibility needed to have a gun. Infact I think such a thing is so clear that I am astonished that firearms are not constrained by age laws in the same way that alcohol, tobacco, and driving motor vehicles is. It's far more accurate to say it's like a "youth sized car" or a "youth sized beer bottle" or "youth sized cigarettes".

I would have drawn the opposite conclusion from the same premise: he is a child, so he does not have the capacity to frame an act that we should denominate murder. I do not believe, and only a psychologist could determine, whether this child was capable of murder. Homicide, even intentional, is not the same as murder. Murder requires an element of depravity that I do not believe can be found here.

Laws allowing the trial and sentencing of juveniles as advlts have historically taken into consideration the experience and "criminal sophistication" of the defendant. Here we have not only a complete lack of either, but apparently a law that requires the DA to charge the child with murder or let him go scot-free. Pardon me my opinion that "the law is a ass, a idiot". (dikeens)

true. I've been shooting guns since I was 4 and not once have I thought about doing this. In fact, it made me more responsible. I have knives too but they are tools just like a gun.

If guns kill people then a pencile misspells words.

In my opinion, the kid deserves to go to jail. He brought it upon himself. Too bad.

Well,http://www.pafoa.org/law. This boy had been legally using a firearm.

Wow, here he would get a slap on the wrist and maybe some counseling.

The article does not indicate what physical evidence links Jordan to the murder weapon, although it does corroborate his experience with a 20 gauge shotgun. If he's old enough to hunt dinner, he's old enough to understand what killing a human is. So if he did the crime, he can do the time. It's up to the courts. The judicial branch of the government has a responsiblity to protect the populace.

My son has exprience, and has even earned NRA sharpshooting awards. Guns are tools. It is unstable people with guns who kill people, not the guns themselves. We can anthromorphize guns all we want, but if there were none, people who did not possess the social skills to resolve issues
would still find weapons with which to murder or cause harm. Guns are just quicker.

the biggest firearm IVE shot is my dad's pellet gun.....and i missed the squirrel by that much
but still...why would the kid's father give an 11 YEAR OLD a SHOTGUN???!!!!
its a recipe for disaster

Well this one did

Gunshot Residue is the main thing.

So you suggest a 12 year old kid gets thrown in jail with lots of 20 plus year old criminals who will do god knows what to him? Do you even know what happened besides what you read in some online news article? If you have any experience with kids at all, you'll know a 12 year old is nowhere near mentally developed enough to be considered an advlt, and it's unfair to judge them by the same standard.

I'm not saying don't punish them, but there are other options, especially for one so young. Considering a lot of his mental developement has still to take place, he could still be successfully rehabilitated. Or we could go your route and just ''let him develop into a hardened criminal because he's going to do it anyway''.

Anyway, neither of us are psychologists or judges, so it's not our place to decide.

Then what do child soldiers count as?

Like others have said, if he did commit the crime then he should be imprisoned.

That article was sketchy as tosome solid facts. They haven't even proved that the kid's gun was the murder weapon - or if they had, they did not say so in the article.
So there is either more to the story than they are saying, or there is less and they are trying to make more out of it.


Also, don't call other members ignorant. One can argue a point without those kinds of personal remarks.

Children who are convicted of an advlt crime spend their years before they are 18 in the Juvenile system. It is only after that they go to the regular prison.

There is a difference between a child brainwashed to killing and a child who murders someone.

This, or as the article linked to in the OP says

At least he isn't being held in an advlt prison anymore or at risk of the death penalty since 2005.

DAMN! I quoted a LOT of posts



Right to bear arms. If the parents judged the kid as a non-agressive person who, as the article said, "Had never gotten in trouble with the law," why shouldn't he have a gun? I don't have a gun, but I think I shot my first shot in fourth grade, and my stepdad has never locked or even hidden his guns.

Nobody in my family has shot anyone else. (being in the army doesn't count)



It's the Federal REFORM System, not the Federal PUNISHMENT System. If he didn't know what he was doing, than why should he be punished? he obviously won't do it again.



SO TRUE. MJ was never proven guilty, and yet the alleged '[censored]' still stings his name.



It's like a youth sized car, but none of your other examples. you can do a lot more with a gun ? especially a shotgun ? than kill. Maybe not as many as a knife, but more than a fork. Where a fork can only stab or lift, a gun can sever (it's a crude way of cutting rope), remove (shoot a cheap lock, and you can enter a building), and most importantly, threaten (if you point a gun at somebody, they'll usually leave you alone. eSPECIALLY IF THEAT PERSON JUST BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE)

And no, i'm not a redneck.

And that is precisely why I am astonished.

As someone else stated, it was foolish. An utterly foolish thing that had tragic consequences that could have be completely avoided had that child not been given access to a gun. A gun with live ammunition no less. There is no excuse in the world for it. Not hunting, not parental supervision, nothing. That child should never have been given a gun.



Because he's a [censored] child!



That's great. Still doesn't give any excuse for giving a gun to a child. You want to give him a gun? Wait until he's 18 and has a license. There is no excuse in the world.

Agreed with what both of these two fine lads have said.

I think it's easy to judge from here. I don't want to be the one talking to this kid when he grows up and asking him what he thinks of this whole ordeal (if he is indeed given a life punishment). He was stupid, and he did a very stupid thing. I doubt at that time he calculated the consequences.

And I'll also say the father is also responsible.

Even so, I'd imagine there'd be a lot of older kids, like borderline 18 in there, who'd be in for serious crimes, if it's anything like here. A prison is not a place for a child to be exposed to, even if it's a kid prison.

Coming from a society with a different criminal justice system, yes, it is wrong. You can't even be held criminally responsible here until the age of 15 and even then you'll have lowered penalties until you're 18 years old. For this crime, the worst that can happen to him is that he will most likely be taken care of by the social authorities and taken to a special care unit. All due to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_infancy