Democracy for Vancouver

In what sane country would you prosecute a straight-A student with no prior arrests, an obvious psychological problem and a 10-lb. bag of fertilizer for “attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction”?

CHESTERFIELD, S.C. (AP) — An 18-year-old accused of planning to bomb his high school will be charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a possible life sentence, the top federal prosecutor in South Carolina said Tuesday.

Ryan Schallenberger also will face two lesser federal charges stemming from what authorities say was a scheme to detonate explosives in a suicide attack on his high school in the small town of Chesterfield. The straight-A student will be charged in federal court in Florence on Tuesday afternoon, said Kevin McDonald, the acting U.S. attorney for South Carolina.
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Schallenberger was arrested on state charges Saturday. Authorities say his parents called police because he had ordered 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate, which they retrieved after getting a delivery notice from the postal service. Ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer that was a component in the deadly 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Authorities have said Schallenberger could have assembled deadly bombs within minutes with the materials they found. Police said they also discovered bombing plans including a hand-drawn map of the school, a hate-filled journal lauding the Columbine killers and an audiotape that authorities say was to have been played after Schallenberger died.
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McDonald said Schallenberger will be charged with federal counts of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to use explosives on a building that gets federal funding, and using interstate commerce to obtain explosives to be used against people and property.

Authorities have said Schallenberger bought the ammonium nitrate off eBay and that company said it’s cooperating in the investigation.

Yes, I agree, that’s all very scary.

It might have been useful, however, for the article to point out that McVeigh used 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate in his bomb, which was certainly a weapon of mass destruction. But 4.5kg NH4NO3 does not equal WMD.

And why the hell is anybody, after Oklahoma City, able to buy ammonium nitrate without showing ID and proof of legitimate use? Why is eBay allowing it to be sold online? Farm stores have to ID anyone trying to buy more than one bottle of iodine at a time because it’s used in making Meth - shouldn’t there be at least as tight a restriction on people who could be building bombs?

This kid is obviously very, very disturbed and needs some profound psychological (and probably pharmacological) help. But because his parents caught him after he bought the ammonium nitrate and not before, he may be going to jail for the rest of his life - where he will get no help whatsoever.

Jail seems to be our answer to everything these days. But while it might make us feel safer, jailing this kid will do nothing to help us figure out the whys and hows that might let us stop the next teen with a notebook full of hate and an eBay account - and parents too clueless to figure it all out before it’s too late.