You know what's funny. If this was just some kid who said this on something like Twitter everyone would be calling this kid sick. But since it happened has to do with video games, holy crap everyone comes to aid our brother in arms! Kid was being stupid, joke or not he made a stupid joke at a time when people are very touchy on this subject. He's 18 and needs to be smarter. Does he deserve to be in jail? debatable. but he is still stupid as hell.

Whoa, GI this affects you more than you know. If I was the prosecuting attorney I would try to connect the violent games he plays to school shootings. The american system has for years been trying to connect school shootings with violent games after the Columbine incident. This kid has no reason to be locked up. What if he lived 50 miles from the nearest elementary school would that make him a threat? The police never said he owned a loaded gun, had maps of the school in his room, was on any medication or anyone in his family attended said elementary school. I agree that he should not be making distasteful jokes, but that is what it is distasteful.

He learned a valuable lesson, however i totally see him getting off with just a misdemeanor.

You left out the part where someone called him crazy and this was his response ended by LOL JK indicating he was joking. this is assanine and a violation of his free speech rights if he gets sent to prison for a joke (granted it was a violent joke but still a joke) then this will set a presadents to take away all of our free speech rights www.change.org has a petition to set him free go there find it and sign help correct this injustice

This is the internet where millions of people(especially kids) say stupid *** every day. If people are really so paranoid of some kid being serious about something like this then give him a lie detector test, give him a sanity test. If some random kid out of millions who post stupid meaningless *** on the internet even spends a night in jail it will be a testament to the legal systems stupidity.

Well, I don't think that kid deserves a jail punishment, even though, he needs to understand you can't make comments like that in the world we live in now.

At first I thought he was wrongfully accused since he was obviously being sarcastic but he said this before!? Although he may got what was coming to him for being so careless about what he said, 8 years in prison is INSANLY harsh!

You are an idiot.

You dont joke about murder...period. Personally i dont play online cause I'm sick of all negativity. The fact is ifa child is making statements like this, then it's not long till he does do something stupid. These rapidly escalating "jokes" are beyond tastless. I beat someone, who tried to gank me(in wow) then spent 2mo creating account after account...threatening to rape my mom, murder my children(wich i dont have)...and wow just would ban him for three days, and he make a new account and harrass me again.

Yes what he said was horrible, tasteless, insensitive, and wrong. Of course he should be harshly punished, but not to the point where he can be R**** or killed

Well, saying something that morbid to a total stranger on a website is a little disturbing. Personally, I'd just tell the kid to piss off and get on with my life. I hardly see something like that as a national threat (hell, I troll Facebook all the time...I haven't gotten sued for sexual harassment yet). Yeah, he's a total idiot for pulling that kind of stunt, but I'd imagine something like a fine or community service would be a good enough lesson for him, if authorities want to be that anal over it.

He deserved to get arrested... this may teach him.

Reason 18000 why kids should stay off the internet

Thanks for the correction!  The initial news stories were extremely misleading.

Once any man's freedom is trodden upon, we're all damaged.

Even though that kid said some pretty crazy stuff, arresting him infringes on the most important amendment in our constitution. Freedom of Speech. This to me resembles someone talking trash about a monarch and being arrested for public speaking. Although there are clear differences, the same basic principle applies. Fact is he and anyone else is allowed to say anything they want on American soil. I agree that this kid is an idiot, but arresting him is unconstitutional. If anything his parents should take away his internet access.

I guess I'm slightly confused here. A lot of people are saying it's violating his First Amendment. To me (based on my understanding of the 1st), if his right was violated, Facebook would've stopped him before he posted the comment. What we're seeing here is a cause and effect type thing. He posted something, which caused someone to be afraid, in effect bringing the police in on the case. No one was controlling him and telling him what to post and what not to post (which would be a violation of the 1st), however his post did have consequences based on how it affected readers/viewers. If I need to explain a bit more I'd be more than happy to.

The reason I have  no Sympathy for this kid is as follows. When I was young I did a lot of wild and said a lot of outrageous statements, but I would never have publicly said what that kid did. Not in any shape or form.