>>>True, but I don't think (note the optimal use of the word) Oklahoma has the death penalty any more....
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>>Death penalty is irrelevant here, I think. IIRC, not allowed for kids any more.
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>>Does no one else wonder what the hell happened to kids 15, 16 and 17 that would lead them to do this? This is not normal behavior; bored kids don't generally go out and shoot someone. So how they'd get their hands on a gun (or guns--the article doesn't say)? And what came before this?
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>>I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished, but if we don't learn from this and fix whatever's broken, then we allow it to happen again.
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>>Tamar
>
>Based on (what little) information in the article, it would seem that they (the shooters) were bored - had nothing better to do - etc. While you and I could discuss the merits of full-year school (split is no longer needed with all the family farms/ranches being bought up by Big Food/Big Chem corporations), or the lack of parttime/fulltime jobs that these kids could have been working at, or the general air of 'what does it matter WHAT we do?' that seems to affect some of the younger generations till we go blue in the face; There are still occasions when age really doesn't matter compared to the crime. Why else are the Manson 'girls' still in prison?

As I say, bored kids don't generally go out and start shooting people.

The more I hear of this case, the more I'm reminded of Leopold and Loeb. Strike that: I just went and refreshed my memory, and this doesn't seem to match that much, other than a somewhat random victim.

However, normal teenagers don't do this. So something was abnormal. Whether there's mental illness, or a history of abuse, or some strange form of socialization, we do need to figure it out.

Tamar