Like Any and major city. Avoid looking like a target and being in places you don’t know, especially at night. Watch your pockets and don’t let those people “help” you with your bags waiting outside of trains and airports etc.
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yeah, well look at Oregon. Dumb lawmakers want to set up a law to limit a person to 20 shells per month that you may buy.
You’re a hunter…you should know that quite a lot of duck/goose-hunters shoot a box or two per hunt day (they obviously miss a lot of birds).
Lawmakers are all idiots.
Actually, there are laws that are written exactly like that, i.e. a certain crime is defined as X or a threat to perform X.
Oh, city folk. Whereas Mr. Sun is a… what, exactly? 
If it’s good enough for Bill C… 
The Illinois law that you can’t publish or exhibit any writing or picture portraying the depravity, criminality, unchastity, or lack of virtue of a class of citizens of any race, color, creed or religion was upheld by SCOTUS.
More relevantly to this case, we can quote the Donald’s favorite Justice: “The reason why fighting words are categorically excluded from the protection of the First Amendment is not that their content communicates any particular idea, but that their content embodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) mode of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey.”[7]
You remind me of that story in… I think it was this book. The narrator goes to Vietnam and shares a taxi from the airport into town with a Texan. The driver asks the Texan to roll up the window because of the danger of robbery by armed bikers. The Texan says, “Aw hell, they ain’t gonna mess with me.” 
A pair of armed bikers promptly rob the Texan right in the middle of the highway, taking his cash and passport. 
The Texan is speechless. The taxi driver simply says, “We go embassy now.” 
(My apologies if I’ve got the wrong book.)
The US legal definition of terrorism requires a political goal, so that’s out.
As for tea leaves and goat blood, you have the First Amendment. So what is it in this case, crime or no crime? If no crime, why not appeal to SCOTUS? The parents sold their extra house to pay the hypothetical legal bills, didn’t they?
Sp you go ahead and send your kids to school that day. Maybe they’ll be lucky. Maybe someone will stop the kid before he plugs yours full of holes.
Itta threat. It’s credible. He has the means to carry it out (which he should not have in the first place). It’s a no-brainer.
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That means the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000. And since the 1990s, shootings at schools have been getting less common.
The chance of a child being shot and killed in a public school is extraordinarily low. Not zero — no risk is. But it’s far lower than many people assume, especially in the glare of heart-wrenching news coverage after an event like Parkland. And it’s far lower than almost any other mortality risk a kid faces, including traveling to and from school, catching a potentially deadly disease while in school or suffering a life-threatening injury playing interscholastic sports.
So, the best bet is homeschool your kid (which ain’t bad), but no sports ever. ever. ever. ever…
Eh I´ve spoken to Taiwanese. They do not find it ludicrous.
I am sincerely worried that you guys think that a kid with a flamethrower and a gun fetish that makes a threat is just joking and that authorities are overreacting.
Most shootings have happened in suburban schools, not dense urban areas. Unless you mean like the corn fields around Penn State. I worked in Philly.
I’m really trying to understand your point of view, @bojack
According to the police,
Sun allegedly warned a 17-year-old male classmate on Monday not to come to school on May 1, saying he planned go on a shooting spree that day
Also, he had means to go through with it, if he wanted.
What else should police wait for before acting?
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An Arabic name and a beard, perhaps?
Flamethrower was in Taiwan, not in the US.
And your characterization of him as having a “gun fetish” is an exaggeration you feel free to make based on an insight you may, or may not have gleaned into his personality despite not knowing him personally (a typical outcome in social media). Or are you actually saying Sun relies on guns for sexual stimulation, or that he believes they are inhabited by spirits?
The US attorney (William M. McSwain) for Philadelphia’s US District prosecuted him for the felony charges that will bar his re-entry in the US. The US Attorney is responsible to the Federal government, but he listens to the concerns and fears of his District when he decides to indict. Sun was attending a suburban school, but the fear that caused the US Attorney to act is significantly generated by Philly residents. Philadelphia is the 6th largest city in the US, and that’s urban.
Key word is “allegedly.” Sun denies it.
Enrique A. Latoison, a lawyer who at one time represented Sun’s host family, said in March that Sun had the equipment because he was interested in a career in law enforcement. Latoison added that Sun, who had only been in the U.S. for about five months at the time, did not understand the implications of making such a statement, even as a “joke,” in a time when school shootings happen with regularity.
In the US it’s the job of the prosecution to obtain a conviction in court. Another key part of their job, though, is to provide a narrative to the public, a kind of gift replete with a nice, tidy, shiny bow stuck to the top. That narrative is designed to convince the public that the right person was convicted, that the evidence is clear and convincing, and that they are thus rendered safe by the actions of law enforcement and the legal system working together.
The narrative is important, and it doesn’t always tell the truth. For example, in drug arrests the amount of drugs seized is often inflated by use of “street prices” to ludicrous amounts, again in order to provide the public a narrative of overall safety. Look who we got off the street, as it were. Law enforcement, working in conjunction with the attorneys who prosecute the accused, will often distort truth in ways that are believable to a jury and, later, to the public at large.
In the original search of Sun’s room, no gun was found.
Officers executing a search warrant in Sun’s bedroom Tuesday night found a military-style ballistic vest, crossbow with scope and light, 20 rounds of 9mm ammunition, military ski mask, ammunition clip loader, a strangulation apparatus known as a garrote, and other equipment.
No firearm was found during that search.
However, Sun’s host had previously searched his bedroom and removed what was characterized by the police as a Glock handgun.
Sun obtained parts online to assemble the functioning Glock. Chitwood noted that Sun, by using this method, was able to circumvent Pennsylvania’s age limit of 21 for buying a handgun.
Note that the gun is described as “functioning.” For anyone who’s ever legally purchased gun parts online, this is very curious. It is possible to buy online a “Glock kit,” but unless you know what you’re doing the result of your assembly is very likely to take your hand off the first time the trigger is pulled. This is not always easy even for gunsmiths to pull off. It’s not a job for beginners, no matter what the kit sellers say. The kit is also very expensive. Several hundreds more expensive than a handgun purchased from Glock.
However, there was never a demonstration that this gun was functional. It was never fired for public view. (The kit itself may come with words on the box to the effect that its final assembly is functional, though.) What’s more, no receipt was ever produced showing that Sun purchased the whole kit.
I know enough about US law enforcement not to take what they say at face value. Without a demonstration I don’t believe the Glock Sun allegedly assembled is really functional, no matter what the police and the US Attorney say publicly.
However, the narrative provided by law enforcement will satisfy probably >90% of the population. Most people will happily choose to believe what law enforcement officials say, especially in the case where the defendant isn’t even a US citizen and the outcome is deportation without the right of re-entry.
Many non-Americans will chuckle about leaks of US classified information to Wikileaks. Many will choose not to believe law enforcement when they say that a border wall is a good idea, or that it was necessary to shoot an unarmed American, or when US law enforcement chooses not to press charges over xyz. But if the narrative is good enough, and if it aligns with something they believe to be true - something they have faith in - they will absolutely and unquestioningly believe US law enforcement and the results of our court system.
Nevertheless, all that said it remains a fact that Sun committed no acts of terrorism and no murders while he was on US soil.
“Americans should be safe from such terror no matter who or where they are,” [US Attorney] McSwain said. “One more mass shooting is one too many.”
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You say he allegedly said those things…but then also quote that he did not understand the implications of saying such things
Sounds like he said it to me. Of course he will deny it. There is no way anyone can prove he did say it unless they have it recorded. He isn’t going to say he said it because he doesn’t want to incriminate himself.
He didn’t kill anyone, thank goodness. But he is still a dick.
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Not sure how long you’ve been out of the States, but one thing that seems to tie all school shootings this century together is that often the shooter will turn to have been a big fan of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the two young Coloradans who were responsible for the Columbine shootings in the spring of 1999.
Klebold and Harris seem to feature prominently in theories about US schools shootings ever since such shootings became a regular occurrence.
Social media is huge these days, so by now the cult of Harris and Klebold may be well-known by young people around the world. It’s possible that Sun was also a fan, but it’s a fact that he’s not American and not Western. Copycat murders don’t seem prevalent even in other far East countries like Japan, perhaps because this kind of sick hero worship does not survive the translation into the host culture. I can’t help but think that Taiwanese, even those in entertainment, would consider Klebold and Harris a non-starter in their thoughts.
It is easy, however, to imagine a foreign-exchange kid from Taiwan who’s been abruptly deposited into Philly and who is suddenly exposed to this cult, despite having no real understanding of what his classmates are talking about or what it all really means. He goes on, unknowingly, to say something inappropriate - all in an attempt to gain attention and/or a friend - and the next thing he knows he’s in jail and his parents are on the way to the States to help.
In any event it’s important to point out that Sun denied his offhand comment meant he that had serious intentions of shooting up his classmates at Bonner and Prendergast Catholic High School. His denial may have been a lie, but it does have meaning.
and the prevalent diagnosis by doctors (and sorrowfully accepted by too many parents) of ADD for the generation of kids who graduated from high school in mid-90s until now.
10-25% by some figures, and all taking medication for it.
The treatment for ADD (which hadn’t been termed yet) when I was growing up was having my dad yell and me and my siblings to run around the block to burn off energy, which we dutifully did.
I have read his posts on FB, listened to his personal exclusive interview, and heard what his parents have said to the media. I have also read the news here and abroad, especially detailing his cache, his previous issues in Taiwan. Innocent exchange kid? I´d wish.
What was your impression when you irl met and irl interacted with him?
I haven´t and I hope I won´t. So far the impression is not good.
If you mean that he has already developed a public persona even though he is not supposed to be a celebrity yet, then we have other issues.
Did you get doxxed? Be safe, man!
The chances of being shot in ANY school are X. The chances of being shot in a school where a student is stockpiling guns and ammo and has made a specific threat is a lot higher.
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His denial means “shit, I got caught”. Drop your head and look at the floor until the teacher gets tired of scolding you.
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Yep.
In this case, however, Sun may not have had a functioning gun and he may not have made a specific threat.
Other than that you are spot on.
There, made an improvement in your honesty.