When does your online life become your real life? Always, apparently. As a bonus anything you do in your life, especially any felony actions will stay to haunt you forever! Justin Carter, 19 and a gamer at heart was placed in jail and given a $500,000 bail for making a comment.
“Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head,” “I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.” Making this comment on Facebook after a League of Legends match.
Not only is the comment considered a “Terroristic Threat” or “Criminal Threat” in some places, it can carry a 10 year prison sentence. Carter has already spent nearly four months in jail awaiting trial. Making a comment, sometimes even taking a single action could place the title of Felon over your name for the rest of your life in the United States, there are no second chances.
For those of you who are gamers, most likely know that what he said is just trash talk, and anyone in their right mind would likely know that he was not serious. After making the comments Carter supposedly followed the comment with “lol” and “JK”, which stand for Laugh Out Loud, and Just Kidding.
Much trash talk from gamers or anyone online for that matter, many times consist of homophobic, racist, threatening and sexist remarks. While many websites, and even games give you a feature to report said comments, or even posts, someone felt the need to report this comment to the police.
For those of you who have heard about this before, and are following the case, you might be interested in learning that Carter has been released from jail. According to Kotaku an anonymous person posted the $500,000 bail. If found guilty, Carter could spend up to 10 years in prison, and carry the lifetime title of felon, not a title that you earn from a video game, but a title you earn in real life. One that will likely haunt him for the rest of his life. If he does earn this title, he will likely be forced to work a dead end job, and be judged by everyone he meets for the rest of his life.
In the State of Texas a “Terrorist Threat” is a third-degree felony.
Do you feel that Carter deserves to earn the title of a felon, and serve a lengthy prison sentence. Or do you think he should be free?
Image courtesy of Christian Post.
He definitly deserves punishment but 10 years jail time ? No way. Little worm may learn to keep his mouth shut in future. Joking about threatening children is no laughing matter. He deserves an experience and maybe some education.
He definitely crossed a line, but I imagine he’d deserve a stern talking-to instead of jail.
10 years is a bit harsh but you can’t make comments like that even in jest. The US is still reeling after the spate of shootings in last couple of years.
if you think he deserves a punishment you’re just as stupid as the law that put him in jail, this was clearly a joke, hes not going to do it, its the fucking internet, come on, this isnt nazi germany, you can say what you want online without dumbasses getting all offended for no reason, ive seen actual threats on the internet, racist and homophobic threats to kill people, not as a joke, and nothing gets done to those people. this kid is innocent, and has done nothing wrong, people are insane, if this happened to everyone who played call of duty or any online shooters, the damn jails would be full, because thats the sort of things people say online, but that doesnt even matter since ITS A DAMN JOKE.
This is the internet, if everyone who made harsh threats on it were jailed then most of the world would be in jail…
The problem is, if he does go to jail, he might actually do it afterwards, this is a criminal in the making, stupid laws not only punish innocent people, they create them!
So much for freedom of speech.
Well, maybe it will teach all these kids out there that freedom of speech is great, but it comes with being accountable, and responsible for what you say. Something that many seem to forget nowadays. Now, I don not wish him the jail sentence, and I would wish him to walk away freely. I am sure he has learnt his lesson by now. I’m a gamer myself and I see plenty of similar comments on a daily basis. I doesn’t mean they are right. They are silly, immature and only show the speaker in the bad light. For all that think that kind of behavior is acceptable, learn the lesson. Freedom of speech does not relieve you of being responsible for what you are saying.
I don’t get the feeling he was serious in the slightest.
Sounds like sarcasm to me as it reads-in reply to his own suggested mental state or in reply to another gamers heckle. and if I remember you can’t commit yourself as mental. any good lawyer should be able to get this quashed. It just depends how much the hypersensitive americon justice system wants to make an example of him and violent games as the cause of their self manifested evil and how dirty they are prepared to play. In England we get adverts glorifying joining the army as likened to computer war games and using Xbox pads to control remote devices/missiles etc to attract the youth which is also morally wrong IMO.