Thursday, July 10, 2008

A Sensible Decision

An update on this story:

Prosecutors have dropped the "weapons of mass destruction" charge in the case of the South Carolina teenager who allegedly planned to bomb his school.

The teenager who allegedly planned to destroy his high school with explosives will not face a WMD charge at his anticipated trial, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

Ryan Schallenberger, 18, had been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his suspected plot against Chesterfield High School. Federal prosecutors dropped the charge without explanation in May.
The WMD charge never made sense. He had enough ammonium nitrate to take out a classroom or two, but that's a far cry from a weapon of mass destruction.

Calling something "WMD" when it's not only confuses and dilutes the meaning of the term.


1 comment:

J. said...

under the idiotic Title 18 definition, any amount of ammonium nitrate that could have killed "significant" numbers of people would be a WMD. Of course it's incorrect, but it is on the books. At least the feds knew when to pull it in.