[john_b]

"non-funny" and "grotesque" are both subjective judgments and are no basis for imprisoning someone. You're suggesting that someone who demonstrated no capability or motive to carry out his "threat" should be imprisoned simply because an unrelated tragic event happened a few weeks before? And it's somehow more deserved because he is a young white male? That is a perverse notion and it is the antithesis of justice and equality under the law.

[watty]

Devils advocate - if an American radical islamist made a comment about bombing ______ but then stated "jk", is it crossing the line?

It's a slippery slope and I'm not a judge. I'm simply stating that I believe he crossed the line and I'm glad someone looked into it. No, he doesn't deserve to be in jail.

[jerf]

I fail to see your point; you've changed so many details that your attempt at argument simply falls flat. We aren't talking about anyone with any sort of history, we're talking about a kid, a kid who posted something of a similar caliber to things expressed on the internet thousands of times an hour. Entire communities are notorious for containing this level of discourse, continuously; XBox Live first person shooters and 4chan leap to mind, but those are merely the large ones. If this is "crossing the line" than your "line" is simply useless, it's been crossed more than once just in the time it took me to post this, I'm sure.