The situation in Pierce County, Washington, has now reached a point that borders on the absurd. In early September, deputies arrested a 13-year-old boy after learning that he was not just posting tough talk online but allegedly preparing for a mass shooting. Investigators were tipped off by his social media activity, where he showed off firearms and threatened to kill. By early morning, deputies and SWAT were on his doorstep with a seizure warrant.

What they found went far beyond attention seeking. According to charging documents, deputies seized twenty-three firearms, many of them 3D printed and functional. AR-style rifles were mounted inside the home. Loose handguns and piles of ammunition were discovered in the boy’s bedroom. Some of the loaded magazines had the words “school shooter” written across them. Clothing styled after past school shooters, along with writings describing a mass shooting scenario, were also found.

Investigators compared the room to a personal tribute to Columbine and Uvalde. One Tumblr post allegedly showed a homemade craft model of the Uvalde shooter with the caption that read, “I made him a cube. He is horribly made and I love him so much.” That is not a child being edgy. That is a child expressing affection for a mass murderer.

This boy has not been in school since 2021, when he was nine. His parents claimed he was being homeschooled. Based on the evidence, the curriculum consisted of gun culture videos, 3D printing manuals, and online glorification of killers.

Deputies were clear when they said they stopped something very bad from happening. That seemed to be the end of it. The threat was neutralized, the boy was in custody, and the legal process was underway.

Then came October 7.

After about three weeks in juvenile detention, a judge has released the boy to electronic home monitoring so that he can attend mental health counseling. He must live at his home and can only leave for counseling or medical appointments. He is expected to attend school online.

On paper, this looks like a controlled environment. In reality, it raises several questions. The most obvious one is about the weapons. The house he is returning to is the same house that contained nearly two dozen firearms, including AR rifles and unsecured handguns. Authorities have not confirmed whether every weapon has been permanently removed. If they have, it has not been said publicly. The public is simply being asked to trust that the same adults who allowed a teenager to accumulate an arsenal will suddenly demonstrate consistent responsibility.

It is also curious that after three years of supposed homeschooling with no oversight, there is now a push to get him into schooling again, even if only online. If his parents were confident that they had things under control, they would not be seeking outside help now. Their earlier reaction to the incident was to insist that their son was just trying to “look cool” and that the charges were “overblown.” Now they appear to be quietly conceding.

There is no denying that teenagers are emotional creatures. I remember being overwhelmed at that age. Most people do. But there is a vast difference between teenage emotion and teenage devotion to murderers. Most kids cope by sulking or writing bad poetry. They do not construct models of mass shooters and write love letters to them on Tumblr.

When a child crosses that line, it is no longer simple moodiness. It is radicalization. And the internet is full of places that reward it. Communities exist where school shooters are treated like folk heroes. Columbine is not studied as history in these circles. It is celebrated as legacy. The boys who killed their classmates are not condemned. They are quoted, imitated, and adored.

Law enforcement was right to intervene when they did. The problem is that intervention has now been followed by leniency. The question is whether a child steeped in violent ideology can be rehabilitated by returning him to the same environment that nurtured it. Electronic monitoring cannot stop thoughts. Counseling cannot work if the people responsible for him do not truly believe there is something to be fixed.

Pierce County narrowly avoided a tragedy. Now it has been reset. The hope is that this is not simply a pause before the story continues in a far darker chapter.

(Source)

• Teen accused of school-shooting threats released from Pierce County detention

UPDATE: Almost before this page finished loading I had another article in my feed. The new report adds an ugly detail that makes the whole episode even harder to dismiss. It says the photos of semi-automatic weapons were taken in front of an open safe that appeared to be in the parents’ bedroom. See that picture and tell me again that nobody in the house knew what was going on.

A gun safe is only useful if it is locked. Saying you keep a safe in the bedroom is meaningless if it sits open or unlocked with weapons in plain view. If the parents want to lecture the public about misinterpretation and teenage posturing, they should first demonstrate basic responsibility. Lock the safe. Control the keys. Secure the ammo. That is not radical. It is common sense.

Additional social media posts also pull the curtain back on what was happening online. One post read that when he turns 21, he was going to kill people. Another crude Tumblr post joked that if he were brain dead and he had committed the act, Columbiner girls would find him attractive. Those are not joking signals. Those are claims of future violence and open admiration for killers. Call it what it is. This is the Columbine Effect in action. When a child publicly idolizes past school shooters and frames potential violence as a path to attention, that is ideological contagion, not mere teenage theatrics.

I warned in earlier posts about the idolization and the weapons. The new article confirms that the online material was explicit and that the imagery was staged where parents live. You can call it a misunderstanding if you want. You can pretend a Tumblr joke is harmless. You can say an open safe is a quirky home security choice. But the evidence does not bend to comforting explanations. The evidence points to radicalization, access, and intent.

Pierce County dodged something very bad once. The rest of us are owed more than goodwill promises. If the community is to be safe, the steps that follow must be concrete, transparent, and verifiable. Anything else is hoping for luck instead of demanding accountability.