MeChaNiZ3D said:
So if I were to look up the phone number for a random Burger King in say...Dinosaur, Colorado, a town I have never been to, will probably never go to, and is almost 2,000 miles away from me, and then call that number to inform whoever answers the phone that I want nothing more in life than to slit their throat and use that wound as a ketchup packet for some of their sweet potato fries before chucking their body into a sewer...That's totally okay and the person shouldn't think anything of it because there's no reasonable chance I'd ever be able to carry it out?
Death threats are a serious thing, and even over the net they should be treated the exact same way as face to face, over the phone, or through letters. I mean hell, it's already illegal through letters, isn't an e-mail literally an electronic letter? Why should it be any different?
The problem is we seem to be living in a society where death threats have become a standard form of comeback, or ways to express displeasure, especially over the internet, and because it's so common we have people with the attitude of "Eh, it's harmless."
Yeah, I guarantee that 99% or more of death threats made over the internet come from people who have no intention of acting on them and probably are just blowing off steam.
But we shouldn't have to try and figure out which ones are which. I dunno what the appropriate punishment should be for something like this, but I guarantee you that if there was any punishment we'd probably have a lot less death threats floating around the net, and I just can't understand why anyone would consider that a negative thing.