Friday, January 22, 2010

13-Year-Old Wisconsin Boy Shoots Dad

The Chicago Tribune reports on the terrible shooting which took place in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Sauk County authorities have charged a 13-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting his father after he got into trouble at school.

At a hearing Wednesday, Michael Crisafulli sobbed most of the time, but said "yes" when the judge asked if he understood the charges. Under Wisconsin law, he's charged as an adult.

The judge set bail at $500,000 and ordered a mental evaluation. Relatives say the boy has autism.

The boy was found wandering around a Walmart store Tuesday night. Police later found 55-year-old Angelo "Nick" Crisafulli dead in his Town of Delton home with a gunshot wound to the back of his head.

The complaint says the boy told police he had a "balloon of anger" that finally broke. The complaint says the boy was expelled from school Tuesday and his father was angry.

First of all, what kind of justice is charging a 13-year-old as an adult? What is wrong with Wisconsin?

Second, I realize it's weird to talk about shared responsibility when one of the parties is dead, but does anyone wonder what kind of a dad Mr. Crisafulli was if young Michael was that afraid to face him? I do. I don't think kids who are just-turned-teenagers have that kind of rage and fear unless they learn it at home.

And what about the gun? Do you think dad was probably a gun owner who taught his son about guns? Do you think the son may have learned some unintentional lessons besides gun safety, things like "when you're in a tough spot, the gun can save you?" What do you think?

Please leave a comment and don't be afraid to read into the story a little bit, that's what I do.

6 comments:

  1. Please leave a comment and don't be afraid to read into the story a little bit, that's what I do.

    Aside from being a massive understatement, that's a commendably honest thing to say, particularly by the standards of a citizen disarmament advocate.

    You don't see it as a bit unfair to the people involved to publicly engage in speculation without adequate factual grounds? I don't mean just in this case--I mean in general.

    You're a big fan of telling people (including pro-gun bloggers) what their "responsibilities" are, but it strikes me that your blogging behavior sometimes falls a bit short of standards I would impose on myself in my own writing.

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  2. Please leave a comment and don't be afraid to read into the story a little bit, that's what I do.

    I think you're confused MikeB. Instead of
    "read into the story a little bit"

    I think you meant to say,

    " Please leave a comment and don't be afraid to make shit up, that's what I do.

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  3. I don't think MikeB just makes everything up, only that he applies slant and stereotypes in an attempt to get people arguing into his hand. From reading his posts, I can tell that he is intelligent, he just doesn't concern himself with context because he's looking for cognitive dissonance. In short, he only needs a logical argument to meet his goal for each post. It's just too bad that Jadegold always shows up with insults and irrelevance and ruins things for everyone.

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  4. Kevin, Now that's quite an analysis of me and Jadegold. You may be right, except for the part about Jade ruining things. I actually think he and I are on the same page, he just expresses the ideas differently with a lot more factual information than I'm capable of. Same is true of Laci.

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  5. It's Jade's unending insults that are the most bothersome. If he went one week without even a single "gunloon" I'd get rid of one of my rifles. That said, my time at your blog has been quite pleasant.

    As for the topic, the deceased father, it's a case of bad education (my guess) that had sadly become fatal.

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  6. I am in agreement with Kevin on this. You have been quite pleasant on your blog Mike, and I commend you for that. I also think his analysis is pretty spot on regarding the slant and speculation.

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