Teen Threatens Mass Shooting. Mom Defends Punk.

You didn’t miss it, did you? That fascinating body-cam video of two cops arresting a Volusia County, Florida 15-year old who threatened to shoot up his school. 

The sheriff’s department released it on Monday with the faces of the juvenile, his mother and the cops blurred. The video went viral immediately.

Spend a few minutes studying the dynamics of what’s going on and you’ll get a glimpse of what passes for parenting these days.

First, it’s clear from the footage that the police are on a sensitive mission. They’re apprehending a teen who allegedly threatened to get a gun and shoot seven of his classmates. He did this in writing in a video gaming chat room, police say.

Many mass shooters make threats before executing their grisly plans. So these officers have no idea if they’re bringing in a loud-mouth punk or a would-be killer.

The cops are polite and patient as they explain to the kid and his mother that there’s no way to tell who’s joking and who’s seriously planning to kill classmates. They’re taking him to juvie because it’s illegal to threaten a mass shooting.

That act happens to be a felony in Florida.

The mother seems bewildered that law enforcement doesn’t assume that her kid was just joking. I guess they don’t have cable news in Volusia County. Mom seems to believe that along with a badge and a gun, cops are given mystical powers that allow them to discern who’s dangerous and who isn’t. 

“Kids say stuff like that all the time,” she assures the police. “…He’s not one of the crazy people out there doing stuff.”

The officers beg to differ.

“How do we know he’s not going to be the kid from Parkland?” one of the officers asks. “…that he’s not going to be the next kid, the kid that shot up Sandy Hook. We don’t know that.”

This mother insists - over and over - that her 15-year-old son is “just a little boy” who “didn’t do anything wrong” and that adults on the gaming site “goaded” her kid into threatening to kill his classmates. She adds that she and her son are close and she knows he’d never do anything wrong. 

Oh, yes, as a matter of fact she does have a gun.

What struck me isn’t what the cops do, it’s what this kid’s mother DOESN’T do. 

She never once looks at her delinquent offspring and asks him what the heck he was thinking, to make such a terrifying threat. She never expresses anger at her son whose alleged posts on social media have now resulted in a felony charge and probably scared the bejeezus out of his classmates.

Instead she blubbers, makes excuses and twirls her purse.

I kept hoping she’d take that pocketbook and whack her kid over the head with it. But no, she alternately defended and infantilized him.

It was pathetic. 

At one point, the mother mumbled something about hating the “Minecraft” gaming site.

Well, lady, if you hate it, why the heck was your “little boy” on it? Who’s buying him the gaming systems and leaving him alone to waste his time on this rubbish?

The fact that this boy’s mother believes him incapable of a mass shooting is of no consequence. When it comes to school massacres, parents of shooters always seem to be clueless about their spawn.

Anyone else remember that the two killers in Columbine made almost 100 bombs in their bedrooms yet their parents were unaware of their incendiary hobby? Oh, except for that pipe bomb one of the parents found, but didn’t think was a big deal?

And the mother of the Sandy Hook shooter knew her kid was mentally unstable, yet gave him firearms. And she was his first victim.

Whatever happens with this 15-year-old, his mother - and father, if there is one - should stop making excuses for inexcusable behavior.