Why didn't I hear of this until now?

[fpb]

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Police investigating a teenager accused of bomb-making and weapons violations found a map of Camp David with a presidential motorcade route in his home, a Montgomery County prosecutor said

Comments

[super_pan]

Oh dear.

[fpb]

I swear that this seems to validate all the Republican complaints about the media. This is not political, it is a matter of journalistic business sense: since when is an attempted assassination of a serving President of the United States of America not news?

[cjmr]

Perhaps because it's not an attempted assassination until they actually attempt to do it? In the meantime it's a pair of psychotic teenagers with delusions of grandeur and a plan whereby they could potentially attempt an assassination.

I'm actually more worried about the fake IDs than the map and 'document'.

I wouldn't be surprised if the press had been asked to under report things like this in order to NOT generate a bunch of copycats.

[fishlivejournal]

So: when did this happen, and how did you find out about it?

[fpb]

It is said to have taken place in the week-end, and I found out about it from Little Green Footballs, in the context of another story about a man who wanted to kill both Obama and Bush. The commentators themselves said that until one googled Camp David, it was very hard to have the story confirmed; almost nobody reported it. Now, either it is a hoax, or else this is the greatest case of missing a hot story in the history of journalism.

[stigandnasty919]

Even Fox News did not have this story.... At least not in the last couple of days.

(I usually watch for a while before I come to work in the morning, nothing like a bit of righteous indignation to set you up for the day)

[bdunbar]

I don't know that this is, really, a big deal at the national level.

He had a map - how detailed? Of what? Camp David is in the middle of a state park - maps of the area are freely available. Granted they don't describe the facility - only a road going to the place.

"a document that appears to describe how to kill someone 200 meters away"

And that is .. a how-to? A book? I've had documents like that - training material distributed by the Marines. Not classified, just basic tactics.

Okay, the weapons, the bombs - that's a big deal, if the intent is to go nuts with them. On the other hand, the weapons might be legal - we don't know.

I get the sense from the article you quoted that this was stuff the prosecutors tossed in because they could.

It looks like a couple of whacked kids who wanted to do a Columbine. This is news but it's hardly 'stop the press' news, these days.

[expectare]

assault-style weapons

I thought all weapons were designed for assault?

and armor-piercing bullets

you mean, like, any rifle bullet over a .22 caliber?

[fishlivejournal]

not a weapons expert, but IIRC:
assault weapons are rifles that can operate as semi- or fully automatics.

Bullets are either armour piercing or manstopper, depending on they are designed to flatten on impact (does more damage to an unarmoured opponent, but bounces off armour) or retain their shape (doing slightly less damage due to the smaller hole, but more likely to penetrate armour). The only reason for an ordinary citizen to have armour piercing bullets is for assassination attempts: hunting, self-defence etc are better served by bullets that flatten.

[headnoises]

Legally speaking, Congress basically designated any gun that *looks* like an assault rifle as one; simi-auto or not.

Probably, they had simi-auto hunting rifles.

[fpb]

And suppose you were wrong and they had AK47s and Uzis? As someone else pointed out, what is really troubling is the presence of fake ID. Ordinary kids, even playing out some fantasy, do not produce fake IDs for fun.