“serves as choices made for an innocent child that doesn’t know any better than what they are taught..”

I might agree with you if this kid was like, 9. But this “kid” is a teenager. Not even a particularly young teen, either: 15, which in some areas is actually the age of sexual consent or old enough to get a driving learner’s permit!

Do we know that the brain’s ability to make rational decisions and suppress impulses is not quite fully developed until one’s 20s? Yes.

But does “being slightly impulsive” alone excuse the obviously premeditated act of going to school with a gun; walking into a classroom with that gun loaded and with the safety off; and then shooting a person in the head?

I would say no. No it does not.

If they’d just been in a spur of the moment scuffle that resulted in an accidental death, I might be a little more unsure, might think, “well, maybe he should be tried as a juvenile, yeah”. But this was premeditated MURDER, flat out. And 15 is plenty old enough to know what he was doing when it comes to – I’ll say it again – bringing a loaded gun to school, to a specific classroom, with the obvious plan of shooting a living human being in the head.

15 is old enough to know what a loaded gun will do when fired at a human being; 15 is old enough to know that head shots at close range are deadly pretty much 100% of the time; 15 is old enough to have heard of Columbine and to know that people don’t want guns in their schools; worse yet, 15? Is old enough to know, “if I shoot this person, who has family, who might even have friends, in the head, they will almost certainly die”. 15 is plenty old enough to know what he was doing, and on top of that, the arrogant little prick decided it was no problem at all to do it in front of 20 probably-psychologically-scarred-now witnesses.

In other words: Are you effing kidding me??

This kid isn’t a victim; he’s a psychopath. Half the reason we have long jail sentences for this crap is to keep the psychos from hurting other people for a period of time.

I say “let him get 51 years if convicted”. He’s old enough to have known better; he just didn’t care.

The kid is history. He’s going to an institution (prison) where homosex is rampant. What fabulous justice!

On another note however, payback isz a b****! And wat goes around comes around, wat goes up, must come down!

This article speaks loudly as to what happens when the example we set, and teach our children, serves as choices made for an innocent child that doesn’t know any better than what they are taught. These choices are made for these children, by supposed experienced adults, that ultimately lead these children into disasterous consequences that they will face as an adolescent, and finally as an adult.

All of us are the sum of our teachers and mentors, and yes, Brandon made the wrong choice, but I just can’t seem to shake wondering what he had to suffer with, or what in that suffering created his tragic choice that ended the life of Larry King.

I think many of us stand as witness to having experienced many difficulties, whether growing up, or as an adult, but despite the fact that WE didn’t make the same choice as Brandon, does not mean we can’t understand how broken he had to be to commit such an action against Larry King.

My glass house was shattered decades ago, and my rose colored glasses have become the spectacles of experience that removes the blur and fog, clarifying and exposing the shame, guilt, and fear I felt at this age, of which was supported by my church, which was supported by my parents and all other teacher/mentors in my life at the same age.

Sadly, I suspect the victimization of Brandon will never become much of a topic, which makes the tragedy of Larry King even more tragic… locking Brandon up, and throwing the key away, does NOTHING to address the ’cause’ that created the event. Until we stop the victimization of all the Brandon’s of the world, we will just keep seeing more violence, and more and more jails filled with people that are just as victimized as their victims.