Senator Charles Schumer is going to propose a bill to discourage Swatting

Senator Charles Schumer is going to propose a bill to discourage Swatting

Highlight from what he said:

“These dangerous pranks are, in fact, not ‘pranks’ at all – these ‘swatting’ attacks are serious incidents in which our emergency responders use up their time, energy, and resources responding to false threats when they could have been elsewhere protecting the community from real ones. What the perpetrators of these calls see as a practical joke is actually a terrifying experience for innocent bystanders, a business-detractor for local commerce, and a costly crime that forces our local emergency responders to use up thousands of taxpayer dollars on fake alerts. That's why I am introducing legislation that will increase the jail time for ‘swatting’ perpetrators, force them to pay restitution for the cost of investigating fake calls, and close the existing loophole on internet phone calls to make disguising your caller ID to law enforcement a crime,” said Schumer. “We need to make sure that every time a 9-1-1 dispatcher answers a call that it is a real emergency, and we need to swat down this disturbing trend before it is too late and someone is seriously hurt.”

I personal do find Swatting to be an extremely dangerous thing. What Senator Schumer is that to extreme either:

  • Up to 8 years in Prison
  • perpetrators pay restitution to the police and cover any damage inflicted on the house by the SWAT team.

What do you guys think about this?

Instead of prison, I propose we bring back pillories and public shaming.

Wow. Wasn't even aware of swatting.
I thought this was just like calling up the police for no reason, but a SWAT team? That's way too far.
I like @cluddite's idea. Maybe with it combined with a fine. Could include the outcome of any situations that the team couldn't get to because they were distracted by the "prank".

So Senator Schumer is proposing we swat the swatters? LOL

In all seriousness, I think its a good idea. Swatting is a horrible practice and those who do it should be heavily punished.

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Seems decent except for the Illegal to hide your identity, too many people wouldn't call the cops to report things if they thought they were going to have to deal with the police. For some reason a large amount of people don't trust the cops.

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I disagree. The swatter does not know what the outcome will be when they make their call. There is a very real chance that someone will be shot and/or killed. This should be treated as attempted murder (or manslaughter, depending on the circumstances).

I don't give a shit about costs to emergency services. I don't want to be shot in my own home over a prank.

Agreed; but it's not about hiding your identity. Putting up a fake number in this circumstance is simply part of the lie they're telling the police. This is already illegal.