Committed by whom?  The attacker was a British citizen and (so far) there's nothing to suggest he was working for any foreign entity).  Perhaps you could argue it was treason, but I don't know anything about British law on the matter.

Just for the sake of clarity, I don't think attacks on uniformed military personnel are terrorism (e.g., Ft. Hood or Ft. Dix).  I think it's reasonable to describe this attack as terrorism, though I don't know what that accomplishes.  Murder 1 usually does the trick (except here in MA, though that's the topic of a another post).

So what would you argue?

From the wiki:

The Tackling Violent Crime Act took effect on 1 May 2008, raising the age of consent to 16 from 14.^[7]

There exist two close in age exemptions [in Canada], depending on the age of the younger partner. A youth of twelve or thirteen can consent to sexual activity with an individual less than two years older than they. A fourteen- or fifteen-year-old can consent to sexual activity with a partner who is less than five years older than they.^[8]

That sounds entirely reasonable (ideal, if you ask me).  To be clear, my objection is to felony charges against kids a few years apart who attend the same school.  31-year-old international sex tourist pederasts are a completely different story.

Right, but assault and battery are generally misdemeanors, not felonies.

I don't particularly like the idea of sicking the state on lustful teenagers*, but it's the that that this behavior is a felony that really gets my goat.  Every moment the CJ system spends on these kind of cases distracts them from preventing, prosecuting, and incarcerating genuine sexual predators.

* Which is not to say that I approve of their behavior; my future daughters' prom nights will begin with their dates seeing me cleaning a variety of firearms.

That said, can we stipulate that these guys were as fantastically lame as they were evil?  I mean, there were two of them, and their great accomplishment was murdering one guy?

Makes the Tsarnaev brothers seem impressive.

Though I think we overuse "terrorism" -- especially with regard to attacks on our military -- I'm with Mollie on this one, given that the victim was neither in uniform nor on a military base.

You're right; I was rounding their ages up (though I do appreciate TX making an effort to be reasonable).  Apologies.

But, just to be clear, we are talking about felony charges, prison time, and (sometimes permanent) registry as a sex offender.  Those are utterly appropriate punishments for genuine sexual predators, not teenagers with more hormones than sense.

I think it's important to have exceptions for teenagers with age differences of only a few years (aka Romeo & Juliet laws).  Texas' statutory rape laws strike me as far more reasonable than Florida's; from what I gather of the case, Kaitlyn Hunt would have had a positive defense against the charges had she and her girlfriend lived there.

The reasons I oppose laws like Florida's are because they permanently ruin the lives of otherwise decent kids by giving them a felony record (as a sex-offender, no less).  That's both foolish and unjust.

This is something I was trying to get at a few months back: that while both conception and birth are the two clearest moments at which to recognize legal and moral rights, both have significant problems if one expects even a minimal level of consistency.

I find it rather amazing that you think it's appropriate to charge an 18-year-old HS senior as felony sex offender for having sex with a HS freshman.

This is what parenting is for, not police.

Hear, hear.

It's also fascinating how the attacker -- in fluent, London-accented English -- refers to foreign countries as "our lands."  Not surprising, just fascinating.

That was awesome.

Megan McArdle had a great column on what we could actually do if we cared and were smart about this. As such, it's properly considered a work of speculative fiction, but...

That was awesome.

Megan McArdle had a great column on what we could actually do if we cared and were smart about this. As such, it's properly considered a work of speculative fiction, but...

That was awesome.

Megan McArdle had a great column on what we could actually do if we cared and were smart about this. As such, it's properly considered a work of speculative fiction, but...

Seconded.  I've known some myself.

Here are some stats from Red Families v. Blue Families (Chapter 1, sub-chapter "The Teen Divide"):

The states with the highest white teen birthrates in 2003 were Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.  The states with the lowest teen abortion rates are Utah, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Arkansas.*

On the other side, the states with the lowest white teen birthrates at that time were New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode-Island.  The states with highest teen abortion rates were Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts  New York, and New Jersey.

The overlap is pretty amazing.

* I don't have numbers for white teen abortion rates, so the comparison isn't perfect.

My bad: I should have said:

[P]eople go to a fertility clinic because they're having trouble having a baby, not because they're perfectly fertile but worried about the health of any early stage embryos whose lives might be created and ended without their knowledge.