When I first found out about this story, I wasn’t sure if it fell under dumb crook news or under law enforcement setting up a sucker for an easy media win.
Sure, that may not be the most generous explanations on my part, but it’s true (in my defense, those were my thoughts after just getting the broad brush strokes of the story… just like you in the headline of this article).
Was either of my initial thoughts on this situation right? Honestly, I’m not really sure, yet, what I ultimately think happened. Ellen Schmidt and Gene Johnson with the Associated Press give us some details:
FBI agents thwarted a terror attack by a teenager on the Mall of America after monitoring him for nearly two years and ultimately supplying him with the AK-47 he planned to use, authorities said Wednesday.
The 18-year-old had been on the FBI’s radar since December 2024, when he began trading messages with a confidential informant. A criminal complaint says he initially expressed an interest in traveling to Somalia to fight for al-Shabab militants. As his plans to instead attack the mall solidified, the complaint says, agents sold him the gun and ammunition on Tuesday and arrested him on the spot.
Now, to be fair to the FBI, it sounds like this guy probably legitimately had evil intent and wanted to kill innocent people.
On the other hand, though, it doesn’t sound like he had actually hurt anyone, yet, and if that is the case, had he actually broken any legitimate laws (even though I follow laws that I disagree with to avoid hassle with the government, I think that firearm laws are illegitimate based on the Second Amendment)?
So, I’m kind of torn about this. I don’t want this guy to actually have hurt someone before someone steps in to prevent a bigger problem, but neither do I want the government stepping on people based on the presumption that they’re going to do something bad. After all, presumption is not the same as actually having done the deed.
What’s your take on this? Did the FBI step over the line and entrap this guy, or did they act legitimately in arresting someone who is a dumb crook? Or is it something else completely? Let us know in the comments below.