So, when we catch someone planning an attack like that, even if they’re a juvenile, we know what we need to do. Recently, I wrote about a 13-year-old who planned just such an attack.

Well, now the teen has been before the juvenile court judge and his fate has been determined.

A 13-year-old boy who was arrested and accused of planning a mass shooting at an Ohio synagogue will have to write a book report on a Swiss diplomat who saved thousands of Jewish people during World War II, a family court judge ruled.

The teen, who is not being named because of his age, was charged with misdemeanor inducing panic and misdemeanor disorderly conduct after allegedly making a detailed plan to shoot members of Temple Israel in the city of Canton, south of Akron.

…

The teen pleaded “true,” the juvenile equivalent of guilty, to all counts on Friday, NBC affiliate WKYC of Cleveland reported.

Stark County Family Court Judge Jim James gave the teen a year of probation and ordered that he read a book and then write a report about Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, who saved more than 62,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II, according to the news station.

He’s also barred from unsupervised use of the internet and has to get therapy.

Look, I get the reason the judge wanted a report written. He’s in school so this is something he’s used to doing and the judge figured writing about Lutz will change the boy’s antisemitic views.

But let’s also consider that he was planning a mass shooting. He wanted to kill as many people as possible.

So, just so we’re all clear here, it’s vital that we take mass shootings seriously. The absolutely best way to do that is to punish people who never planned a mass shooting though gun control and to give people who did plan one a slap on the wrist.

This is a year’s probation and a glorified book report. In truth, the prohibition against him using the internet without supervision is likely to be the biggest burden he’ll face, and I suspect that will ultimately be laughably difficult to enforce.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are battling constantly just to hold onto our right to keep and bear arms, all because of the actions of people who do this sort of thing. Mass shootings are used to justify any manner of gun control, up to and including some wanting to repeal the Second Amendment all together.

Yet then they catch someone planning an attack and what do they do? They give him a slap on the wrist.

Why not. They can’t seem to crack down on literally any other criminal these days.

“But dude, he’s only 13.”

Yeah, I get that, and I did stupid stuff when I was 13, too. What I didn’t do, though, was plan a mass shooting where I’d slaughter people because of their ethnicity. That goes beyond making crank phone calls or even going joy riding in Dad’s car.

This is the mass slaughter of innocent people.

But hey, at least he got a year’s probation. That’s about what I’d expect to get if a party got busted and the kids drinking underage got prosecuted, for the record.