How is it "highly likely"? You've got to be pretty innumerate to believe that, swatting incidents have occurred rather a lot in the US, they generally don't end up with the person being swatted getting shot, it is not "highly likely", it is rather unlikely!
The likely result of such an incident is simply a bit of shouting/pointing of firearms, wasted police time and maybe some property damage if a door gets kicked in.
Let us consider a range of things that are considered sufficiently "Highly Likely" to result in death or serious injury To such an extent that the motoring related ones are considered serious criminal offenses
At one end we have Russian Roulette, slightly less than 1:6 risk Death/round
In the middle DUI (Driving while over the limit) Likely somewhere around 1:500,000 Death/Journey undertaken.
At the far end, Driving while using a mobile phone, Likely upwards of 1:100,000,000 Death/call made or taken.
Though I have been unable to find any firm figures regarding the risk of death as a result of Swatting, I would expect it to be far, far, closer to be at the Russian Roulette end of that scale than the talking and driving end.
Now, while we might debate over whether or not the Law is overreacting to the risks associated with DUI and Mobile phone use. (
!) I still believe it is still the case that that the risks of death as a result of Swatting are many orders of magnitude greater than these other activities to the extent that they must be plainly obvious.
I would expect the risks to be somewhere around 1:100, perhaps greater. To put this in perspective, this is probably comparable to the risk of death as a result of carrying out a "Drive by Shooting".
While the proportion of drive byes that results in a death is low, (Along with Swatting) it is still an activity that, in the great scheme of things, is highly likely to result in one. To an extent that should be plainly obvious to anybody.
And so it should be with Swatting. Especially when you consider that Criminals are always going to be expecting that knock on the door, and whatever they chose to do when it happens (Run/Fight/Surrender) it is something that thy will have thought about and planned for. Some poor Swatting victim will have absolutely no idea what is going on and is highly likely to react unpredictably resulting in him getting shot.
So yes, it should be considered as being a similar level of offense as a drive by....
it just doesn't work like that, there wasn't a murder here by the person who made the prank call, you need to do some really silly mental gymnastics to come to that conclusion
Felony Murder (As others have said too)
Check
http://www.orrazz.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swatting-attack.html
Thre relevant paragraph is..
In some states, filing a false police report is just a misdemeanor and is mainly punishable by fines. However, in other jurisdictions filing a false police report is a felony, and I’m afraid it’s long past time for these false reports about dangerous situations to become a felony offense in every state.
Here’s why.
If making a fraudulent report about a hostage situation or bomb threat is a felony, then if anyone dies as a result of that phony report they can legally then be charged with felony murder. Under the
doctrine of felony murder, when an offender causes the death of another (regardless of intent) in the commission of a dangerous crime, he or she is guilty of murder.
Sadly we, in the UK, no longer have the "Felony Murder" rule as such. (It was abolished in stages during the late 50's to mid 60's) however many (Though not all) of the circumstances it covered are currently covered by "Common Purpose" or "Joint enterprise". I doubt though that there is any law in the UK that could currently deem the perp here guilty of Murder unless one could prove a specific intent/conspiracy
But across the pond, back in the civilized world, they still do things right...!