Assault: (Law) an act, criminal or tortious, that threatens physical harm to a person, whether or not actual harm is done
So now what ? Is the situation better or worse ? It better be LOT better, because society is collectively out of quite a bit of money by the time all that is said and done.
I don't think Arrington is necessarily over reacting to the threat, either. Without knowing the details it's impossible to tell, and even if you knew the details you might be uncertain. There is a very wide zone between something that will justify society's all-out response and what makes you feel creepy.
There is probably no way for society to make everyone feel warm and comfy about all their interactions with each other. Think about if we had a general policy of jailing people based on a definition of "threatens physical harm" that was that lose. Think back over every bad relationship you ever had . . . are you absolutely sure that some disasterous former manager or former employee could not have gotten you jailed ? Absolutely sure ?
Not trying to argue. Just don't see why that wouldn't work. the jury should just be like "well, it's a crime, and he did it" instead of saying it's common so we'll ignore it.
The reason I've heard that assault charges aren't always filed is that there has to be, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact wording, "sufficient reason " to believe that the accuser can and will carry out his/her thread in order to make it assault.
The situation often cited for this is a 90 lb weakling gets drunk and threatens to beat up someone who fights in MMA for a living. Since the thread isn't credible this technically isn't assault.
On the other hand, if I shove a gun in your face and threaten to kill you then that very much is assault as my threat is very credible.
Some where in between is the line between assault and just being a dick, which isn't a crime.
This is often why many verbal assault cases aren't tried.
The other, unfortunate, reason is that court time is very finite. Prosecutors can only take so many cases to court and prosecutors know that people will often make these types of threats for a short period of time and then just leave that person's life.
If that's the case then the situation often resolves itself and they don't have to take up their valuable court space with this case.
It sucks but that's the way things are:(.
I have threatened bloody murder to many a bad library author, and the last thing I need is to get jailed because of that ;)
(Honestly, it seems the kind of circumstance where I can't really think of anything the police should be able to do to anyone who seems dangerous or "suspicious", because both are very much judgement calls.)