Mass shootings are a terrifying yet common part of American culture. With lax gun laws and the government’s unwillingness to restrict access to assault weapons, innocent people being killed by domestic terrorists is almost a foregone conclusion at this point.

Because of this, authorities have to take every threat seriously, and this is exactly what they did when they arrested 15-year-old Dalton Barnhart (not his real name) for threatening to shoot up a school.

Using his online pseudonym, the Volusia County, Florida teen used a Minecraft chat to leave an ominous warning vowing to commit a serious act of violence. The message was later shared on the messaging platform Discord, and it wasn’t long before the authorities got involved.

“I Dalton Barnhart vow to bring my fathers m15 to school and kill 7 people at a minimum,” Banhart posted on Thursday, August 16.

Within 24 hours, police arrived at his home and arrested him. A video of the arrest was posted on YouTube soon after.

While the arrest was understandable and even commendable given the seriousness of the threats made by the teenager. However, his mother had a different reaction, chiding the arresting officer for treating her son “like a terrorist” and insisting that he is “just a little kid playing a video game.” She also claimed that Barnhart’s comments were simply a “joke” and weren’t meant to be taken seriously.

Detective Brian Howard wasn’t buying it, however. “How do we know he’s not going to be the kid from Parkland…that he’s not going to be the next kid, the kid that shot up Sandy Hook. We don’t know that.”

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s reiterated that stance on Monday, releasing a statement saying, “Jokes or not, these types of comments are felonies under the law.”

Joke or not, these types of comments are felonies under the law. After the mass violence we've seen in Florida and across the country, law enforcement officers have a responsibility to investigate and charge those who choose to make these types of threatening statements. — Volusia Sheriff (@VolusiaSheriff) August 19, 2019

The unnamed teen, who attends Seabreeze High School, is facing a potential felony charge of threat to discharge a destructive device and has been sent to a juvenile detention center, though the Department of Juvenile Justice declined to update BuzzFeed News on his status when requested.