Finally sitting down to compose some thoughts on what we can and probably should do about the swatting problem in the US. I'm finding I have quite a bit to say, and a lot of it involves mythbusting around this issue (e.g. that most of these swatting calls come through 911).

Another example: recent legislation to make swatting specifically a federal offense w/ real jail time for those convicted (introduced by a GOP lawmaker who was swatted). That might feel like a solution, but I doubt it's much of a deterrence for the sim-swatters.

Make it explicitly a federal offense with federal consequences, okay sure. But the feds have prosecuted these cases just fine using existing laws. The problem is, until the feds are aware of swatting incident, it remains effectively a local issue, which means the cops are less likely to investigate because these crimes are generally inter-state crimes They are usually by definition federal crimes for that reason, but they are still mostly dealt with by local authorities and local laws. One way a federal anti-swatting law could help is to require state and local law enforcement to report these crimes as violent crimes to some entity responsible for tracking them as such. Right now, there is no specific designation for swatting, and reporting is only required for federal law enforcement agencies. Reporting also serves an important accountability check on law enforcement responding to these incidents.