Too Young to Buy a Rifle Then Too Young To Vote

When is a child no longer a child? When I was growing up, out on your own at 18 was the general rule ( I was out even younger.) My grandparents were married when he was 15 and she was 13, out on their own, farming and raising a family. Today it seems that many are still living at home well into their 30’s with little or no desire to be on their own. What happened? So as a result of this societal failure we have laws that no longer seem logical: drinking age 21, smoking 18, driving 16, abortion anytime, military service 18,  purchase handgun 21, purchase rifle 18, voting 18. According to the attorneys defending the 19 year old monster who killed 17 students at a Florida High School, he’s just a child who ‘fell through the cracks.’ At least one FL politician suggested we lower the voting age to 16 because these young people would vote in gun control. We are hearing the cries to raise the age to purchase a rifle to 21 as 18-year-olds are not responsible enough – but they are mature enough to decide the future of the country? So let me get this straight; a 16-year-old near a mass shooting is somehow a gun control expert, but the 19-year -old shooter is ‘just a child’ – got it. Have you been seeing the networks dragging these kids on TV to lecture us on gun control as though they are now some kind of experts? Experts on Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and eating Tide Pods maybe, gun regulations not so much.

So where do we draw the line?

On average 6 teens are killed in car crashes every single day. Overall odds of being killed in a car crash are 1 in 645. But your odds of being killed by a bad guy with a gun is 1 in 24,974. I certainly haven’t heard any talk about raising the driving age. It’s easy to paint a subject like this with a broad brush, but more difficult to come to a real solution. Many 18-year-olds are responsible young adults, many are not. Maybe instead of age, maybe a clean police record and a current pay stub should be a prerequisite for getting a drivers licence – you know, comprehensive background check. Maybe the same should be required to vote, or maybe a drivers licence and a utility bill with their name on it. I simply don’t know what the answer is, but raising the age to purchase a rifle certainly isn’t going to solve anything.

Keep your powder dry.