As the 1950s "Seduction of the Innocents" House Hearings painted all teenagers who read comic books as crime prone delinquents and a menace and scourge to the nation, the anti-gun crusaders warn that brains are not fully formed until 25 years of age and no one under the age of 21 should be allowed have a gun lest they turn into school shooters. It's Science and Politics!
My Dad first took me to shoot cans at the old home place on the mountain when I was 6, using the .22 rifle he grew up with. I was caught up that time in the Walt Dusny Davy Crockett fad. I also target practiced with my uncles over the years. I was gifted a .22 rifle for Xmas when I was 15. On visits to the mountain I hunted squirrel with my uncle, and back home Dad and I skinned and gutted the squirrels and he made squirrel dumplings. In the public library I studied astronomy, microscopy, and military history in particular guerilla warfare. I also looked up Firearms Legislation in the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and read every available article in the extensive shelves of periodicals and took notes. When I turned 18 (1966), graduated HS, had my first job, I bought my first rifle on my own at Sears.
The Clinton administration National Survey on Private Ownership and use of Firearms NSPOF (sample: uninstitutionalized adults in homes with phones) found that the majority of adult firearms owners had been introduced to firearmsas children by adult relatives . Breaking that link is the key to gun control, at least among the law abiding population, by setting minimum ages, raising them, and making violations federal firearms felonies.
