a good argument against raising the age for gun ownership to 21

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Tell you what, why don't you list all of the applicable cases for me. Here is the deal, I made suggestions based on education, common sense, and my readings of the Constitution. I am exercising my right to free speech. You are perfectly within your rights to disagree with me and I welcome the discussion. As far as what is ultimately unconstitutional, that is for SCOTUS to decide. That being said, the Constitution does state certain things in plain black and white lanquage. Those are the things I pay attention to, but even those CAN be changed by the admendment process. Thankfully, amending the Constitution is real hard.
Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Citations: 383 U.S. 663 (more)86 S. Ct. 1079; 16 L. Ed. 2d 169; 1966 U.S. LEXIS 2905
Prior: 240 F. Supp. 270 (E.D. Va. 1964); probable jurisdiction noted, 380 U.S. 930
Sure. The desires of the draftee and the requirements of the service of course. They might not have any openings for left handed bug smashers when you go in. Also, your tests might show you aren't qualified to be a left handed bug smasher to begin with.
There are currently IQ tested as asvab limits. A system of classification would be needed to deal with these exceptions. The army is a big place. It also goes to motivation one has in school. If you life may literally depend on your school grades you may see better results....
 
I think we need to abolish this middle ground between 18 and 21. Settle on an age for legal adulthood, I really don't care which age, and once that age is reached a person is allowed all privileges of being an adult.

As I stated before, it is really abolished any way by the Constitution. Voting age is 18. If you can vote, you deserve full rights as a citizen. Amend the Constitution to change the age. Maybe age 60. I kind of had it together then.
 
Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Citations: 383 U.S. 663 (more)86 S. Ct. 1079; 16 L. Ed. 2d 169; 1966 U.S. LEXIS 2905
Prior: 240 F. Supp. 270 (E.D. Va. 1964); probable jurisdiction noted, 380 U.S. 930

There are currently IQ tested as asvab limits. A system of classification would be needed to deal with these exceptions. The army is a big place. It also goes to motivation one has in school. If you life may literally depend on your school grades you may see better results....

Yep. Used to be infantry was the catch all MOS for those not qulified to be anything better. Now though, an infantryman is HIGHLY skilled.
 
So many people get this stuff confused....also some people confuse this just to stir the pot as well. I generally go back to 1932 gun deal that most of us know. It was written to be a TAX, it is not restricting your access to anything, it is just a tax, and the .gov can tax.
It's a tax, but the purpose of the tax was to discourage ownership and to effectively create a registry of who has the "dangerous" items.
 
So...maybe we should do like several other nations... Two years mandatory in the armed services after graduation.... Even the reserve for that matter...that would probably solve a whole lotta problems we're having... And having 50+ million trained reservest to call upon wouldn't hurt if needed.
I can hear the screams already.
 
Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Citations: 383 U.S. 663 (more)86 S. Ct. 1079; 16 L. Ed. 2d 169; 1966 U.S. LEXIS 2905
Prior: 240 F. Supp. 270 (E.D. Va. 1964); probable jurisdiction noted, 380 U.S. 930

There are currently IQ tested as asvab limits. A system of classification would be needed to deal with these exceptions. The army is a big place. It also goes to motivation one has in school. If you life may literally depend on your school grades you may see better results....

Ahh, poll taxes. Can't base voting on wealth because wealth has nothing to do with voting. This was an equal protection clause case. Virginia actually was trying to keep blacks from voting. Besides the 24th amendment, which forbade poll taxes anyway. Frankly, The feds could have set a poll tax federally and made a little coin for the treasury if they had made the tax a small one and provided assistance for the really poor with the reasoning that the tax would cover the costs of administering the elections. Everybody votes and everybody pays a quarter. That would have satisfied the equal protection clause.

It doesn't fit the context of what we are talking about here. There are plenty of laws about voting that are Constitutional and you ablsolutely can have laws controlling the access to weapons. I could argue that having different laws by state controlling guns is also unconstitutional under the equal protection clause. Why should any state forbid a person from buying a certain gun when it is perfectly legal in another state.

All that aside, I still don't think we want crazies running around with guns, and I remain in favor of training. Training is a good thing.
 
It's a tax, but the purpose of the tax was to discourage ownership and to effectively create a registry of who has the "dangerous" items.

I doubt it was there to discourage ownership. Registration, absolutely. They could have just bagged machine guns absolutely. Nobody gets them. Same as nukes and chemical weapons. Frankly, what discourages my ownership isn't the tax. It's the cost of ammo. I can't afford to feed an MG42.
 
I doubt it was there to discourage ownership. Registration, absolutely. They could have just bagged machine guns absolutely. Nobody gets them. Same as nukes and chemical weapons. Frankly, what discourages my ownership isn't the tax. It's the cost of ammo. I can't afford to feed an MG42.
It was definitely to discourage ownership. I read recently that $200 back then would be something like $4000 today.
 
Just raising the age won't accomplish much... Vetting is key...
 
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I'm almost always in favor of a good, if spirited, discussion. That said, this one's beginning to wander a bit far afield. Please try to bring it back on-topic, or I'll have to shut it down.
 
We have driver training in school and we used to have gun saftey in school. A person educated in gun safety and proper handling is more important than an age... 21 is an arbitrary number used for alcohol because it used to be deemed at the time that the brain was fully developed. The science has evolved to now say it's 25. Eighteen is the age of legal responsibility and all rights are active at that point. Relativism of drinking and other constitutional rights need not apply. If the system wants to require a screening to exercise a right that burden is on the system. The funding for any screening is built into the bill of rights in the fact that the government is expressly denied the ability to exercise any enumerated right.
 
Your right to free speech, your right to not incriminate yourself, and your right to be secure in your person and your papers do not depend on age. Under Bruen, I'm not sure how an age limit can be justified. Any age you pick will always be somewhat arbitrary. And it's up to those who want an age limit to make their case.

I don't know what the right policy should be. I'm just saying that defending an arbitrary age limit could be difficult.

Like most Idaho farm boys, I started out on the BB/pellet/22 path by age 5. My parents took responsibility for teaching me. That seemed right, and still does.
 
Your right to free speech, your right to not incriminate yourself, and your right to be secure in your person and your papers do not depend on age. Under Bruen, I'm not sure how an age limit can be justified. Any age you pick will always be somewhat arbitrary. And it's up to those who want an age limit to make their case.

I don't know what the right policy should be. I'm just saying that defending an arbitrary age limit could be difficult.

Like most Idaho farm boys, I started out on the BB/pellet/22 path by age 5. My parents took responsibility for teaching me. That seemed right, and still does.

Part of our problem is we became more urbanized as we have gone along. City kids don't have the opportunities for outdoor education that we had.
 
21 is an arbitrary number used for alcohol because it used to be deemed at the time that the brain was fully developed.
Ha,ha,ha! I don't know if that's called "irony" or what, but it struck me as kind of funny that if 21 is the arbitrary number assigned for the legal purchase and consumption of alcohol because it was deemed that the brain was fully developed at that age, it would follow that 21 is the age that people can legally begin undeveloping their brains through the over consumption of alcohol. :D
 
Ha,ha,ha! I don't know if that's called "irony" or what, but it struck me as kind of funny that if 21 is the arbitrary number assigned for the legal purchase and consumption of alcohol because it was deemed that the brain was fully developed at that age, it would follow that 21 is the age that people can legally begin undeveloping their brains through the over consumption of alcohol. :D

Been there, done that.
 
Part of our problem is we became more urbanized as we have gone along. City kids don't have the opportunities for outdoor education that we had.
Do you think part of the natural evolution of societies is towards urbanization, given that concentrating your populace in a limited number of large metropolitan areas is a more efficient use of resources as well as offering more opportunities for work, education and recreation? Many of the middling to large urban areas I have lived in in Texas (San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, Arlington, Houston) seem to work hard to offer curated "nature experiences" in lieu of actual nature, even when real actual nature is not that far away.

I grew up on a small ranch/farm in West Texas and probably never heard the word "urbanization" until I went to college and there in a sociology 101 textbook. Growing up, I could walk for hours through fields full of mesquite, cattle, horses, prickly pear, and coyotes and never see another living person for hours, and I did. Am I better for it? Well I certainly don't like closed in and crowded spaces and would rather live in a 300 square foot tin shack providing for myself than subsisting in an overcrowded housing complex. I do think it is a shame that the vast majority of youths (or adults for that matter) never get to, or even want to, experience actual nature except through their "smart" devices.
 
Do you think part of the natural evolution of societies is towards urbanization, given that concentrating your populace in a limited number of large metropolitan areas is a more efficient use of resources as well as offering more opportunities for work, education and recreation? Many of the middling to large urban areas I have lived in in Texas (San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, Arlington, Houston) seem to work hard to offer curated "nature experiences" in lieu of actual nature, even when real actual nature is not that far away.

I grew up on a small ranch/farm in West Texas and probably never heard the word "urbanization" until I went to college and there in a sociology 101 textbook. Growing up, I could walk for hours through fields full of mesquite, cattle, horses, prickly pear, and coyotes and never see another living person for hours, and I did. Am I better for it? Well I certainly don't like closed in and crowded spaces and would rather live in a 300 square foot tin shack providing for myself than subsisting in an overcrowded housing complex. I do think it is a shame that the vast majority of youths (or adults for that matter) never get to, or even want to, experience actual nature except through their "smart" devices.

I do think that. What could reverse that trend is a mega disaster of some sort. A virus that makes living in a close urban environment a deadly experience. A nuclear war. Something that would make us disperse.

I have spent most of my life either in smaller cities, or in small towns, plus I have deep farm/ranch roots. My mom was born on the ranch. Her family ranch was near Van Horn. I live in a town of 14,000 now. It's getting too big. I guess I will have to move.
 
Her family ranch was near Van Horn.
My Dad was an oil driller based out of Odessa for years in the 70s/80s. I've been through Van Horn many, many times growing up. I always liked when he would stop and let me swim at Balmorhea.

That part of Texas and southern New Mexico was a world unto itself, like nowhere else I've ever been since. Sometimes I wonder if its still even there.
 
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I doubt it was there to discourage ownership. Registration, absolutely. They could have just bagged machine guns absolutely. Nobody gets them. Same as nukes and chemical weapons. Frankly, what discourages my ownership isn't the tax. It's the cost of ammo. I can't afford to feed an MG42.
It was absolutely there to discourage ownership. If it wasn't, they would have made it some sort of reasonable number, not half of the cost of a new car or 5% of the cost of the average new home. If they did the same thing today we'd be looking at a tax somewhere in the $10-20,000 range.
 
It was absolutely there to discourage ownership. If it wasn't, they would have made it some sort of reasonable number, not half of the cost of a new car or 5% of the cost of the average new home. If they did the same thing today we'd be looking at a tax somewhere in the $10-20,000 range.

You seen any documentation that supports that, or is it just conjecture?
 
You seen any documentation that supports that, or is it just conjecture?
I have. I'd have to do some digging for it though. How much documentation do you really need though? The average blue collar worker in 1934, when that tax was enacted, made somewhere in the $300-$800/year range. Paying 25-60+% of a person's annual income in tax on a gun would unquestionably discourage ownership, and obviously the people writing the bill knew that. There isn't any other logical conclusion than that they wanted to discourage the average person from buying one of these guns.
 
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