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

citizenconn said:

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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Sure it's there. Still empty. Salt Flats. Cornudas. Of course, Guadalupe Peak is part of a National Park now. Spent some time fairly recently working in Carlsbad (2015). Nothing has changed much, but at the time, it was just as expensive as sin to stay there due to the oil boom. Probably real calm these days. The ranch is north east of Blue Origin's launch facility, which is north of Van Horn. We don't own it anymore. Still have the mineral rights though. My mom tells me it was wetter back before WW2. Better for cows. I used to wade in Nickel Creek up by the peak. We used to drive from El Paso out through there and around up through Carlsbad to my dad's family's farms up in the Pecos Valley in Hagerman.

bearcreek said:

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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Oh, I have no doubt that was the result. I just doubt it was a government plot. Anyway, they just went through a bad stretch where every bad man in the country had a BAR or a Thompson SMG. Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde.......I can see the reason for getting a handle on things.

bearcreek said:

Are you saying you would be in favor of allowing 5 year olds to purchase firearms then?

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no, I'm saying we're clearly failing to identify mass shooters based on their psychology. it would be hard to argue they are not very different. maybe it is made worse by psychiatric medications. don't know. just a comment, food for thought

5 year olds don't have enough money to purchase firearms, so -

film495 said:

no, I'm saying we're clearly failing to identify mass shooters based on their psychology. it would be hard to argue they are not very different. maybe it is made worse by psychiatric medications. don't know. just a comment, food for thought

5 year olds don't have enough money to purchase firearms, so -

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I wouldn't be too sure. Some 5 year olds have rich parents.

The second is the only one that specifically states no infringements.
Yet we stupidly allowed over 22,000 of them.

At the AKfiles they always grab popcorn for such discussions.


old lady new shooter: Acquaintances I had in Germany, or are from there, mentioned Limonade being mixed with beer (?) for children to ingest, due to --less-- Bier Alkohol?

Geesh, I was 18 when the same government that doesn't want folks that age to be armed stuck an automatic weapon in my hands and sent me forth to shoot at people.

Are inalienable rights dependent on age? If so, what age? The founders would have considered 16 to be an adult. A different time, I get it. So let’s look at our time. We let 18 year olds drive alone or with a car full of people. They can buy cars. And gasoline. We let 18 year olds enlist in the military without parental consent. We let them vote. We let them marry other 18 year olds. And have (and keep) children. So it appears we trust 18 year olds with a lot of really important, sometimes dangerous things.

But there are ways for 18 year olds to legally get guns, right? They can be gifted guns if they have someone in their lives who is willing to gift them a gun. The same goes for ammo, as a lot of places won’t sell ammo to 18 year olds. Some people will need firearms for self defense, even 18 year olds, sometimes especially 18 year olds. Let’s look at a worst case scenario. A just turned 18 year old female has been kicked out of the foster system, having never been adopted. She needs somewhere to stay, falls in with the wrong crowd and ends up pregnant. Wanting a better life for her soon to be born child, she gets a job and someplace to stay, but some guy from the wrong crowd comes after her. Shouldn’t she have the right to legally purchase a firearm and ammo to protect herself and her unborn child, rather than wait for defunded police to show up too late?

jmorris said:

As far as I am concerned they could raise the age to 50 and it wouldn’t have any effect on me. However, if we are changing laws to accommodate the few, I would prefer them to raise the driving age. 40k+ are killed by automobiles every year.

If we are doing it “for the children” that’s a better place to start, as it kills more of them annually.

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Not anymore.......https://www.scientificamerican.com/...e-children-and-young-adults-than-car-crashes/

IMHO, the problem is not the age at which a young adult can buy a firearm, it's how our society has taught those young adults how to deal with society. It's a lack of positive role models and family structure. It's the glorification in the media of violence using guns and those that use guns for violence. Stopping mass shootings is going to take a lot more than raising the age to legally purchase a firearm.

HowieG said:

I wouldn't be too sure. Some 5 year olds have rich parents.

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right, and it would then be the parents buying it. so, until a person is working age - around here it was 13, when I was 13 there was no way to have $$ unless it was stolen or given. maybe it is 16 now in some places.

I gave a handgun to my son when he was about 17 (?), with a note, if he ever needed it, explaining that he had my permission to own it.

Last I talked to him about it, he said that note was one of his prized possessions.

In keeping with my Darwinian attitude about "shall not be infringed," that is, that natural processes will sort the good from the bad, I'm beginning to construct a "Billy the Kid" thesis about youthful gun possession or ownership.

Billy (officially Henry McCarty) had a troubled youth, orphaned at 15, and pretty much unsupervised.

He kept getting into trouble, including all the famous killings, and was shot to death by the age of 21.

End of story and witness to my developing "Billy the Kid Thesis," incorporating:

1. Poorly or unsupervised childhood.
2. Resentment of circumstances surrounding his life.
3. Lack of empathy due to 1. above.
4. Actual age, per se, does not have much to do with the problem of youthful gun ownership.

Well, I could be wrong and I'm sticking my neck out here, but that's my "Billy the Kid Thesis."

Terry, 230RN

REF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_the_Kid#Early_life