My previous correspondent responds:
First, if you’re going to put an age of 28 or so as a minimum to exercise a constitutional right, you’re going to have to make that the age of majority. Personally I agree with you that common sense doesn’t really start to kick in for many people until that age. Ain’t gonna fly though. We probably were wrong to drop it from 21 to 18, but unless you’re willing to undo that, this is a non starter.
I absolutely agree that it’s almost certainly a non-starter. But I do think it’s good to have discussions about “impossible proposals,” as they can lead to important insights, and sometimes “impossible” isn’t.
As to “that the universe of accessible guns to these minors will decrease if the general proposal were to be enacted” that’s also foolish. There are far more firearms in the US than people, and that universe is expanding all the time. Approximately 40 million firearms were purchased in 2020 alone, 28 million in 2019.
But these are fluid facts. Say we pass such a proposal. Tomorrow, yeah, no real effect on the universe of accessible guns. Day after? Day after that? The universe is shrinking. Maybe we cut off the supply of ammunition, too. All of a sudden the universe’s visible edge isn’t 12 billion light years, but just Mars’ orbit.
The point is that saying the problem is just too hard to solve doesn’t make it so. We’e a clever people, aren’t we? The first step, maybe, is to pass the appropriate laws, and then find ways to fulfill the goal.
Riddle me this: If the proliferation of firearms is the root of firearm violence, how come that peaked fully 30 years ago despite there being far more firearms in the US today? We focus on isolated incidents and let emotions rule our decisions rather than intellect. What we are seeing now is the typical knee jerk reaction with myriad proposals that will make no difference in crime or violence, but will impact ordinary citizens with neither criminal history nor criminal intent.
I have a better riddle: why does banning private ownership of automatic weapons work in Europe but won’t work here?
I see my reader’s riddle as a bit of a non-sequitur. Why? Because automatic weapons in the hands of one, or a few, homicidal people are an example of a non-linear system. Put an automatic weapon in the hands of a maniac and do they kill one other person? No. They kill a dozen. Two dozen. Sixty in Las Vegas. Give the Las Vegas dude a .38, or even a few, and let him pepper the crowd, and maybe he gets a half dozen before the cops break the door down and stops him.
Recognizing that one person with an automatic can kill dozens in an hour isn’t being knee-jerk, it’s recognizing a reality and coming up with a response. A debate like this is part of the process. My rejoinder is this: why should a very dangerous weapon, with which tragic mishaps are not unknown, and which has no plausible, appropriate function beyond novelty for the private citizen, be owned by a species of creature known to lose its temper – or worse. There are many things we can and do own that are dangerous, yes, but they also have legitimate functions. For example, the herbicide RoundUp, which I cite because farmers who use it are, or at least were 25 years ago, required to register with BATF. Or get licensed. I’m too lazy to look it up, but I do remember chatting with a farmer about it, and he wasn’t happy. We’re more careful, societally speaking, with RoundUp, a potential ingredient for bombs, than with automatic weapons. And given the Oklahoma City bombing, maybe that’s appropriate. Maybe.
My reader continues:
Also, this piqued my interest: ” … madness of permitting private ownership of weapons of war…” What weapons of war would those be? I’ve thought about it but can’t figure it out. Usually I’m pretty good with puzzles but this one has me stumped.
I cite Admiral James Stavridis (US Navy, Retired):
