It’s bonkers to let children buy guns. That is not controversial. What is controversial is the definition of child. (I have no problem with parents buying firearms for kids as they will bear resposibility for what happens, and there are lots of kids who own firearms and handle them responsibly. Kyle Rittenhouse is a fantastic example. So, yes, the title is a bit of a misdirect.)
Society, for lack of a better term, has an obsession with defining the maturity of a person by age, probably from a sense of fairness and laziness. For most purposes, the legal age of adulthood has landed on 18. It’s the age you can buy cigarettes, go to war, and vote, among many other things. For work and driving a vehicle, we have pulled the age back, and for drinking and buying a handgun, we have pushed the age up.
But do days on the earth automatically confer maturity? Of course not. We know this. Every mature person knows this. In a lot of cases, the logic follows the pattern “if they can do X at this age, should be able to do Y.” So, if they can fight and die in war, they should be able to have a say in war by voting (nobody votes on war anymore).
I used to think the age for lots of stuff should be raised. Adolescence has been drawn out at least a decade since I grew up. 50 years before that, a lot of teenagers were more mature than today’s millennials (who are now in their 30’s). But I was wrong; age is not the right way to determine adulthood, or even certain privileges.
To be an adult is to be responsible for yourself. Currently, we foist responsibility at a certain age. If you are 18, you are judged differently than 17. Before you are an adult, parents bear the responsibility for your actions. There is an easy way to know when you have become responsible for yourself and your actions which is legally verifiable and already in use: dependent status per federal income tax filing.
That’s it. Simple and straightforward. If you depend on mommy or daddy, then mommy has to buy the no-no juice for you. If you aren’t responsible enough to be on your own, then daddy has to buy your bang-bang bullet gun. Conversely, if you move out at 16, you’re a grown-ass man and can buy what you want, and vote for whatever corrupt politician makes you feel warm and fuzzy.
Yes, this means that some people won’t be able to vote until they are in their 30’s, if ever. Good. Compared to what I actually think, this is a modest proposal. Ideally, you wouldn’t be able to vote until you claim someone as a dependent, and even then, there are lots of things that should preclude you from voting, like being a public employee, including government contractors.
Yes, this means parents will be responsible for the actions of their dependents for longer. Good, maybe that will encourage them to not clip their child’s wings. Because here’s the deal, dependency is bad, but it’s exactly what the state wants to encourage of it’s subjects. It’s the opposite of sovereignty. Independence, self reliance, responsibility is what makes you free, even if it’s freedom from your parents. Depending on your parents while at the same time demanding to be treated like an adult is the ultimate contradiction, and a regression to toddlerhood.
Even I hate this proposal, if applied only to guns. What I propose is to change the way we think about adulthood and the privileges that come with it, because in a sane world, privilege stems from responsibility – not from an arbitrary number of minutes drawing breath.