U.S. Adult Right to "Keep and Bear Arms": but children?

T

titan

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Texas judge overturns state ban on young adults carrying guns
The Guardian US

U.S. judge throws out Texas gun ban for young adults after Supreme Court ruling​

Yahoo News

Is this a simple matter of where to draw the line between childhood and adulthood? There are already a variety of thresholds for this in the U.S., age 18 in some cases, age 21 for some others.

In this specific issue of firearms carry, it Texas blazing a trail the rest of the nation will follow? Or in this case is Texas mostly an exception, with little influence over the other 49?
 
That sounds like a recipe for more Kyle Rittenhouses running around and "policing" events by shooting people; a sad state of affairs in America in general.
 
Oran said:
Kyle Rittenhouse
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Poignant reference, Rittenhouse acquitted in a multiple homicide he committed before age 18.

The U.S. does seem to be in a tussle with itself about where to split the baby.
Banning guns entirely doesn't have much support.
The opposite extreme is about equally unpopular.

So the tussle continues.
 
It might seem a solution might be obvious, within easy reach. But as we look closer, we see guns aren't really the problem, but a symptom. Switzerland demonstrates that. The Swiss are trained in the use of small arms, and issued small arms by their government, for use in national defense. Of course anyone issued with such military arm could attempt to use it for illegal purpose. And yet gun violence in Switzerland is quite rare compared to the United States.
 
O #2,
It may be obvious to outside observers that common sense is a weak and stifled stepchild in this U.S. debate on guns.

Complication #1:
The U.S. Constitution includes Article #2 of the Bill of Rights. It is in my opinion among the most disjointed, badly worded clauses of the United States Constitution.

B. O. R. ARTICLE #2: Ratified December 15, 1791
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It's a spaghetti tangle of a mess.
Centuries elapsed before SCOTUS (the arbiter of the interpretation of such law) addressed whether 2A was a right of individuals, or States.

Many States including my home State of New York requires those that want a handgun to register it, apply for a license, whatever.
How can we possibly consider that not an infringement? And yet this and many other limits & restrictions are imposed.

The result is human rights / political / legal hypocrisy. "... shall not be infringed" is the ideal we impart ceremonial genuflect to. But then we infringe and usurp this "unalienable right" routinely, daily.

Conservative syndicated columnist George Will addressed whether "the right to keep and bear arms" was a right of "well regulated militias", or a right our Constitution confers to citizens.

In order to argue your point of view you have to say 3 things.
1st of all that only the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights does not protect individual rights, it protects the rights of the government.
2nd you have to say that George Mason widely called the father of the Bill of Rights was wrong when he said by the militia we mean the whole People.
3rd you have to say the Founders were clumsy framers of the Constitution because if they wanted to do what you say they did with the [2nd] Amendment which is say, States can have militias, all they needed to say was, Congress shall have no power to prohibit State militias period. They didn't. They talked about the rights of the People.
George Will ABC-TV This Week 02/05/12

Rampage #3 calls it a "tussle". I'd call it a fracas. Bad news no matter what it's called.
 
That's a good summation, sear. I like your thinking on that one, refreshingly to the point and not hiding behind any rhetoric.

I can't really disagree.
 
Witnessing accounts of the carnage generation after generation (since the '60's) has impressed grim despair on me, and perhaps a hundred million of my closest friends. We've got a baby that badly needs splitting. Where's Solomon when we really need him?!
 
Guns grab the headlines. But the very definition of what a weapon is has proved to be somewhat fluid. Automobiles racing through a crowd can kill and injure many. But it's a blunt, indiscriminate instrument. My opening post mentions the age limit. That by itself raises Constitutional questions.
Certainly the day after his 21st birthday a man might have need of a gun for self-protection. A man the day before his 21st birthday does not? Constitutional rights are fine. But I see no age limit specified in the 2nd amendment.
"One bullet in the hands of a mentally unstable person or a convicted felon is one too many. Six bullets in the hands of a mother protecting her twin nine year olds may not be enough." Sen. Lindsey Graham
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titan, do you think automobiles should be restricted as much as firearms? They're already regulated. A 12 year old given a handgun by his parents because the family home is in a rough neighborhood? If age 18 or age 21 isn't right, what age standard do you recommend?
 
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