Teen hold ‘lie in’ at White House to press for gun control. (AP pix)
An online columnist is using the student reaction to the shooting at the Florida high school to raise the question of whether the voting age should be lowered from 18 to 16.
Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe is using the “#Children’sCrusade” that resulted from the shooting to also argue for lowering the voting age to 16.
But President Trump says perhaps the age at which one is allowed to purchase assault weapons should be raised to 21, even though 17-year-olds may enlist in the military and be required to shoot assault weapons. The Florida high school shooter is 19.
On the other hand, scientists say the brain is not fully mature until age 25.
You can’t serve in the House of Representative until age 25, in the Senate until age 30 and serve as president until 35.
When the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18 was passed in 1971 during the Vietnam War, when 18-year-olds were being drafted, the slogan was: “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.”
So here we are arguing again about when people are mature enough to do certain things. If the brain is not mature until 25 and one can’t serve in Congress until 25, perhaps we should raise the voting age and the right to buy guns to 25, right?
4TH ST8 
Good post as usual.
Regards
Jim Gregory
* jim@weststates.org
Phone: 775-738-8000 x 109
Yes, raise both to 25 and require proof of identification equally to both. You can’t compare the age to enlist in the military to either, the military is a structured regimented environment, damned few individualists, loose cannons, allowed among the ranks.
Far and away, the military is where people go to complete the process of growing up and becoming responsible for their own actions.
25 is a good age to make available the rights and responsibilities associated with voting and buying guns.
Old enough to fight, old enough to vote, shoot a gun and have a drink at the end of it I say. None of us are all that mature at 18, but if a man or woman is old enough to fight for the country and command troops in battle, sign a contract, hold a job and support themselves, they are old enough to vote.
Isn’t 18 an arbitrary designation? Are people really old enough to do all though things at 18?
Changing the voting age or the age of gun ownership would create a wrenching change upon our society for negligible benefit in terms of a body count, so it’s a stoopid suggestion (2 o’s mean very), as I suspect most of us would agree.
At this time, the only major changes that should engender no controversy, even though they do, are to close the loophole on background checks for gun sales between individuals and to ban bump stocks – or maybe with a special permit. After all, our city requires landlords to conduct background checks just to rent out a unit. They cost 20 bucks and they’re instant. The same could be done for guns.
A word of warning to those who advocate digging in our heels due to fear of the so called slippery slope. It’s not a slope, it’s a pressure cooker. Fight the proposed solutions long and hard enough, it will blow, sending the pendulum far to the left. BTW, the same applied to income inequality in Cambodia and, to a lesser extent, the formation of the Soviet Union and Communist China. The common people were angered to the point that, once they had the power, they murdered the rich. Luckily, this nation is not near that point, but keeping the will of the people tamped down is dangerous in the extreme. We are at that point today in regard to guns.
According to Politifact, the statement that, ” 90 percent of Americans “support universal background checks” for gun purchases.” is true. http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/oct/03/chris-abele/do-90-americans-support-background-checks-all-gun-/ When 10% of the people thwart the will of the other 90%, there will be hell to pay.
Tyranny of the majority.
I think people are old enough at 18. Other than serve I did most of those things by 18 or 19. Watched my own kids go through their first election cycles, they all took it seriously and thoughtfully.
18 is an arbitrary number, but it is the age that most folks finish their general education and have to start making adult decisions that affect their lives. The law holds them accountable at this age as well, no more juvenile court jurisdiction. They can join the military, go to work or continue their education at this point so yes, they should be able to shoot a gun or vote for those who write our laws.
Here in IL we have to have a “Firearms Owner Identification” card, or FOID card. This entails a background check to buy firearms or ammunition or to shoot at a firing range. There are no records as to what weapons I might own or have and is only a check of my background. Was not intrusive and cost $10, took a couple of weeks.
Aren’t we all being asked to trust the cops when someone is doing things like shooting up a school?
I mean, that’s what the left keeps screeching about, you don’t NEED those guns, call the cops!
Well then…you all should be proud. I know all your reassurances are giving me a warm fuzzy.
Sheriff: School officer never went inside to confront gunman
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, GARY FINEOUT and TERRY SPENCER
From Associated Press
February 22, 2018 7:44 PM EST
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The armed officer on duty at the Florida school where a shooter killed 17 people never went inside to engage the gunman and has been placed under investigation, officials announced Thursday.
Recently posted the WSJ version on Facebook.
And never mind the 39 reports to law enforcement warning that the guy was dangerous.
Top news in print and online but TV don’t care.
And Facebook, it’s not even trending.
Twitter, nothing about it.
Yup, nothing to see here, move along. The union will get the guys job back.
Vin Suprynowicz posted excerpts from CTH (Media Bias Fact Check shows them as high factual reporting though from a definite right wing point of view, so we can trust this is true)
Scot Peterson may well have been following orders when he stayed away from confronting Cruz.
They had policies in place that effectively ordered police to ignore crimes and turn the kids over to school administrators so the district would “look” better.
You’ve got it wrong, Thomas. When 10% of the people dominate 90%, the proper term is, tyranny of the minority.
The problem isn’t that we rely on security guards. The problem is that we need them in the first place. Guns were barely regulated when I went to school, but I don’t believe I had read or heard of anyone bringing a gun to school to use it. So what has changed?
As for the security guard in question, charge him with negligent homicide if the facts support it.
Not a “security guard” a police officer. Attached to the school district.
Geez, you and Joe Kennedy. Spinning like dreidels.
se·cu·ri·ty guard
səˈkyo͝orədē ɡärd/Submit
noun
a person employed to protect something, especially a building, against intruders or damage.
“Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Peterson, who was armed when gunman Nikolas Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, “never went in[to]” the building that was under attack. He said the school resource officer instead took up a position viewing the western entrance of the building.” http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/23/police-officers-guard-home-deputy-assigned-to-florida-hs-who-never-went-in-during-shooting-report.html
This “school resource officer”, so far as I can tell, precisely fits the definition of a security guard. I believe then that you are wrong when you say he was not a security guard. Whether he was a deputy, a frat boy, or whatever, does not change that. Feel free to apologize. Why do you split hairs anyway? This detail was irrelevant to what I said.
BTW, according to the Economist, citing the Gun Violence Archive (2/17/18, p. 26), the Florida shooting was the 1,607th mass shooting since Sandy Hook, defined as 4 or more people hit by bullets in a single incident. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/mass-shooting This averages more than one mass shooting per day. The same article states that our gun-related murder rate is 25 times than that of a group of 22 other developed countries. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem here, But Conservatives are in complete denial, instead, vigorously defending guns while assiduously avoiding any positive suggestions for solving this essentially 3rd world problem.
Some of the problem comes directly from the right wing itself, as evidenced by the fact that , “…over the last decade, 71% of domestic extremist related killings in the US were linked to right-wing extremists, while Islamic extremists committed 26% of the killings.” (the other 3% is from left wingers). https://qz.com/1182778/the-far-right-was-responsible-for-the-majority-of-extremist-killings-in-2017/ Aren’t you the guys who want to rid our country of those nasty Muslim immigrants? Perhaps you should examine those in your own house.
In addition, many shooters, such as Cruz, are gun fanatics, who are almost always politically conservative and who likely steep themselves in the inflammatory propaganda of pro gun Conservatives, but we shouldn’t go there. The pro gun propaganda campaign is all about defending our Constitutional rights, isn’t it?
Speaking of our great country being 3rd world in so many ways, add one more to the list. Again, it’s the Economist, citing the World Justice Project, which, “…ranks America 96th of 113 countries for access to and affordability of justice, sandwiched between Uganda and Camaroon.” (p.26) At what point will we finally admit that some countries are doing some things better than we are? Perhaps we can learn from them. Nah! Conservatives spend their time condemning those who get better results than we do. We do it better; they’re just luckier.
School resources officers are police. School police under the command of the local police.
Here’s your wiki on the subject…funny you didn’t cite it…must be because it doesn’t support your “belief”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_resource_officer
Now it gets better Mr. Spin.
Three more deputies are under investigation for not going in.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-school-shooting-response-fail-20180223-story.html
You still haven’t explained why someone can’t be both a security guard and a police officer. We both agree on the status of this loser, so why obsess over minutia? I assume you would rather not address the main points because I’m right. OK with me!
[…] Raise the age for voting and buying guns to 25 An online columnist is using the student reaction to the shooting at the Florida high school to raise the question of whether the voting age should be lowered from 18 to 16. […]
“You still haven’t explained why someone can’t be both a security guard and a police officer. ”
Never wished to “explain” anything of the sort. No matter what the guy does in his of time, he was a cop (not a security guard) when he decided not to do his job at the school.
You spin meister, you.