freedomdwarf1
Posts: 6845
Joined: 10/23/2012 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tweakabelle We all raise the roof when we see children being trained as soldiers or exposed to extremist ideologies in the Middle East by groups we don't like. Is training kids in using machine guns that different? If we all agree that it is senseless to expose children to machine gun use, then can we all agree that something should be done to stop it? An unqualified "right to bear arms" surely doesn't extend to children too. Do the pro-gun posters here have any suggestions on what might be done to prevent children being exposed to weapons such as Uzis? Do they have any objections to laws being enacted to prevent such exposure? If they have a problem with this idea, I would like to hear it and their reasons for their opposition. The problem is, tweak, Where do you draw the line that separates 'children' from 'adults'?? According to Bama, at 15 upwards, you're an adult. In the days of when the constitution was written, I believe you were allowed to join the military ranks at aged 14. And I'm sure there are many on here that know a well-behaved and 'responsible-thinking' child of 12 and also a completely irresponsible idiot of 18 that you wouldn't trust to handle eating irons!! So where do you draw the line? Merely picking an appropriate number for an age delineation would be problematic. It could be argued that until you reached the accepted 'age of majority' (18), you shouldn't be allowed to handle guns of any sort. But then you'll get pro-gun people arguing that they wouldn't be able to teach their kids gun safety. Personally, given that you aren't ever likely to eradicate guns from the populace in the US, I think it should be 18 for guns and 21 for semi/automatic weapons, with very severe penalties for the parents/guardians that break that law.
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“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell, 1903-1950
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