I know it's no going to sit well with some, and I hope that they can participate in a civil adult point counter point, but based on what I read so far, I doubt it. As an NRA member and gun owner (even the deadly black ones) he should not have been able to purchase a gun at his age. I have no issue with a 21 one and older requirement. If the gun is for hunting, competition, or plinking a parent should be buying it and own the responsibility for any misuse. At 21 the gun can transfer ownership. I would support a 21 and over law. Fire away.
Okay, I will.
There is nothing more dangerous than a loaded legislature. Yet you would have an 18 year-old vote, even though you would deny them the RKBA.
The problem isn't the tool, it's the way youth are being raised. They live in a media environment saturated with violence, from music to movies to television. Yet the experts say to 'use their words' (as long as they are on the approved list), don't allow them limited unarmed conflict to resolve their issues and the normal social and individual development that comes with that (nothing teaches a feel for what the other person feels like a bloody nose or fat lip of your own), ply them with psychoactive drugs when they have difficulty, and expect them to come out of that pipeline all normal and well adjusted?
Instead, blame the tool they choose when they lose it, medicated or not, and finally act out on the only other alternative they have been exposed to in ll that media--murder--because a simple dustup isn't in the picture any more. Frankly, with the options presented in media, and with the abject frustration of years of dealing with a bureaucracy that often makes unreasonable demands and less well reasoned, even petty decisions about children's futures, I am surprised there is not more of this crap.
That is what is ridiculous.
What MAOI or SSRI was this kid taking, anyway?