So why can't kids own guns?

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dakota.potts

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This was asked by a friend of mine in an argument. He's pro gun but upset that the UBC bill failed to pass. I stated that I was happy. My reasoning was that it's ineffectual and, in essence, violates your second amendment and works on the promise of making you prove you're innocent (rather than being presumed so).

His question was, if the 2nd amendment is absolute, why can a 12 year old not buy a gun? Or carry it to school?

The best answer I could come up with was looking towards the Heller decision ruling that compared modern protections of the second amendment to the first amendment.

If

A) The 1st amendment and 2nd amendment can be treated in similar ways

and

B) Activities protected under the first amendment (video games and movies) may be subject to age restrictions

then

C) Certain aspects of the 2nd amendment may be subject to age restrictions.

But again this is a shaky answer. Most questions are so easy to answer but this one really made me think. Was it intended that a 6 year old could go down to the arcade with a revolver on his hip or a rifle on his back? I'm not sure of this one myself, as vehemently pro-gun as I am, so I thought it would be cool to hear from you guys.
 
The 2A isn't "absolute" and that's just silly.

Children do not understand danger the way adults do, have not yet learned self-control and lack wisdom. Actually, those traits extend well into the 20s (no jest).

Your friend's question is that of someone with an opinion without facts. It is designed to steer the argument to apparent weaknesses of your argument rather than supporting his own. It's very much like "Can God make a rock so big that even he can't move it?"
 
There are a number of rights that do not apply to minor children. They do not vote, or serve on juries either. They theoretically have the right to travel, but if their parent declines permission...

And a minor child CAN own a gun, they just cannot purchase one, or ammunition. If you'll recall when we were discussing Senator Schumer's Fix Gun Checks Act, we would have been all but required to purchase a firearm for the child we were instructing and give it to them. And we would have then been committing a felony by letting them go to Summer Camp for two weeks.

As for carrying it to school, there are a number of places considered "sensitive areas" where all sorts of non-law enforcement are prohibited from carrying. I could theoretically carry at a school myself, but I'd have to be picking up a child, possibly MY child (I don't have one didn't read State law too closely, was just shocked to see it to it somewhat stuck) AND have my concealed permit- but that's pretty rare.
 
An adult is responsible for the 12 year old's safety. An adult is responsible for his/her own safety.

The 2nd Amendment isn't absolute and background checks aren't unconstitutional.
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Background checks aren't unconstitutional, however, requiring one before allowing the "right" to have one, arguably, is unconstitutional.
 
They can't deny the firearm if you pass the check.

They can't add anything to the check other than those things that have been deemed constitution-friendly prohibitiive i.e. Adjudicated Mentally Defective, certain convictions, and so on.
 
Tell your buddy to give his credit card and car keys to a 12 year old. That child's abuse of those two items should be enough to keep him from giving the kid some money for a gun. It's really an easy answer - because he's 12.
 
Background checks aren't unconstitutional, however, requiring one before allowing the "right" to have one, arguably, is unconstitutional.
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It's certainly not unconstitutional for the government to require background checks for firearm purchases. There is a compelling government interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of convicted criminals. Requiring gun dealers do a check of public records to see if someone is on the prohibited list before a sale is a narrowly tailored law and it's less intrusive than other methods.
 
I thought the BG checks were part of the Brady Bill Amendment to the GCA of 68, passed in 1993?
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I was speaking to the thread title...

Unless I am mistaken, it was not Federally 'illegal' to sell to a 'kid', though some states/jurisdictions had their own laws...
 
Hey, guys -- background checks, universal or otherwise, are off-topic for this thread.

Dakota's question is actually an interesting one, given that the legal status of children has evolved quite a bit in the two centuries since the Bill of Rights was passed.

At the time the Constitution was written, children were regarded as the property of their fathers; they had no standing as legal persons, far less any expectation of human or civil rights. It wouldn't have occurred to anyone that the Bill of Rights applied to children. That changed over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as issues such as child labor gained a foothold in public awareness. The idea that children had a right to to be protected from various forms of abuse was accepted during this time, but they were still seen as objects, rather than as subjects who were entitled to exercise rights on their own behalf.

It's only in the last 30-40 years that children have begun to be seen as subjects, with rights they can exercise for themselves. So on one hand, it's a matter of common sense that physical and mental immaturity mean that children do need to be protected by adults at times; while on the other, they are increasingly seen as able to exercise the same rights as adults. In the case being discussed in the thread, "West Virginia teen arrested for wearing NRA shirt to school," we've seen that a 14 year old is entitled to exercise his 1st Amendment rights; so it's not totally far-fetched to expect some re-thinking of older children's 2nd amendment rights in the coming years. At a minimum, I wouldn't be surprised to see the age requirement for owning handguns lowered to be the same as that for long guns.
 
In the case being discussed in the thread, "West Virginia teen arrested for wearing NRA shirt to school," we've seen that a 14 year old is entitled to exercise his 1st Amendment rights; so it's not totally far-fetched to expect some re-thinking of older children's 2nd amendment rights in the coming years.
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Actually the student does not have his 1st amendment rights at the school he was suspended from. He has first amendment privileges. There is a dress code that may or may not have applied to his shirt. That does not change the fact that there is a dress code that does exist. Or that In Loco Parentis is still going strong. The child may, and probably does have more rights outside the school however, laying some groundwork for chipping away at it- The Justices would have to do quite a bit of twisting and turning to explain how a child would have the right to picket on the sidewalk outside of the school the inability to read the sign while inside of the school.
 
From Al Norris' post in the "West Virginia teen..." thread:
Al Norris said:
...tudents do not leave their 1A rights at the schoolhouse door: Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)...

[T]his is exactly the kind of 1A violation that Tinker has said was not to happen.
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Students do retain their 1st Amendment rights when they're in school. Some limits on those rights are acceptable, but only if they're "necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others." (from the Tinker decision)
 
That sounds an awful lot like a privilege in rights clothing. If they can't protest disruptively to call attention to their issue AKA Strike...
 
Kids with guns in school

Kids don't have the same rights sitting in school as walking down the street. School officials are taking the place of a parent and can search a kid for reasonable cause. Administrators generally like to have police present but they don't need a warrant. Drug dog sniffs backpack and alerts.. Kid gets pulled out of class and will get searched. A kid can't distrupt the school activities even if he has first amendment rights. Try telling your teacher they are a @#!$#%!@#$.... see how many days you can get suspended so the rest of the kids can learn. People cannot enter and exit schools at will even though they are public entities due to concerns with safety. That's why parents have to check in and ask permission to attend their kids classes. Kids can still have guns these days. Only differences is they can't buy them and are subject to parental guidance. My dad brought a gun home on the school bus when he was a kid. It was covered.... different times for sure. I do think the more we try to shelter kids from violence, the more violent kids become. They can't just settle it with fists after school and tensions are forced to build until somebody brings a gun.
 
His question was, if the 2nd amendment is absolute, why can a 12 year old not buy a gun? Or carry it to school?
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Why cannot that 12-year-old vote or prevent a teacher from searching his desk without being able to articulate a reasonable suspicion that the child had committed a crime?

Children to not hold the same constitutional rights as adults.

Why cannot a felon vote or travel freely? Because even an adult can be denied constitutional rights where he is given due process.

As several have noted above, the Second Amendment is not absolute in that it should function as many other civil rights do. That the Second Amendment is not absolute is not an argument in favor of casual and haphazard infringement. Universal background checks are still problematic.

Put differently, asking why a right isn't applied to minors doesn't carry a lot of value in an explanation of that right as it is applied to adults.
 
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Why doesn't a 12-year old child have full rights of privacy and procreation, including the right to consent to sex? For the same reason they don't have full protection of other Constitutional rights, like the 2A. They are simply not mature enough to exercise the right. That's as far as we really need to take it.

A horrible example here -- http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/...ar-old-is-under-investigation--205475571.html. A five year old was given a rifle as a gift and was used to shooting it. It was kept in a corner. He picked it up to play with it and shot and killed his two year old sister. According to another report, the parents didn't know there was a round in the chamber. -- http://www.kentucky.com/2013/04/30/...ly-shoots.html#storylink=omni_popular#wgt=pop.
 
This question, and some of the replies, point out just how much our society has changed.

50 years ago the father, not the government, decided when a boy was ready to have a gun. 100 years ago the father decided when a boy became a man.

Children attained rights as the father decided to grant them. The reason a teacher held so much power over a child was that the father granted this power to the teacher.

Nowadays the father no longer even has the right to paddle the child. The government now tells us "your children don't belong to you". In about 30% of American households, there is no father.

The government has hijacked parental authority, and now has full control of the next generation. Looks like 1984 is simply about 35-40 years late.

Cry for your country.
 
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