In the wake of the school shooting that took place in Florida, one of the pushes has been to raise the minimum age to purchase certain firearms from 18 to 21.
While the hope is that this will decrease the access to firearms used in school shootings, the White House has decided to relax on raising this age limit. What has changed, and what does this mean?
While the media would like to place the blame on gun owners, law enforcement likely failed to act appropriately as well. After the tragic murder of 17 people at a Florida high school, the White House came out with a series of recommendations that were meant to stop school shootings in the future. Among the suggestions included an audit of the FBI’s tip line. This announcement came on the heels of information that the FBI missed an overwhelming amount of clues about the mental health and dangers that the shooter presented. Failure of the FBI to act on these tips could have led to the shooting.
In the early stages of the response, President Donald Trump had advocated for increasing the minimum age for buying longer guns, such as rifles, to 21. The president had believed that increasing this age would help to cut down on the access of guns to potential school shooters given the age of the most recent attacker. In a recent announcement, it appears that someone has explained to the president that this would not curb the access of criminals to weapons. While Betsy DeVos will chair a federal commission that will study school safety, the administration did not announce that they would pursue raising the minimum age to purchase firearms.
Raising the minimum age required to purchase firearms represents an infringement on the rights of law-abiding citizens. The right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution, and every adult should be allowed to purchase firearms as long as they pass the necessary checks that are already in place. We don’t need new rules — we just need the ones already on the books to be enforced.
Furthermore, many of the weapons used in these murders aren’t purchased at stores or shows. Often, they are obtained illegally on the street or through other criminal acts. Therefore, raising the minimum age to purchase firearms would not catch the weapons that shooters use. All this restriction would do is make it harder for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves.
Instead of trying to infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens, the administration should instead look at ways to curb the access to illegal weapons. The administration should also take a look at the mental health of shooters and explore why the signs and signals of this shooter were overlooked by the FBI. It is important for every American citizen to stand up and announce that this unnecessary infringement on their Second Amendment rights will not be tolerated.
~ Firearm Daily
