Thread: Walmart sets age of 21 to buy firearms, ammunition

Here's why raising the gun possession age could cost some crime victims their lives

While I respect John Lott, I don't agree with everything he preaches.

But what about a 20-year-old woman who is being stalked by a rapist or a killer?

If such a law is carved in stone, that is a real concern!

A ban on gun sales to anyone younger than 21 won't keep people who are determined to be mass killers from getting weapons.

No law is 100% effective. But it slows them down.

In 1994 the first federal limits required buyers to be 18 years of age. Prior to that law, there was no federal age requirement for buying a rifle.

Verifying that such age restrictions are not unconstitutional!

There is also a lot of evidence that the young people who use guns for self-defense are extremely law-abiding. Concealed handgun permit holders lose their permits for firearms violations at rates of thousandths or tens of thousandths of a percentage point.

"Who use guns for self-defense". But how many more young people use them for crimes?

Also, concealed handgun carry permit holders go through hoops for that permit. That is very different from a person going into a store and walking out with a gun.

Most who oppose the increased age for buying a gun point out that 18-year-olds can vote and serve in the military, where some of them handle fully automatic weapons in combat to defend our nation.

Voting will not kill anybody (unless a majority of many voters vote for it). A soldier is under strict control and supervision. They are not just handed an automatic and sent out to kill. And often, the training they get works in a combat zone, but is dangerous in society. There is a proper place for such arms.

Those who make arguments that 19- and 20-year-olds are emotional and irrational would never argue that we should take away these young adults’ ability to vote, to join the military, or to drive cars that can accidentally or deliberately kill people.

Go try to get a job driving a big rig at 18!

The other gun control laws being pushed, such as background checks on gun transfers or waiting periods, wouldn’t have stopped a single mass public shooting this century or even years before that.

So John Lott is for allowing anybody to just buy a gun!

John Lott's arguments only work if they face no opposite argument pointing out the other effects and options. I'm not sold!

Walmart raises minimum age to buy tobacco to 21