In the wake of the Parkland shooting, Florida did something unusual for the state. It passed gun control. Among the measures passed as a red flag law and a prohibition on legal adults under 21 buying long guns. They're already prohibited from buying handguns under federal law.
Now, the law is facing the possibility of repeal, and an editorial board has a problem with it.
In fact, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a big problem with it, and there's a reason why they do.
A federal appeals court in March voted 8 to 4 to uphold the age restriction, citing scientific research that the human brain is not fully developed in 18-to-21-year-olds.
“The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for exercising judgment and moderating
behavior in social situations, is one of the last regions of the brain to mature — and it doesn’t hit that point until around the age of 25,” Judge Robin Rosenbaum wrote in a concurring opinion.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has said he won’t defend the law if it reaches the Supreme Court — a recklessly irresponsible position.
Age matters. The accused killer of 21 students and staff at a Texas elementary school in 2022 was 18. The accused mass shooter at Florida State University, where two died and six were wounded in April, was 20.
But the brain development argument does not impress pro-gun advocates, who are still trying to overturn a key part of the Parkland gun law nearly eight years later.
“This body, unfortunately, made a poor decision in 2018 and passed the Parkland bill and took away the rights of adults,” Eric Friday, a Jacksonville lawyer representing the Second Amendment group Florida Carry, told lawmakers. “Tobacco is not a right. Alcohol is not a right. The right to bear arms is a right.”
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Age matters, they say.
Well, in truth, the brain development argument has some basis in reality. The prefrontal cortex doesn't reach full maturity until around 25 or so--it varies from individual to individual--so yes, there is some issue with impulsive behavior for adults under 21.
However, if age matters, when do these individuals' rights start to matter?
In the eyes of the law, they're considered legal adults. They can't run for the Senate or President, maybe, but they can enlist in the military, sign contracts, get married, and so on. For all legal purposes, they're adults. We trust them to vote, regardless of impulsivity concerns, so why is this the line?
Moreover, if maturity doesn't happen until the age of 25, why stop at prohibiting adults under 21 from buying long guns? Why not make it 25? The argument is dumb, but it's also inconsistent. If the lack of prefrontal cortex development is the problem, why suddenly decide an arbitrary point well before full maturity is close enough?
Then we have another simple, basic fact. Namely, that there are millions of adults in that same age category in states that do permit long gun sales to adults under 21 who have done absolutely nothing with those firearms. They hunt, they defend themselves, and they live the lives of law-abiding citizens without even a slight consideration of breaking the law with them.
If the brain is the issue, why are there so few examples of people losing control and killing people in job lots?
The problem with the Parkland and Uvalde killers isn't that they were under 21, but that they were dangerous, violent people who had gotten away with being dangerous and violent for too long before they took up mass murder as a perverse hobby.
That's not an age thing, and punishing others for those isolated incidents isn't just because they're too young, it's because people like the editorial board has no respect for the Second Amendment rights of Americans.
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