Every day it seems the world, and especially the U.S., goes more nuts. Some of the craziness in America comes from Republicans who, feeling their oats after the demise of Roe v. Wade, and buttressed by a hyper-conservative Supreme Court, are passing state law after state law about guns, abortion, gender rights, and education. This legislative effort, reported by Bess Levin in Vanity Fair, is especially bonkers, for it shows that Missouri Republicans want to have children in their state open-carry weapons without adult supervision. Click to read:
An excerpt:
In a turn of events that absolutely defies logic, the Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to reject an amendment that would have banned minors from being allowed to openly carry guns on public land without adult supervision. Which, thanks to a 2017 law, they are currently free to do. (That law, which was vetoed by then governor Jay Nixon and overridden by the Missouri House, also allows Missouri residents to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, safety training, or criminal-background check. As Sgt. Charles Wall, spokesman for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “under current state law, there is no minimum age to lawfully possess a firearm.”) To be clear: The proposal rejected this week was not seeking to ban minors from openly carrying weapons on public land, period, but simply from doing so without an adult supervising them. But apparently even that was too much for the state’s conservatives, who quite literally believe it’s fine for actual kids to walk down the street carrying guns. The proposal was defeated by 104-39, with just a single Republican voting in favor of the ban.
Note that, contrary to many laws even in conservative states, Missouri allows anyone to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, safety training, or background check. Note too that a kid of any age can openly carry a gun. A ten-year-old could walk into the candy store, without an adult around, with a Glock holstered around his waist. Finally, note that there is no specified age limit, and that the Republicans voted en masse to allow unsupervised kids to “open carry”. Finally, although the open-carry-for-kids-without-supervision isn’t yet a state law, there are at least enough votes in the House to override a governor’s veto.
The Democrats tried to stop the madness, but they were overcome by Republican stupidity. By no stretch of the imagination could one interpret the Second Amendment to mean that the Founders envisioned children running around with guns and rifles. Look again at what’s in the Constitution:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Did the Founders want children in that “well regulated militia”? Unsupervised children? One would think that the use of guns in any militia would require some kind of adult in charge.
Yes, the Democrats tried, and at least in some parts of the state, the cops backed them. From the AP:
Democratic Rep. Donna Baringer said police in her district asked for the change to stop “14-year-olds walking down the middle of the street in the city of St. Louis carrying AR-15s.”
“Now they have been emboldened, and they are walking around with them,” Baringer said. “Until they actually brandish them, and brandish them with intent, our police officers’ hands are handcuffed.”
And here’s how the Republicans defended allowing kids to run around with guns:
Republicans decried the effort as an unneeded infringement on gun rights.
“While it may be intuitive that a 14-year-old has no legitimate purpose, it doesn’t actually mean that they’re going to harm someone. We don’t know that yet,” said Rep. Tony Lovasco, a Republican from the St. Louis suburb of O’Fallon. “Generally speaking, we don’t charge people with crimes because we think they’re going to hurt someone.”
We don’t know they’re going to harm someone? What kind of craziness is that? Its KIDS WITH GUNS! It was just last month that a six year old in Virginia shot and seriously wounded a teacher, and it was not accidental but deliberate. Everyone know that kids haven’t been socialized into adult behavior and they’re often uninhibited. Give them a gun and then say, “we don’t know that they’re going to harm someone”? Seriously? Imagine the carnage of teachers alone that would ensue!
Only one Republican even had the sense to see this obvious point (bolding is from the magazine):
Representative Lane Roberts, apparently the only Republican with any sense in the Missouri House of Representatives, had said prior to the vote: “This is about people who don’t have the life experience to make a decision about the consequences of having that gun in their possession. Why is an 8-year-old carrying a sidearm in the street?”
A great question! And one that his fellow GOP lawmakers obviously did not have any good answers for because if you’re a sane person, there is none. In a ridiculous attempt to justify that scenario, Republican state representative Bill Hardwick argued that he “just [has] a different approach for addressing public safety that doesn’t deprive people, who have done nothing to any other person, who will commit no violence, from their freedom.” As a reminder the people Hardwick is arguing must have the freedom to carry firearms on their person, are children, some of whom cannot even buy a ticket for a PG-13 movie.
Do Republicans not have kids? Of course they do, but have they learned how kids are? I got this news from Matthew Cobb, who sent me the link with his comment, “Some parts of your country are insane.” And I can’t deny it. The worst part is imagining that somebody’s going to get killed by a toddler with a handgun, and that will lead to a lawsuit that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Court would then uphold the Missouri law because, after all, it’s the Second Amendment, Jake!
h/t: Matthew
Sharks with lasers, meet kids with guns. Dr. Evil, eat your heart out.
I think this is why Missouri is called ‘The Show Me’ state, as in ‘show me what you got’.
They may regret this when an eight year old conducts their first juvenile mass shooting, and has to be shot by ‘heroic armed citizens’ exercising their God-given right to carry and use firearms.
“Regret”?
What would there to be regret about such a trail-blazer opening up new grounds of freedom? What sort of neo-communist pinko are you?
[Sarcasm] tag to be applied. To the political comment, not the aims of the American gun-nut lunatics.
Even when, not if, that happens, there will not be an ounce of regret. Not an ounce.
Great news! Let’s buy them all one or two of these, what could go wrong?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10528709/Weapons-manufacturer-unveils-AR-15-KIDS-called-JR-15.html
Once upon a time, the concern about children and guns was that adults with guns must store them under lock and key. It was assumed that children would accidentally injure and kill themselves and other children playing with guns. I don’t recall anyone talking about keeping guns from 6 year olds because they may intentionally try to kill their teacher. Now we are fully a gun culture, which is obviously self-destructive. These people are disgusting.
Last time we managed to get a somewhat restrictive gun bill through Congress the event that triggered it was an assassination attempt against a sitting Republican President by a guy who was trying to get Jodie Foster’s attention—if only he knew….
Not a prescription, just an observation.
So 14 years olds can carry fetuses to term and are expected to raise them, can carry firearms without an adult present, and can work 8 hours a day for less than minimum wage.
But that same GOP wants to raise the voting age to 28.
Surely Republican scientists are working on tiny guns for foetuses?
That intention hasn’t made it far enough across the Atlantic for me to have heard. Tell us more.
This I think… https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/nov/17/sunny-hostin/no-republicans-dont-want-to-raise-voting-age-to-28/
Due to the structure of the American political system, is there anyone that has the chutzpah to claim that any semblance of the country being governed by the rules of reason is not in severe jeopardy?
This action by the Missouri legislature seems of a piece with the recent decision by the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders issued by courts of competent jurisdiction still have the right to possess firearms.
In the opening paragraph of its opinion, a very conservative panel of the Fifth Circuit allowed as how “prohibiting the
possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order [may be] a laudable policy goal[,]” but found that the federal statute that accomplishes that policy goal, 18 USC section 922(g)(8), violates the Second Amendment as interpreted in Clarence Thomas’s extremely broad opinion for SCOTUS at the end of the last term striking down New York State’s concealed-carry law, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (2022).
Astonishing. Collective insanity.
I pity the the poor cop who has to shoot a six year old on a rampage because a parent said “deal with it”. If I ever revisit the States I think I might turn left at Missouri.
I’d turn a good distance before you get in sight of the border controls. They’d interpret that as signs of a communist tendency, and therefore execution on sight.
Maybe that explains the American liking for “clover-leaf” junctions, instead of roundabouts – always turning right, never turning left. (Trying to work out how it would work, driving on the wrong side of the road.)
I’ll help you work it out. Roundabouts, or rotaries, in North America are driven by keeping right as you enter and all exits are to the right, just as in a cloverleaf. The downside of a rotary is that all traffic, even that not intending to exit the through route, has to slow down to cope with the curvature of the rotary instead of just driving straight through at highway speed. A cloverleaf or similar interchange with grade separation is transparent to through traffic. We use rotaries now only in suburbs where slowing down the through traffic is not considered a drawback. With practice, aggressive drivers in Canada have learned to defeat this feature of rotaries by simply not yielding to the slow-morning traffic already in them. I suspect the fad won’t last.
G-I that made me chuckle, we drive on the left… in my mind, anywhere is better than driving through that State of madness.
This MIGHT help I’m still in the dark.. I have never encountered such an intersection.
A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange in which all turns are handled by slip roads. To go left, vehicles first continue as one road passes over or under the other, then exit right onto a one-way three-fourths loop ramp and merge onto the intersecting road. Wikipedia
So American kids can carry an AR-15 around when age 12, but can’t buy a beer with a meal until 21? Seriously?
I guess the upside is that the gun-toting teens will be sober. (Yeah, right – cos underage drinking and drug use isn’t a thing…!)
Of course, if the Scottish government gets its way a 16-year-old will be able to change their legal sex, but not be allowed to get a tattoo or alcohol.
Oh & vote…
Actually, we’ve been working to get the voting age lowered for some years now, in the teeth of opposition from the foreign government. Over a decade : there was another push on it in the run up to INDYREF-1, on the grounds that the 16~18 age group would be the ones living with the consequences for longest.
I’d have to check on the law on tattooing. ISTR the daughter crowing about being able to get a tattoo “now”, without our (or at least one parent’s) permission, but I can’t remember if that was when she was 16 or 18. Regardless, she dropped the idea when she discovered that we wouldn’t object – as long as the tattooist ran a clean and licensed business.
As the brain is not mature until ones 20s, should any life changing decisions be allowed before then?!
I understand that marriage at 16 is now banned in England & Wales, to reduce pressure on girls in arranged marriages. I just think all these things should be allowed at the same age, whatever that is. And if you are not old enough to decide if you can marry, how can you be old enough to vote? You can join the army at 16, the only country in Europe (not even Russia?) I think, but cannot serve on the frontline until 18.
But why stop at 16? Why not 15? 14? etc. It is arbitrary. Votes for foetuses for US Republicans perhaps, to go with their tiny guns!
You can pay tax but not vote. It is all a bit messy,. I favour 18 across the board for all these things. But I think anyone under 18 who works should not get taxed. Welcome to the madness of domworld! 🙂
If you walk into a liquor store with an AR-15 you’re probably not gonna get carded.
🙂
I pity the poor teachers, who now have to fear children bringing guns to school *legally*. Apparently, that incident with the 6-year-old wasn’t enough.
The next logical step will be to allow them to *fire* the guns. Reprising Rep. Tony Lovasco’s reasoning (and paraphrasing): “While it may be intuitive that a 14-year-old has no legitimate purpose, it doesn’t actually mean that they’re going to harm someone. We don’t know that yet.”
“While it may be intuitive that if I toss a lighted match on a pile of paper soaked in gasoline, it will burst into flame, we don’t know that yet. So let’s go ahead and make it a law.” Seems logical to me.
Idjits all of them. Or maybe not- it seems more and more that they *want* the US to go up in flames so they can seize total power. A Reichstag fire in increments. This is a moral deficiency, not a mental one.
Every time I think that the woke left is bad for the country, I see something like this that reminds me that “bad for the country” is a question of degree. I can’t think of anything as transparently stupid and dangerous as this as a matter of public policy coming from the Democrats.
Anyone who thinks that letting children as young as 5 or 6 walk around with loaded weapons is just too stupid to reason with. Do they not know the meaning of “immature”???
This is the age in which children still throw fits of anger over the most trivial things….why would you give a weapon to such a person? It shows how, in local politics especially, it is often the low IQ or downright unbalanced folks who somehow get into office.
Same here.
Leftists are taking over our schools, pop culture & a goodly chunk of the mainstream media. The Far Right’s got alternative media & they’re looking to control our government. Neither is ideal but one is definitely more worrisome than the other.
Once you have control of the government (and a willingness to dispense with the norms and traditions that undergird democracy, such as by endeavoring to undermine the results of legitimate elections), it’s just a matter of enacting the requisite laws to obtain control over schools, pop culture, and the media.
If 20th century world history teaches us anything, it teaches us that.
Republicans learned a hard lesson during the ’90s & ’00s when it became clear that their brand of white Christian evangelism wasn’t selling & an increasing number of Americans were coming around to the realization that trickle down theory is what a kinky economist asks for when he wants you to pee on him. The rent boy stuff wasn’t helping.
The Cultural Right basically went stealth around ’06-’08. It was a pretty sudden thing, actually. My theory is that Luntz, Bannon & Breitbart got together for a long strategy session after the 2008 election, got frustrated, decided to turn it into a pizza & movie night instead & ended up watching all the Star Wars prequels. The way I’m picturing this in my head they’ve nearly finished The Phantom Menace. Bannon gets up to shut it off right at the part where then-Senator Palpatine tells young Anakin “I’ll be following your career very closely” & Luntz says, “Hold on, hold on. Leave it on. I think I’ve got something…”.
If you look at the last 10-15 years the Republican Party has basically been playing straight from the Sith playbook. Not so many force chokes, lightning blasts & lightsaber bisections but otherwise alarmingly. In the Clone Wars Sidious/Palpatine plays an elaborate version of The Two Man Con in which he uses his Apprentice/patsy Dooku to foment rebellion & create a second galactic faction (whose cause Dooku initially believes in) to sow fear, chaos & terror & make it that much easier for him to gain and consolidate power over the galaxy.
No I’m not saying that The Squad, Black Lives Matter, radical gender ideologues, much of Hollywood & most social science departments are literally working in cahoots with Trump, DeSantis, CPAC & Rep. Jewish Space Laser Lady but sometimes they might as well be.
When the faces of traditionally liberal institutions start losing the thread & beging to trade in liberal ideals for neo-Maoism it makes it a lot easier foe the Christopher Rufos of the world to gain traction with the normies. It’s so much easier to sell people two lies when you set them up with a truth.
Thank God! Finally, somebody realized that “a well regulated militia” includes pistol-packing pre-teens.
Why can’t we be more of a sword, axe & spear culture? At least it would encourage physical fitness.
Just looking forward to that long-awaited Home Alone/Rambo crossover event: “Remember, Kevin, you drew first blood…”.
Here starteth the Paul-2024 run.
“Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant!”
I recall reading in a biography about the entertainer Will Rogers that when he was in boarding school, he and some fellow students went on a boating and hunting trip, and one student was accidentally shot in the leg with a rifle. Well, they went back early and the Dean of the school confiscated all their guns for the rest of the weekend.
Thankfully such harsh penalties don’t apply to vice presidents. What horror that would be.
This is an example of what happens when people identify so strongly with a political party that their first thought is “if the Other Side is against it, then I’m for it.” In other situations Republican emphasize the importance of treating children as children and the value of adult supervision. But press the button marked Gun-Rights- Liberals- Don’t -Like and they can’t evaluate the issue like adults. They’re children walking around with guns, shooting at imaginary targets and blowing off their own feet.
It is always hard to understand the US mindset on guns, but even that said, this is utterly ridiculous. And coming just weeks after a teacher was shot in school by a six-year-old pupil, too! (FWIW, my sister is involved with Moms Demand Action – looks like she’s fighting an uphill battle.)
That does pre-suppose that there is “a” US mindset on guns. I strongly suspect, from the commentary I see here compared to the commentary I see elsewhere, that it’s a deep binary. If not considerably more finely divided.
Hell, even here in Britain, I wouldn’t object to a farmer having access to a shotgun for rats, rabbits and loose-running wolf-derivatives. Subject to strict licensing, training requirements, control of ammunition. For target shooting, even, but there are lockers at the range for that sort of sport.
—- “I strongly suspect, from the commentary I see here compared to the commentary I see elsewhere, that it’s a deep binary. ” —-
While that’s true, it’s still the case that from the outside even liberal/Left/Democratic politicians seem constantly at pains to say to the gun-toting Americans “Hey, calm down, you’ve got this wrong, we aren’t trying to take away your guns!”
So even among those who may see gun crimes as a scourge and may even want to do something about it, there still seems to be a know-towing to the second amendment/rights to own guns and gun culture to seem bizarre.
When even the liberals say “we don’t want to take away your guns” that just shows the divide the USA has with much of horrified on-lookers outside the country.
Will a shotgun do for a coyote or a feral pig? A the range these pests are encountered?
While I have issues with open carry, the ban in MO would have been the innovation. While there is plenty of hand-wringing and arm-waving, I don’t see anyone providing evidence that there is an actual problem here with the current practice.
How are your powers of prognostication? Do you think ‘evidence’ will manifest itself in :
a. 50 years?
b. 5 years?
c. 1 year?
d. 6 months?
e. 1 week?
Or are you going for ‘never?’
Is that years from now until the first 6yo “Sandy Hook”, or years from that event to a more restrictive law.
For the latter, I think current evidence is for the 50 year option. And then some. Which is the political equivalent of “never”.
It’s all fun & games, DrB, until the first mass shooting, especially one involving dozens of school kids.
But Ken, various experts will surely tell you that the best protection against a bad kid with a gun is more good kids with guns.
What ever happened to the other proverb that “Only a madman would give a loaded gun to an idiot”? I guess here is one of those proverbial situations where the lunatics have indeed taken over the asylum.
If I read the linked article correctly, the current law, in place since 2017, placed no restriction on minor children carrying guns in public without adult supervision. That has been the status quo for 5-6 years. The defeated amendment would have restricted that right. (Here I’m not arguing that the right is one that people should or shouldn’t have, just that the law says a minor has it, equally with an adult.)
Why was the amendment proposed? Was there a rise in children actually carrying guns, as they had been free to do since 2017, that caused legislators to worry that things might get out of hand? A policeman said that kids were seen with AR-15s and couldn’t be arrested as not brandishing them (or firing them.) Is that the reason the amendment was proposed? I think some context is in order because the rejection of the amendment doesn’t leave minors in a different position gun-wise than they were before.
I think maybe that was Dr B’s point.
It’s completely insane. Despite the recent tragic teacher shooting by a six year old, I am cautiously optimistic that very few parents will allow their six year old to run around with guns. But I can absolutely imagine some parents allowing a 14 year old to carry a gun for protection; and how long before one of them pulls the gun on a friend over a teenage squabble?
Oh you silly liberals, always worrying about guns! Don’t you know that the real danger is that a child can walk into a library and pick up something far more dangerous, like a book! My god in heaven, we are going to ban libraries from having any books that are sexually explicit, especially anything with gays and transgender stuff! That’s what’s really a threat, not kids getting shot to death in schools or while shopping or driving around town!
Seriously. This is the state in which I live. Where the state government is trying to protect kids from books, not guns. What the hell is wrong with people?!
It probably stems from the same reasoning that causes a lot of religious people believe that an atheist is more dangerous to their children than a pedophile rapist murderer. If little Johnny gets killed, well, we’ll all be reunited in heaven with Grandma and Rover and Fluffy, but if little Johnny’s soul is lost…
The Free Press had a discussion and guns several months ago.
https://www.thefp.com/p/what-to-do-about-guns
The one idea that was not rejected in the discussion or the comments section was to make the person who buys a gun, at least partially responsible for any harm it causes. Civil vs criminal vs combination is above my pay grade but the responsibility should exist unless/until sold (and buyer ID’d) or reported stolen. And promoting safety technology by excluding or reducing liability for imprinted guns seems like a good inclusion.
Granted not an ideal solution but seems like the only one with any potential for some agreement.
First law of litigation: a deadbeat is judgement-proof, unless you bring back debtors’ prison. But the plaintiff still gets nothing.
The only way Republicans might reconsider their stance would be if black children with guns started wandering into better-off white neighborhoods.
But then police would start shooting more people and there’d be more “blue lives matter” bleating. In any case, we can expect to hear plenty of horror stories from Missouri in the near future.
Horror stories are all but certain. Perhaps a name change is forthcoming: How about the great state of Misery the guns for kids state?
I believe I read in there that police are saying that they are now seeing kids walking around with AR-15s. How does an officer even approach such a kid playing music too loud in a park? W t holy f.
As this matriculates, one … maybe positive thing is that it can become a central issue during the next elections. The striking down of Roe v. Wade helped the dems, and now the “you can’t be too crazy” republicans can once again learn that yes, you can be too crazy.
Perhaps the idea is that the police aren’t supposed to say anything to kids playing music too loud in a park. Under the old rules, the kid would probably give the cop lip, a confrontation would ensue and the kid would wind up dead. So the cops are told, “Don’t enforce noise ordinances against black kids. If a Mexican tamale vendor’s licence is expired, cover him with tickets but leave the noisy black kids alone.”
Under the new system, the kids are carrying guns to protect themselves from being murdered by the cops. So especially leave them alone.
It’s an odd position for Republicans to take but guns have deep meaning that’s hard to decode often.
I would quibble with some of the nuances implied in your use of the word “deep”. This is the mental kiddie pool we’re talking about.
I live in central NY state (far from NYC). About 10 years ago I worked in a public elementary school and one of the 1st or 2nd graders (no more than 9 yrs old) was being harassed by other kids, so his older sibling sent him to school with a gun.
I’m horrified imagining what happens when an angry, armed child opens fire on parents – are they supposed to shoot back? Will a toddler be tried as an adult when they kill in anger?
What horrifies me is that you and the rest of the faculty failed this child.
I thought that Leslie MacMillan in his reply to #21 above, by not so subtly shifting the discussion from “kids playing loud music” to “black kids playing loud music” had struck the lowest blow in this discussion, but nope, you’ve taken the biscuit. Well done!
Children harass other children. It’s how they establish their pecking order, in preparation for the rest of their lives. You have a problem with schools preparing children for life outside school?
Au contraire, G-I, it is all about black kids playing loud music. Black activists and blame-shifters argue that police enforcement of traffic violations and quality-of-life offences like shoplifting and noise complaints constitute over-policing of the black community and result in police murders and over-incarceration of blackpeople. Activists applaud directives not to enforce these laws and ordinances because looking the other way will save young blacklives. The whole question of guns and crime is confounded by race. Call a spade a spade.
I really hope that was intended as harsh sarcasm, even though it’s not funny.
Please….
Absolutely unbelievable! This is a case of unadulterated Republican insanity and irresponsibility. Reading this as someone living in Germany, it makes me gasp.
It doesn’t make sense to make a state law when there is already a federal law. Who comes up with this stuff.
Is it possible the true motivation of these Republicans is something as petty as a simple desire to piss liberals off. I think Bill Maher said something similar about a different matter.
Do they have the death penalty?
For 6yos? I don’t know. for 14yos, I know even less.
But it’s a near certainty that in the predicted school pupil-on-pupils shooting, the perpetrator will die behind bars, whether the appeals have finished or not. Unless they’re shot at the scene, which remains the most likely outcome.
As the resident gun rights person, I will offer my interpretation.
I read the applicable parts of HB301, the proposed amendment, and found some of the arguments on both sides.
It seems like a rural/urban thing, mostly. Obviously, there is a serious problem with juvenile gang members in East St Louis shooting each other. This proposal would give police another enforcement tool in that regard. However, most of the gang guns are illegal anyway, so serious penalties are already on the books for that.
Out in the sticks, there is much less of a problem. Kids learn gun safety early, and under current law, if a 16 or 17 year old passes the gun safety course and gets the proper license, he or she can go hunt coons or whatever.
The proposed law is not specifically about open carry, it is about possession. And it makes any such possession a felony.
Present law allows authorities in urban areas to take armed but unaccompanied minors into custody, seize the firearm, notify the juvenile court of the incident, and release the child to the custody of the parents. This in cases where no other offense was committed.
Minors can still not buy guns, rural or urban. The penalties for brandishing or unsafe handling still apply. Illegal guns are still illegal.
They could have crafted a change to HB301 that was tailored specifically to the problem, and did not criminalize large numbers of law abiding people.
Kids who hunt legally are not the issue. They tend to take safety very seriously, keep their permits and certificates in order, and follow the law carefully.
Making possession an automatic felony does more than that. We drive to the range, and the teenager drives the truck with the guns in the back, instant felony. My kid crosses an unpaved state road to get to our west pasture to shoot prairie dogs, he becomes a felon.
I know most here likely disapprove of teenagers or anyone else having access to guns. It probably seems foreign and sinister. But I generally agree with the theory that the best way to make an adult who is safe around guns is to start teaching them as soon as they are old enough to start remembering the rules. We started taking ours to the range when they were 9 or 10. They thought that they were learning how to hit the target. But all that mattered was them learning safety, and having the rules so deeply ingrained that they follow them without even thinking about it.
East St. Louis is in Illinois, Max. St. Louis, Missouri does have many gun homicides, true.
I stand corrected. Beyond that, I go through there regularly, and should have known better.
Sorry to nitpick and thanks for the thoughtful analysis. I’m never sure where crossing a state line changes the law greatly or hardly at all. (Our Criminal Code and Firearms Act are entirely federal.)
At the risk of over-commenting, I ask re “ Present law allows authorities . . . to take armed but unaccompanied minors into custody, seize the firearm, notify juvenile court, and release the child to the custody of the parents.”
It seems the defeated amendment would have merely made unaccompanied possession a criminal offence, for which a juvenile would not likely be tried as an adult anyway. So would the amendment have actually changed current police enforcement had it passed? The tale told by the Democratic legislator from St. Louis that police told her the kids were bold enough to carry AR-15s around was just her say-so. From what you say, the police can and could disarm them even without the amendment. If they want to.
Understanding these issues is like putting fog in a bottle sometimes.
I don’t see that if the amendment had passed, it would have made much difference in urban law enforcement, but I am no expert on that.
It would absolutely criminalize a number of common and safe rural practices that are not part of the gun violence problem.
The reassurance that it is unlikely that they would ever be charged is of little comfort.
Of course this is answered with hyperbolic exaggeration, with tales that not passing the revisions would make it legal for six year olds to roam the streets with rifles. I think it is a strategy aimed at influencing people who do not understand the law or the issue, by provoking an emotional response.