Gun control advocates in Texas are excited because a House panel has advanced a bill to raise the age at which you can buy an AR-15 from 18 to 21.
Of course, even if passed and signed into law, the law would be struck down. As Justice Thomas asked in Bruen, is there another fundamental right where we could require this kind of restriction on its exercise?
Could we keep you from attending church until you turn 18?
Could we set the age at which you can exercise free speech to 21?
Could we say that government agents are free to search your person, papers, or effects without a warrant until you reach age 30?
For that matter, do you lose any of those rights just because you have been convicted of a felony?
A huge amount of crime is committed by children born to young mothers out of wedlock and by the children of people who have committed crimes themselves.
So could we say that you are not allowed to have a child unless you’re 25 years old, married, have passed a training course, and have never been convicted of a felony? Could we limit the number of children you have to eliminate ‘high capacity households’? Could we make you surrender your children to the authorities in case of divorce or conviction?
Some legislator should introduce that last set of restrictions as a bill — the Assault Children Ban — just to collect sound bites from the people who would oppose it. Especially when you mirror their own arguments back to them:
Why should we care about your rights, when you’ve been very clear about articulating your belief that safety is more important than rights? Keep in mind that one hundred percent of crimes are committed by people whose parents had children. Even if most children are never convicted of a crime, can we afford, as a society, to have people bearing and keeping assault children without proper safeguards in place?
Then we could play those sound bites as testimony at future hearings on new gun control laws.
