Gregory Smithsimon
Courtesy brooklyn.cuny.edu

It never fails to astound us how few academics can manage to distinguish the difference between a privilege like driving or alcohol consumption and the exercise of an enumerated civil right.

Mental health problems often develop in people’s 20s, and the parts of the brain that control impulse and judgment continue to develop in those years. That’s probably why all our most notorious assassins were in that decade of life: The men who shot Representative Gabby Giffords, Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, even Abraham Lincoln were all 22-26 years old. That’s an incredibly narrow age range.

Even the most selfish politicians might pause to think how much safer they’d be if men in their 20s didn’t have easy access to guns. Of the deadliest shootings in the past five years, seven out of 10 were committed by people under 30.

Requiring people to be 30 to buy a gun would also cut down on gang access to guns. Right now, any 21-year-old with a clean record can buy stashes of handguns and sell them to gang members and teens. But it’s a bit harder to find a 30-year-old who has kept their life clean enough to pass a background check, probably has kids and a job themselves, but would be willing to buy guns to put in the hands of local troublemakers.

— Gregory Smithsimon in How about a gun ownership age of 30?

 

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104 COMMENTS

  1. Pol Pot was an “academic”. Abimael Guzman, the leader of the Shining Path Maoists in Peru was an “academic”. Academia has always been the home of pseudo intellectuals and malcontent communists. These people are dangerous and should be ridiculed at every opportunity. #SOCIALISMKILLS

    • I propose the following reforms

      1. Disband the Federal student loan program. F*@k the parasitic academics

      2. Raise the voting age to 30

      3. Only permit property owners to vote

      4. Restrict the vote to males

      Points three and four might not be politically feasible, but even one and two would move us a long way in the right direction.

      • Better idea, with a nod to Robert Heinlein, only those men and women who have served a full term in the military should have the right to vote. They proved their willingness to die for the country. They are the only ones qualified to run it.

        • You would instate a regime of taxation without representation? Why are you even in America?

          I never understand why science fiction authors would be cited on matters of government policy.

        • Change that to men who serve or have served in the city/county/state militia, and I’ll agree with you.

          I’m done with boomer type propaganda.

          The security of a fee people is not guaranteed by the professional military. It is guaranteed by a well trained, well equipped, and disciplined militia comprised of all the men in the country.

          That is what our forefathers thought. They were right, and they were free.

          We don’t have that, and look at us. We aren’t exactly a free people any more.

          It is prudent to have some degree of professional military. Still, the militia of all able bodied men is at the heart of the free society.

          I appreciate the spirit and willingness to die shown by the men and women who served in the US military. That should be honored. Still

          1. Women generally don’t belong in war. Only wicked fools who hate women send their wives and mothers off to die in war. It isn’t their role. They have more important things to do (like bearing and nurturing children).
          2. For the most part our professional military serves the financial interests of the billionaire oligarchs, not the security of our people.
          3. Who in their right mind would sign up to serve when the Commander in Chief is a corrupt senile old creep?

        • Heinlen’s model assumes a state that isn’t inherently corrupt. The military as it currently stands is for welfare queens and wars we have no business in. McCain and Kerry were/are both veterans. Not a good metric for who should be allowed to vote. Change it to 4 years of dedicated service building roads and other thankless infrastructure work or other, similar dirty and unpleasant tasks that still need to be done. Much better metric. Or go back to the Founder’s preferred requirement; own land.

        • Um, you do realize that the setting of Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers, in which only those with military service were allowed to become citizens, was a dictatorship based directly on Nazi Germany.

          Also, allowing the vote for “only those men and women who have served a full term in the military” would exclude 99.9% of women and would exclude men who were wounded in combat (or in training accidents) so severely that they were unable to finish their term. Even in peacetime the military is a very dangerous occupation, and I had brothers-in-arms who died in the Army during peacetime, including a friend of mine. The military expels anyone who becomes too injured to serve, as there is no “wheelchair brigade” in the Infantry. Being injured during military service shouldn’t disqualify us from voting.

          But most of all, voting is a right, not a privilege, and Heinlein’s novel made it a privilege only to highlight the fact that the setting of his novel was a dictatorship based directly on Nazi Germany.

        • Stuck in NJ Read the BOOK. You watched the movie, didn’t you. Even in the movie the recruiter had both legs missing. There were NO physical restrictions on joining the military in Starship Troopers. “if you came in here in a wheel chair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find something silly enough to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe. The only way you can fail is by having psychiatrists decide that you are not able to understand the oath”

        • Heinlein’s military was absolutely volunteer only, enlistment was discouraged, and they tried to wash out as many soldiers as possible. The franchise was held to be precious. It wasn’t an open-to-all-comers social experiment where people sign up to get their gender reassignment surgery or college tuition covered. A Kerry wouldn’t be there.
          The book didn’t have the Nazi themes and sadism of the movie. The protaganist wasn’t an blonde/blue Aryan — he was a Filipino named Juan Rico. Heinlein later clarified that there were other public service routes available for those physically or religiously unable to serve.

        • what is this….”Starship Troopers”.?…..[I’d sign up just for the group showers!]…..

      • Re point 3, I’d say instead only people whose income tax payments in a given year exceeds the total payments they receive from the government, can vote that year. (Net contributors to the treasury, if you like.)

        After all, it’s their money.

        • That makes sense, but we have to include white collar welfare tax incentives. Using both, we wouldn’t have many voters in 2021 and 2022.

        • Agree with that. Why do we let people that pay no taxes vote to instate politicians who reward them even further financially?

          I wouldn’t view only tax payers get to vote as a punishment or a restriction done out of malice. I love every human enough I want them to incentivize them so they can feel the joy of work and that their contribution has meaning. Welfare recipients are a miserable bunch, only a sadist wants to punish others like that.

        • Well, you need to define those “payments”. Since 1981 I’ve gotten a government check every month, for 10 years as an Air Force Pilot and since ’91 as a retired AF officer. I have also paid taxes every year, including the years when I was at war. They allow you to delay filing until your return, but you still pay those taxes. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have jobs with the government, I don’t think that should disqualify any of us from voting. You’re thinking of the leeches who get FREE money, not those who are paid for services they perform.

      • So bring back the Military’s draft for all branches of service starting when all (no deferments) and any male, female, or so-called “other” turns 30 years old…..my satire, that’s just as stupid as the article!

      • You’re absolutely right. We should put “their” policies into full effect.
        They always forget about “the law of unintended consequences”. 😉

  3. “…all our most notorious assassins were…22-26 years old. That’s an incredibly narrow age range.”

    “But it’s a bit harder to find a 30-year-old…probably has kids and a job themselves, but would be willing to buy guns to put in the hands of local troublemakers.”

    He’s making a point here. The 30-year-old has more to lose. He has skin in the game. He’s more likely to consider the ramifications of his actions. If we follow Greg’s logic, then why are we granting voting privileges to super immature 20 somethings with little to nothing to lose? I’m sure he’s for raising the voting age to 30 as well, right? But they need their ignorant 20 somethings for their little revolution don’t they?

      • His age was the only reason he wasn’t executed for his act, but he did die in prison during the war.

    • Hmm he wants age discrimination and removing of a constitutional right from a class of millions of people with his justification of 5 instances of “assassins” across a couple hundred years of history. Even lumping in various modern shootings, these are still rare events compared to the number of people he wants to restrict.

      Can you even equate the five assassins, do the stories and motives matter? In the rush to find solutions and someone to blame, it seems giant generalizations are used as logic. Conservative gun owners are racist terrorists. Police are racist killers. Men are rapists. Blacks are victims, or others might say they are all thugs. In history all Jews were blamed for europe’s troubles and exterminated, all Japanese put in camps, etc.

      Some people who killed people with guns were under 30. Even a majority of those killers. So all under 30 year olds can’t be trusted with a gun. Again we are talking millions of people, millions of people who actually have shown they don’t commit these crimes, vs the few outliers, even a 1000, even 10000 killers vs millions is insignificant.

      • I doubt people like this guy are beginning with an open mind, and after studying the data, come to their conclusion. They’re beginning with their conclusion and selectively using data to justify it. They use the shield of, “I’m a smarter than you academic surrounded by books, so trust me, I know what I’m talking about.” Most people don’t have the will or time to research every issue, so they believe people like this, especially when 90% of the news media and 100% of Big Tech promotes it.

      • He didn’t mention exactly how he was going to accomplish the feat of keeping guns from those under 30. Probably he should work on keeping them away from cocaine until he has that worked out. The 13-year-old all the current riots are about is not allowed to have a gun, but there he was, shooting at passing cars at 3 AM, maybe nobody told him he couldn’t have a gun?!

  4. A lot of the problems we’re subjected to these days are CAUSED by alleged “academics”! All arrogant enough to know better than us what’s good for us!!

  5. Another College Perfesser..wow with a highly difficult Sociology degree….We need to start marking these people like we do celebrities…they are so totally out of phase with reality in the ivy covered walls of academia that they have no clue.

    It is time to pass a law that sets a MAXIMUM a college that accepts even one penny of public funds…Set the max for a Bachelor degree at say 60,K for four years (essentially the cost of a moderately priced car) Make the institutions of socialism make up the difference with donations from grads…or by cutting budgets.

    • remember my sociology prof…the guy always seemed to be pissed-off about something…had to learn to humor him and agree with everything he said…until I got my grade…and walked out the door laughing…..

      • No, that’s far too old.
        As soon as the child knows they’re ready to trans they’re ready for sex.
        So like 8 or 9.

        • Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her own book that the age of consent should be lowered to 12 years of age. She is not the only one who has asked that the age of consent be lowered.

  8. So?????????? A marine gets Honoroable discharged, under 30, wants to go hunting and can’t because he is not 30????????? Give me a break. Why not just take everones guns?

  9. Seems like someone at Smithsonian would be slightly aware of history……what an ignorant puke. I guess he is projecting a little.

    For the Journal of the American Revolution, Todd Andrlik compiled a list of the ages of the key participants in the Revolutionary War as of July 4, 1776. Many of them were surprisingly young:

    Marquis de Lafayette, 18
    James Monroe, 18
    Gilbert Stuart, 20
    Aaron Burr, 20
    Alexander Hamilton, 21
    Betsy Ross, 24
    James Madison, 25

    • Must be 30 to have internet access, a cellphone, own and drive a car, have a credit card, get married or have sex, drink, or stay out past 10. And you can’t be a professional athlete or celebrity until 30, I mean those football players are always getting into trouble, millions of dollars and no common sense!

      • Running drugs or picking cotton would help them keep fit and ready to join the NFL/NBA at 30.

        • As long as they can sell drugs in the all white neighborhoods, and all white schools, I’m good with that.

  11. Hmmm… Lets see I bought my first gun at eleven or twelve with my dad along, but it was clearly to be my .22 rifle and my first handgun, a Ruger Mark I, at seventeen and I still have both at seventy. I also took a riflery class at military school at sixteen so, no, thirty is much too old!

  12. No police carve outs on this one either, lets make it so if you want to have a LEO career (why would you do that these days) you have to be 30+. Certainly we need to do this for voting as well. If someone is stupid enough to vote Hugo Chavez into office they’re a danger to all of us.

    I think that the bangers in Chicago will figure out a way to stay nicely armed. The age to own a handgun in IL, the FOID Card, waiting periods and a myriad of other laws haven’t stopped the utes from picking up guns. From what I hear they’re easier to buy than books. (I would argue they’re of more utility given the CPS literacy rates.)

    • This is the practical aspect of the issue. You can’t keep guns out of the hands of anyone “who shouldn’t have them” (note the implicit racial import of that tired phrase). So, disarming adults of any age deprives them of the effective means to defend themselves against the armed (of whatever age).

      The first rule of government ought to be “do no harm”. This proposal clearly does harm without doing any good.

  13. “Requiring people to be 30 to buy a gun would also cut down on gang access to guns.”

    HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO! HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!

    What a maroon.

  14. Okay, I’ll play:

    You must come from a traditional two parent (father and mother) household to be allowed to buy/own a firearm.

    Broken home, no baby-daddy, nonbinary-genderfluid-whatever parents = prohibited.

      • Not my parents, they’re dead and now vote democrat.

        According to that one judge in New York, parents don’t have to support adult children.

  15. Lol
    While we’re at it, let’s just create totally helpless lives stuck in perpetual childhood.

    Never mind the mind altering effects of liberalism, twisted education, drugs, and various other forms of evil. Things our youth are often not given the tools to properly fight with. Be it guns, knowledge, or just simply a caring mother and father.

    No recognition to the concept that people fo steal guns.

    Lol
    Over educated morons….

  16. As usual, some study’s finding of a vague correlation is used to claim a proven benefit. What the cited suicide study actually says:

    “no effect was found in states that increased the age of handgun sales (West Virginia and Wyoming) during the study period”

    “sales laws alone might make us feel better but are unlikely to save many lives.”

    https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/b-rla072120.php

  17. Then we also need to raise the age for an abortion to 50. After all, nearly 100% of abortions occur in women under that age. That alone would save hundreds of thousands of lives per year.

    • Just the opposite, you can’t father a child or bear a child until you’re 30. Maturity is necessary to care for the little critters.

  18. What a putz…I had a wife & kid at 20(wish I hadn’t). Went to work every day. I know guy’s who got drafted(and joined up)who went to Vietnam. I guess their brains not being “developed” made them ideal cannon fodder. If a little mexican 13year old boy can easily get a gun and run the streets(and get shot)your suggestions mean less than nothing doofus.

  19. This idiot has “academic freedom”, courtesy of millions of people under thirty who went into combat willing to kill and die for his stupid butt. My ancestors were among them. KMA MIster Simonsmith.

  20. “any 21-year-old with a clean record can buy stashes of handguns and sell them to gang members”

    Why aren’t your gangbangers in prison” Problem is “racist” to lock up criminals if they are black.

  22. All liberals and radicals just keep wearing your mask and taking your vaccines..problem solved in a year or so..

  23. This is why an academic institution has to have tenured positions, otherwise sane rational people could have idiots like this fired and they would be forced to flip burgers for a living. This guy has no marketable skills.

  24. How about we just go back to the best deterrent of bad or dangerous habits,
    That would be : A EYE FOR A EYE mantra.
    That always works. Social behavior always gets better when you know what might happen to you.
    & if you’re considered retarded or insane, put them back in mental wards like they did in the early days .

    • How much theft would we have if you lost a hand every time you robbed someone? You only lose a digit for minor thefts. Too extreme? How about this. Start enforcing our existing laws again.

      • PUBLIC EXECUTION would be a good start. Convicted of murder , rape , or child abuse should result in PUBLIC EXECUTION. Drunk driving 1st time=loss of car , 2nd time = permanent loss of freedom , I favor tossing them into a walled off enclosure with zero supplies if they try to leave = bullet to the forehead.

      • I was a guest of the Saudi king for around 6 months in ’90-’91, by the time I left I was absolutely convinced that you could find a public place and put a rock on top of a $100 bill, then walk away and come back several hours later and find it untouched. Not much happened in that respect while we were there, there was a guy who machine-gunned a shuttle bus taking GIs to and from work, only passenger (American) was unhurt, Saudi driver slightly wounded. Shooter picked the right day, Thursday, since the processing could not be completed before Friday (chop day), meaning he got to be savaged by guards until the following Friday, when his head was chopped off in public. Literally. I have had people tell me that that was certainly not true, I assure you that it is. When you are caught stealing, you get a ceremonial cut on your wrist, since chopping off your hand could get infected and kill you, and you were not sentenced to death. Then they carry you to a hospital and amputate your hand. Nicest people you’d ever meet, at least while you’re the guest of the King so they are not required to kill you. I was educated, let me tell you. I don’t think they spend a lot on prisons.

  26. I assume this “academic” dolt is teaching for free, since no one in his right mind would pay him to spout his idiotic ramblings.

    As one of the Old Ones, my lifetime of experience and knowledge has given me the authority to judge and proscribe punishment to liars, thieves, hypocrites, evil idiots and the like.

    Here is my legal opinion on the “academic”:
    “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”

    As for punishment, any one who has read the Bible, knows what happens next….

  27. “Bacon April 22, 2021 At 10:07
    Change that to men who serve or have served in the city/county/state militia, and I’ll agree with you.”

    Define militia. Lots of wannabes running around out there playing soldier. No training and damned dangerous and undisciplined. I mean that those men, and women, who entered Federal or State military service should be the ones. Your point about not sending women to war is well taken, but I served with many women who were equal to, and in some cases, better than some of the men under my command. So they get the right since they were willing to “write that check”. You know, the one that includes my life.

    • had a female partner ride with me in my patrol car on occasion…she could handle herself…and then there were those added benefits….especially on the night shift…..

  28. People in same sex relationships have been working to prevent other peoples children from learning about guns for a very long time now. Why is that? Ya I said it.
    From the 1970’s.

    “Ammiano was instrumental in getting rid of San Francisco’s High School competitive .22 cal rifle teams, and worked to put an end to the junior ROTC program in San Francisco’s High Schools. Ammiano supported the ban on allowing gun owners to carry an unloaded gun in public. “Whether a gun is loaded or not, it’s still an act of intimidation and bullying,” Ammiano said.”

    https://calwatchdog.com/2013/01/29/anti-gun-lawmakers-lead-hearing-today/

  29. If you apply the same logic and regulation to voting, suddenly it becomes voter suppression.

    Some say guns are more deadlier than votes.
    The only thing more dangerous and deadlier than a government that can’t be properly resisted or held accountable is an ignoranus thinking he’s one of the good guys.

    Good guys don’t regulate natural rights into oblivion.

  30. De Facto April 22, 2021 At 11:29
    Heinlen’s model assumes a state that isn’t inherently corrupt. The military as it currently stands is for welfare queens and wars we have no business in. McCain and Kerry were/are both veterans. Not a good metric for who should be allowed to vote. Change it to 4 years of dedicated service building roads and other thankless infrastructure work or other, similar dirty and unpleasant tasks that still need to be done. Much better metric.
    I could agree with that. Thanks

  31. WHEW ON THA COMMENTS Y’ALL .
    NOT TO WORRY EVERY ONE KNOWS YA GOT TO BE 99 OR OLDER TO GO CRAZY AND SHOOT SOME ONE OR THINGIE .
    WHAT IS THA STATISTICS ON YOUNDER PEOPLE ? 20 ~ 40 VS 40 ~ 80 SHOOTERS ?
    YOUNG FARTERS VS OLDER FARTERS ?

  32. Amazing how they took the bible out of schools, and latter rifle teams as well. And then start to miseducate the students. It’s like it was along term plan.

  34. Counter argument:

    Let’s lower it to 16. Or 12…

    At what age does one become “free”?

  35. … few academics can manage to distinguish the difference between a privilege like driving or alcohol consumption and the exercise of an enumerated civil right.

    Um, I am going to argue–vociferously at that–that driving and alcohol consumption are NOTprivileges, rather they are rights as well!

  36. How about going back to our Founding Father’s FAITH in God and EXERCISE it (and TEACH it) to our CHILDREN, and our CHILDREN’S children, with REVERENCE? One Enlightened Patriot. Team Trump And His Allies 2020 – MAGA (WE’RE NOT going away!).

  37. Only if we raise the voting age to 30 and impose a property ownership requirement. Young, poor people don’t have the judgement to make a responsible voting decision, they just want gibs and communism.

  38. I believe if you go through old supreme court cases you will find one where the Playboy club tried to raise the age to 23 and the supreme court threw it out and said if you are 21 you are an adult.

  39. I actually thought about this- let’s face it- a background check of an 18 year old isn’t going to find anything if their juvie records are sealed.

    I would make it 21 for handguns (like a lot of states actually) and 25 for the scary AR/AW LGTBQ guns ( I can’t keep track of the names Lefties use)

    It might slash the numbers of school shootings a bit- but note that Columbine and Sandy Hook were done by losers who didn’t legally own their guns (Columbine- they straw purchased, Lanza used his Mommy’s guns)

    • Anyone can get a gun, always could and always will be able to. Did you check the Denver shooting, guy legally bought the pistol 6 days earlier with a valid background check, and equipped it with a hi-cap magazine banned in 2013. The wonderful feel good laws accomplish less than nothing, the only thing accomplished is fostering a false sense of security, believing somebody else is going to save you. We need to work on *everybody* being armed, children, women, felons, literally everyone! That is the ONLY way to end the casual murder of people by those who are stark, staring nuts.

  40. How many low flying planes have ran into this guy’s grain silo sized head? Several if that was his idea.

  42. No agency at any government level that has arms should be open to any one not thirty years old either. If the citizens are to be unarmed until age 30 then the government should be also.

  43. Let’s take it all the way then. You can’t vote, drive, drink, get married, father/mother a child, fight for your country or engage in any activity that requires emotional and mental maturity until you’re 30 years old.
    Does it sound like a good idea now Smithsimon?

  44. Why not use the Robert Heinlein “Starship Troopers” version of CITIZENSHIP whan it comes to voting, interacting, etc.
    If you haven’t served or do not want to serve your nation then you do not get a vote. I’m a 100% DAV, so my vote should count MORE…since I served. Those lily-livered liberal academic types certainly can express their opinion(s) BUT they can’t put them into practice until they put their ass on the line.
    Seems fair to me.

    • I’m with you, particularly those (like DiFi) who wish to confiscate guns. They must be first through my door, or their opinion should be disregarded.

  45. His logic is faulty (to say the least).

    “Mental health problems often develop in people’s 20s, and the parts of the brain that control impulse and judgment continue to develop in those years.”

    So he’s arguing that those under 30 shouldn’t VOTE, drive, or be allowed to drink or enjoy any other “age-based” privileges. I wonder how he feels about military service? I’d take a bet that I can guess correctly.

    “Requiring people to be 30 to buy a gun would also cut down on gang access to guns.”

    ….because gang members ALWAYS follow the laws to obtain guns.

    What a maroon. No wonder he could only find a “career” in modern academia.

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