Votes, Guns, and Coming of Age in America, Fall 2021

         On Sunday, Nov. 21, the Ventura County Star reprinted an editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch starting from the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and the raising of the US drinking age to 21, to argue that (using the Star’s headline) "National age floor of 21 needed for guns."

There are issues I’d like to look at and an alternative to propose.

 

In two books in the 1990s, Michael Males argued that in terms of social pathologies — crime, for example — older US teens are a normal US adult population, and usually doing better than their elders; older teens had become, as stated in these titles, a Scapegoat Generation, targets in a process of Framing Youth. 

 

The problem isn’t "What’s the matter with kids today?" but more generally with normal adult US populations, and solutions need to be more general, including with guns.

 

Such an argument can seem more likely when we note the many times (as in the Post-Dispatch piece) we see the phrase "raging hormones" and how seldom we see numbers for actual measurements of hormone levels at various ages. It is definitely plausible and it was my experience to have what felt like hormone fluctuations going through puberty. After that what seems to be crucial to the experience is whether or not people are "having sex" regularly and settling down, and in the modern US we have the issue of delayed marriage and fairly long periods in which older teens are not invited to engage in socially-endorsed sex or adult domesticity. Let’s have some numbers on testosterone and other hormones at different ages and correlations with, say, violence and crime, including the more subtle kinds.

 

More recently, there is the idea that "Young people’s brains are still developing," which I do not doubt. But it’s safe to assume young brains have been developing through recorded history and across human cultures, and the argument needs historical and cross-cultural context. The example cuts both ways, but Alexander the Great came to the throne at 20, and by the time he was old enough to be US President he’d been dead for 2-3 years and had conquered and ruled fairly well much of his world. Octavius Caesar was doing major politics at 17 or 18; Elizabeth Tudor survived her teenage years — and all sorts of young people worked and married and lived as young adults for millennia.

 

Whatever is happening with young brains, we need sensible gun laws for everyone.

 

And as long as we’re going to have young men eligible for getting guns from the government — conscription — at 18, the rule is still, "Old enough to fight; old enough to vote. Old enough to vote, old enough to drink alcohol" and own guns under the same (sensible) laws as their elders.

 

What we need in the USA is an "age of majority" — full adulthood — across the board, with enforced adult expectations, and some sort of rite of passage: perhaps a few months or up to a year of military or other public service at 18 or so, to the extent the USA can afford it. 

Voter Turn-Out / Voting Age (and Fighting Arrested Development)

In the US we need a consistent and meaningful "age of majority," reinforced with ritual. 

We've got the 26th Amendment so let's stick with 18 for that "age of majority": legal adulthood. The privacy issues will be difficult, but at 18 every American should be issued The Card: passport, voter registration, registration for any conscription we still have (e.g., jury duty), I.D. for buying legal recreational drugs such as ethyl alcohol, and with one chip to be activated with licensing to drive and another to purchase fire arms — under whatever regulations are in place. And for each monthly cohort we can have a little ceremony with the oath or affirmation "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" and a proclamation of this group as now adult citizens of the United States with all the rights, privileges, and obligations pertaining thereto — and then a party.

Some people are fully mature at 15; some people never grow up. And all sorts of stuff is happening in terms of neurological development that energetic lawyers and PR-savvy scientists have been talking about the last decade or so and will continue to talk about. Screw that. "Old enough to decide whether or not to obey an order to kill people, then old enough to perform any other adult function" (as a matter of policy; as mentioned "Individuals will vary, including individually, in different situations"). Wise societies depend on self-fulfilling prophecies, the psychological efficacy of ritual, and the social pressures of expectations. 

Also we need classes for teens in civics and sex Ed (including sex-related ethics) and in using and not abusing drugs. 

Old Enough to Be Given a Gun & Sent Off to War, Old Enough to Buy a Gun

Op-Ed in The New York Times: 

Justice "John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment" 

— and raise the age for purchasing guns to 21.

I'll repeat (and keep repeating) my objection to raising the age for gun purchase to 18, as part of my objection to all rules outside of Constitutionally-mandated ages for public office that undermine 18 as the age of majority.

For mass shootings in the US generally, the shooters have been almost always 20-49-year-old White males. Youngsters are an issue only with mass shootings in schools, which are just under a quarter of mass shootings in the US, which in turn are only a small portion of gun deaths.

A campaign for eventual repeal of the 2nd Amendment is a good idea if, but only if, it helps and does not hurt immediate efforts to ban civilian possession of semi-automatic weapons outside of shooting ranges — plus restrictions on ammunition-magazine sizes, bump stocks, conversion kits to make semi-automatic weapons automatic, large-quantity purchases of guns and ammo, etc.

Meanwhile, we need to reinforce vigorously 18 as the age of majority with full rights and responsibilities, working against trends toward arrested development. We also need a lot of research and other efforts to make adulthood in the US suck less.

Yet again, no, The Kids Are Not Alright (sic), but in terms of social pathology they're usually doing better than their elders. To repeat Mike Males's points, except when they're doing better, older US teens are a normal adult US population. And for the US population generally — especially older White males — we need to work on the epidemics of alienation, loneliness, anger, rage, and despair.

DOWN WITH THE NRA (BUT DEFEND THE AGE OF MAJORITY)

News story passed along on Twitter: 

"The NRA [National Rifle Association ...]

just sued Florida based on the astounding 

argument that 18 year olds have a constitutional

right to buy assault rifles."

On this issue, I'm kind of with the NRA, which is something that hasn't happened much since I quit high school ROTC and the rifle team (in the 1950s) and since the NRA was taken over by fanatics.

I'll get in the argument this far, with my standard comment on young adults but with a bit of a twist: As is frequent, a wide-spread problem in the US about which we must DO SOMETHING!! is shifted to the schools and to young people. Mass shootings are only a small proportion of US gun deaths; most mass shootings do not occur in schools; the great majority of shooters in mass shootings are White males between the ages of 20 and 49, not teens. 

Humans mature into our social roles at different speeds and in complex ways, some people living long lives but never making it to adulthood. "The age of majority," therefore — when one gets pretty much the full rights and responsibilities of adulthood — is always somewhat arbitrary. That is *not*, however, a good argument for adulthood by degrees, but for setting a minimally ambiguous age of majority, enforcing it, and, in a manner appropriate in a secular republic, ritualizing it with some brief ceremony/"rite of passage." 

Old enough to be conscripted to take up weapons in defense of the country, old enough to vote. Old enough to function as a sovereign citizen electing officials and voting on referendums, old enough to buy legal psychotropic drugs such as ethyl alcohol (street names: booze, "drink" ...). Old enough to buy booze, old enough to keep and bear legal firearms: which I'd have bolt or pump-action, single-shot, small caliber long-guns unless one has a really good reason for something more deadly — plus a background check, training, and a license that needs periodic renewal after testing at least as rigorous as for initial drivers' licenses.

Universal Obligation (to Serve) and Selective Service: A Response to Senator McCain

"If we're going to ask every American to serve,

every American should serve." — Hon. John McCain

US Senator, interview 22 October 2017,

quoted on Huffington Post

I recall Senator Ted Kennedy's staff running the numbers a few decades back and concluding that even demanding a year of service from every American at 18 or 19 would be prohibitively expensive. Still, I like the principle Senator McCain has presented, and I'll repeat my suggestion for an affordable and equitable compromise:

Take almost literally, and implement, the official American doctrine of "Universal (military) obligation and selective service."

As long as we require 18-year old male residents of the US to register for the Draft, it's probably safer for liberty to both expand and contract the pool to all American citizens 18 to 80, with everyone filling out a brief form with our physical and mental condition, skills, and current contact information. As future cohorts turn 18, they can register in more detail, including some testing, ending with a little ceremony at which they receive a card that can serve as short-form passport and for voter-ID/registration, and registration as Of Age for the purchase of alcohol and any other legal recreational drugs.

"Old enough to fight, old enough to vote; old enough to vote, old enough to 'drink' (i.e., ethyl alcohol as a recreational drug)." A rite of passage for Coming of Age in America would be useful to help cure the current American epidemic of arrested development.

Everyone in a computerized system makes real "Universal obligation," with the provision that "the System" be programed to call up people for service as needed, with the political tweak that two members of Congress and a US Senator will be called up each month of a military draft: If they got us into this emergency and perhaps declared the war, let's be sure at least some of them fight it.

(Last time I made this suggestion, I had to consider what possible contribution to some war effort could be made by Senator Strom Thurmond, who was approaching 100 years old at the time. I noted that the System could be set up to allow for extreme age in members of the Congress and to give credit for previous military service, especially such superior service as that of Thurmond — no, World War II, not the Spanish-American — and, besides, in Thurmond's case there was always mine clearance …. More seriously, by "service" I meant Federal Service, in the sense used by Robert A. Heinlein in the more carefully considered, and perhaps even revised, sections of his Starship Troopers [1959]: maybe militaristic, in the novel, but not necessrily military. For Representatives and Senators, though: military if at all possible. There're always military jobs as guinea pigs at Fort Detrick.)

Other advantages to Universal Obligation: Senator Sam Ervin opposed military conscription for women with a line something like «America is not ready to see her daughters coming home in aluminium coffins.» That has turned out not to be literally the case so far, so long as the coffins are few; and insofar as it is the case, it's an argument for drafting women. American society can use every check we can get on war fever, and if a squishy sentimentality over the deaths of young women reduces the number of deaths, period, then go for it. Also, the US Left and Center have clearly been way too optimistic about the progress of women toward full integration into American political and civic society. Military service has helped other groups into US society; it should also help women.

Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote; Old Enough to Vote, Old Enough to Drink (and Smoke)

REFERENCE:

Jonathan J. Cooper, AP, "Bill would make California 2nd state with smoking age of 21"

           <http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sns-bc-ca-xgr--california-tobacco-laws-20160303-story.html">

Editorial: "State should pass bill to increase smoking age to 21"

   
        
In spite of short-term public health benefits of raising the "smoking age" for tobacco to 21, the State of California should resist the temptation to do so and move instead to a thorough revamping of our drug and criminal laws to make them more rational and to make 18 a consistent and rigorously-enforced "age of majority" (legal adulthood).

            As many Americans argued during the 1960s, "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote," a principle enacted in 1971 in the 26^th Amendment to the US Constitution. I.e., if someone is responsible enough to decide whether or not to register for the military draft and, if called, whether or not to agree to conscription; if someone is mature enough to decide whether or not to put his (sic) life in danger for his country; if someone is capable of deciding whether or not to agree to kill for his country — then that person is responsible enough to vote and deserves the vote.

            Alternatively American society would have to say that what we want for the Army is pretty much cannon fodder who needn't think a lot; and/or acknowledge that in approving the 26^th Amendment we knew that not enough young people would vote as a bloc to matter much whether they're responsible citizens or not.

            And if someone is old enough to vote — again, unless we say voting isn't really important — that person is old enough to decide whether or not to use a drug like ethyl alcohol or nicotine.

            As long as it's set a decent interval after puberty, the age for legal adulthood is more or less arbitrary and should be part of rites of passage that make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are told they're adults, expected to act like adults, and are held accountable as adults a rite of passage can work its magic and children become adults. "Late adolescence" was invented during my lifetime, and treating young Americans as adults at 18 — including demanding adult behavior — could have them again young adults. As Mike A. Males has demonstrated in two major books and other writing, older American teens are pretty much a normal adult American population or frequently doing better than their elders. If a fair number of teens are irresponsible jerks, well, so are many of their elders, the older folk just having less energy to be noisy in our evil and experienced enough to be, usually, more discreet.

            Instead of the traditional grousing about them damn youngins and their bad habits, older Americans need to admit that main-stream adult America is a drug culture with a lot of immature, irresponsible and self-destructive behavior starting with pounding beers and popping pills. And then we need to take vigorous public health actions to help addicts, and public policy actions to significantly tone down the marketing of drugs of all sorts and reverse the message that relief from all manner of pain is at the bottom of a bottle.

            As long as it's illegal for an adult to give 20 grams of marijuana to a friend, it should be a felony to design a marketing campaign around "Bitter Beer Face" and push a gateway beer like Keystone Light to young people.

            Rather than passing laws so that "Parents that host / Lose the Most," we should encourage parents to teach their children that drinking is a choice, and if they choose to drink they can sip like ladies and gentlemen and use alcohol (and softer drugs) responsibly. It should not be too hard to return to the old idea that getting sloppy drunk and puking on a date isn't signaling sophisticated maturity.

            As for tobacco use, we need more to harness even more of those fiendishly brilliant pushers of beer and wine and stronger booze and get them working on ad campaigns that show nicotine use "Soooo 20^th-century!", fit only for old people and the terminally uncool (or whatever the cool word will be for "uncool").

            Making cigarettes a symbol of adulthood is not a good idea.

            Taking yet another step teaching 18-20-year olds that we think they're children and expect them to act that way: that is an invitation to even more arrested development among American youth and a very bad idea.

Usage Note: "Adult Children" (14 Feb. 2015)

My first thought at hearing the phrase "adult child" is, "If you raised an adult child, you failed as a parent."

My second thought is that the first thought was at worst cruel, at best a bit unfair.

        If your child has serious developmental problems and emotionally or intellectually and/or physically  gets to her or his twenties without reaching adult development, then, obviously, you should be respected and complimented on your job of parenting. 

        In less somber contexts — on linguistic grounds, a fair-minded person might object that people speaking of an "adult child" understand "child"   as just "offspring," which makes the phrase mean the harmless "adult offspring." Okay, but come on! There's always "son" and "daughter" and "offspring" isn't that tough a word and works for most people who are biological parents as well as parenting parents.

         On more paractical grounds, the accusation of failure as a parent often overestimates the influence of parents on the outcome of their offspring. Most of us most of the time blame the parents for rotten kids — and we usually should — but not always. If a family is stuck with a 22-year old child, it may not be the fault of the parents.

         It may not be anyone's fault, but it is a problem.

         I first heard "adult child" and such in the phrase "adult children of alcoholics," and the usage seemed wrong. Adult offspring of alcoholics, God and Al Anon know, frequently have issues, but those issues didn't seem to me — at least from a distance — to be some sort of culpable immaturity. If anything, some people with a subgroup of ... what would be the proper term here? ... let's say some variety of fucked up parents take on adult responsibility at an early age and are adult well before leaving their teens, sometimes adult heartbreakingly too young.

         Folks out there using English should remember that children don't have the same rights as adults and should not have the same rights as adults. In the context of the 2014/15 round of the debate on mandated innoculations, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said, "The state doesn't own your children" and clarified that "Parents own the children." There was widespread denunciation of the idea of anyone's owning children, but it is significant that a US Senator in the libertarian tradition (no less) would think in terms of owning kids and that many of those denouncing the line were of the emphatically non-libertarian strain of the Left who were far some seeing children as autonomous, responsible beings who could usually be trusted to take care of themselves.

         Let's say play alone in a city part or take the subway.

         Children do not have the same rights as adults and do need protection, and there are powerful Americans of a wide swath of political persuasions who go way, way too far in "protecting our children." (As I said when the Powers that Were in the City of Chicago introduced a teen curfew and argued it was to protect teenagers — bullshit! it was to protect grownups afraid, sometimes with justification, of teenagers — "Just do me one favor: Don't do me no favors.")

         Eric Posner recently did a fine job of provocation, arguing that "Universities Are Right and Within Their Rights to Crack Down on Speech and Behavior" of college students because "Students today are more like children than adults and need protection." Which means, of course, that the "kids" need to be not only protected from words and topics and ideas that might upset them but also from misusing freedoms we in America recognize as birthrights for grownups.

         Children may not be owned by the State or their parents, but they do need people to control them.

         If your offspring turned out all right and can do okay on their own, thank you, they're you're adult offspring; don't insult them by calling them children or share with others that feeling deep inside that they will always be your little girl, your little boy. Such feelings fine in your heart of hearts but make for a lousy idea for public policy.

         If Posner has a point and we have wide-spread arrested development among young Americans, well, that is a serious social issue to be dealt with and not to be blandly accepted. The phrase "adult child" can have some very negative implications; it should not be used casually.