Author: Grumpy

On the same scorecard, we’re way beyond the point where the number of immigrants illegally crossing our borders is enough to seed the electorate and swing elections permanently, presumably leftward — a disgraceful tactic but also no secret. The planning and logistics have been exceptional right down to coordinated, “the border is closed!” falsehoods, which media lapdogs lap up.

All Rights Matter

But quiet rumblings surfaced about how these masses, “yearning to be free,” just might appreciate due process, personal prosperity, free enterprise, the profit motive, private property, and so many things progressives dislike, including the big one — gun ownership. That’s power in people’s hands, literally. It might be enough to shift the tide.

So much liberty is a risk that progressives can’t dismiss it unheeded. It’s long been apparent that progressives have gained near total control of the teachers’ unions and school curricula, and thus our children, so they might actually accomplish one-party rule. The deal might seal with a lowered voting age, now openly proposed. The left-leaning influence of big tech and, with it, children’s addictive access to screen time — all screens all the time — further speaks to the wisdom in abolishing any thought of lowering the voting age to children’s level. But even this is almost immaterial to the underlying difficulty.

The most deceptive and surprisingly overlooked element in the guns-and-voting-age quandary is unspoken — creating partial citizens. How do you justify granting only some of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to a person and not all the rest?

Splitting Rights

“All of the Bill of Rights for all Citizens” is the rallying cry of one civil-rights group. (1) Are they wrong? Does a 16-year-old who gains the right to vote also gain the right to trial by jury, no longer subject to the “justice” and protections of juvenile court? Where is the rationale to deny the right to keep and bear arms to a person sufficiently whole to vote and send troops to war? Those are rhetorical because there is no justification. Splitting rights is an abomination.

You can’t do it morally or legally — it creates slaves. The Civil War settled that — no person is three-fifths of a citizen. You either have your rights intact, or you do not. Progressives lose that on principle, but that rarely deters them.

You can almost hear the hypocrisy justifying it as valid and not irrational: “We’re giving these kids the vote, but nothing else. It’s only fair.” Republicans choose other topics but often have equally baked hypocritical reasonings; Dems are not alone. When asked, would either party respond, “Sure, kids should file 1040s on income, qualify for a mortgage, get a pilot’s license, and anything else an adult can do. They can vote, can’t they?” Trigger warning: They could vote it in for themselves.

“For years, our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the political process that produces this fateful summons.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954.

Suppose progressives succeed in this new public-control tactic, lowering the voting age to 16 or even less. In that case, youngsters can band together and vote themselves powers (not rights) for whatever they desire: to buy alcohol, tobacco and drugs, drag race on streets (only after dark, for safety), run for and obtain office — all the things where adults know better.

When voters commit crimes, they’re locked up with the general prison population. That should prove interesting. We’ll have to stop calling so many of the refugees at our borders children. Countless images have gutted that bald-faced lie, but it keeps getting repeated. Voting-aged children have reached maturity by definition. Guns? Sure. They aren’t children any longer. We will have taken their childhood from them.

One progressive response is that young voters could be educated in school to be properly qualified to vote. Like what, starting now? Wouldn’t you love to see adults educated enough to vote intelligently? How many registered voters can name the three branches of government or other most basic elements needed to cast an informed ballot? You’ve seen TV man-on-the-street interviews … hysterical.

(1) Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, JPFO.org.

Award-winning author, writer, consultant and musician Alan Korwin has written 14 books, 10 of them on gun law, and has advocated for gun rights for more than three decades. He is now writing his 15th book, Why Science May Be Wrong. See his work or reach him at GunLaws.com.