Another School Shooting, this time in Florida

[Robovski]

Because at 18 you have no life experience, really don't know anything, and in today's society really aren't even an adult as we seem to put that expectation off to after college now. The only worthwhile argument that had traction for the voting age from 21 to 18 was the fact that drafted boys were dying and unable to vote for or against a government sending them to war. The better answer would be to have increased the age of the draft but the Army likes them young and malleable (which I feel is another reason why that's too young to vote).

Repeal the 26th Amendment!

[Admiral X]

I mean don't say anything about them that would get you temp-banned for uncivil behavior if you said it to me. Is that clear enough for you?

Cool, I already pass that metric, then. I'll still criticize them plenty, though.

[excalibur]

Also being legally an adult only means you are now legally responsible for your actions. If you are an absolute moron, being an adult doesn't help you but instead makes your situation worse. As Admiral X pointed out, just turning 18 doesn't mean you know a damn thing especially if you're being lead around those who do know how things work and may find a young people very easy to manipulate

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Right, but I could make the same argument about age 21, and as events have shown, some people can make it much, much further in life without developing a lick of common sense or allowing life lessons to penetrate their skulls. So why is 21 a markedly better number than 18?

I would also argue that the parkland kids now DO have real life experience, however young they may be.

[Admiral X]

Right, but I could make the same argument about age 21, and as events have shown, some people can make it much, much further in life without developing a lick of common sense or allowing life lessons to penetrate their skulls. So why is 21 a markedly better number than 18?

That'd be a good question for both the people who insist on raising the age to purchase a firearm as well as those who have stubbornly refused to lower the drinking age to the current age of majority.

I would also argue that the parkland kids now DO have real life experience, however young they may be.

That doesn't really say much, though. It's obvious the ones who are anti-gun don't actually know much about guns (like that one that thought you could pick up an AR-15 for $130, just as an example), but then that doesn't make them all that different from the adults who are anti-gun, I suppose. And I'll again point out that not all of them are anti-gun, it's just that the media has been focusing on the one who are.

[excalibur]

Being shot at doesn't mean you know your rights to have weapons, or know anything about guns in general other that they shoot things. It's like saying I get hit by a car and from that alone, I should know best about certain aspects of cars that I admit have no experience with.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It means you know something about life. It means you're not really a child anymore. It means that you actually DO know how dangerous and terrible and vicious and unsafe the world is.

...please like, please don't shit-talk them. Please don't go "lol kids today, snorting condoms and eating tide pods, what do they know?!" Please don't try to claim they are crisis actors. Please don't accuse them of "virtue signalling." Please learn to disagree with them without disrespecting them.

Like...I'm not shit-talking the pro-gun parkland kids. I disagree with their positions, but I'm not claiming that they are brainwashed tools of the NRA or violent rambo fantasy junkies or mentally broken. I recognize that they are people who have gone through a horrible trauma and they are trying to make things better so that this doesn't happen again in their own way, that they share a goal of preventing horrors like this.

Is that so hard?

[Admiral X]

Children undergo traumatic events all the time, but this doesn't make them an expert on anything, or no longer a child. About all it does is get them some sympathy. Sympathy which can and does evaporate if they say and do things which are disrespectful of others, which they have. And while you ask (to who, exactly?) for others to not be disrespectful toward them, this is something that must be kept in mind. They have no immunity from criticism for the things that they say.

[excalibur]

It means you know something about life. It means you're not really a child anymore. It means that you actually DO know how dangerous and terrible and vicious and unsafe the world is.

...please like, please don't shit-talk them. Please don't go "lol kids today, snorting condoms and eating tide pods, what do they know?!" Please don't try to claim they are crisis actors. Please don't accuse them of "virtue signalling." Please learn to disagree with them without disrespecting them.

Like...I'm not shit-talking the pro-gun parkland kids. I disagree with their positions, but I'm not claiming that they are brainwashed tools of the NRA or violent rambo fantasy junkies or mentally broken. I recognize that they are people who have gone through a horrible trauma and they are trying to make things better so that this doesn't happen again in their own way, that they share a goal of preventing horrors like this.

Is that so hard?

The problem of your thinking is from your statement, you associate anybody connected with the NRA as "tools" or violent Rambo fantasy junkies and lump them in with the mentally broken. That is a very bias way of looking at us we are not that. Not a single mass murderer to date have been linked to the NRA directly or indirectly as an influence. We separate the crazies from the other people. Having an enthusiasm for something doesn't make us a "nut" and you having such a view is not only bias but also counter productive because that is all you see of us. Gun toting cowboy wannabes which is also a product of improper media portrayals. You can't tell me that a lot of your views have been influenced by how the media portrays us.


The problem is, people are different in how they want change based on their trauma and are not the same. Plenty of people who were defenseless in situation, survived and instead of preaching for gun control, they became very pro-gun because at the time, they recognized the need for self defense. They see that in that situation, you either die because you have no stomach to fight or you fight for your life. Those who don't want to fight are the ones who champion gun control and restrictions. I don't want to insult them by calling them cowards, but they don't want to fight.

You said they are children in one sentence but in the same breath, you say they'll become legal voting citizens next year. So does turning a certain age really instantly make them adult when just 5 minutes ago, they are still 17? You either overcome your fear based on trauma or you don't and you let that run your life and make decisions based on it.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

*sigh*

I give up.

I...I thought I could at least understand your position. I thought I could draw some kind of middle ground. You recongize I'm not "virtue signalling", I recognize you aren't pushign some Rambo fantasy, we both recognize that we want to protect people from mass killings but have different ideas about the means to do so.

I thought, even if our positions exclude the possibility of compromise, I could at least say "let's stop smearing these shooting survivors."

That's too much to ask for apparently.

I really should stop debating in this particular thread, and if I had more self-control I'd just leave the news subforum the frell alone. What is the point?