Since the killing of 17 students and teachers and the wounding of 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a common “ask-for” of reformers is that the legal age for purchasing all (or at least some types of) firearms should be raised to 21 from 18. The Stoneman Douglas shooter was 19.
Even Pr*sident Trump dangled the idea in a televised conference with Congressional leaders on February 28. A week earlier, he had tweeted, “I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!”
Since then, the NRA has reminded him this kind of talk endangers the future receipt of political contributions like the more than $30 million his he received in 2016. After all, he had promised the group at its 2016 convention, “You came through for me, and I am going to come through for you.”
Age 18 or 21 and other somewhat arbitrary figures are all over the map, rooted more in custom than modern research.
A few years back, Catherine Rampell writing in the NY Times about prison sentencing for young offenders asked:
When should a person be treated as an adult?
The answer, generally, is 18 — the age when the United States, and the rest of the world, considers young people capable of accepting responsibility for their actions. But there are countless deviations from this benchmark, both around the world (the bar mitzvah, for instance), and within the United States.
For drinking, driving, fighting in the military, compulsory schooling, watching an R-rated movie, consenting to sex, getting married, having an abortion or even being responsible for your own finances, the dawn of adulthood in America is all over the place.
A number that isn’t mentioned much in our policy debates, but which deserves some serious consideration, is 25 – the age at which automobile insurance rates are usually reduced for young drivers. Some years back I asked an insurance CEO where this policy came from. His reply was pretty simple: “We just keep score. This is what the data tell us.” Drivers 25 and older are involved in fewer, and less serious, accidents.
Advances in brain research give us a more up-to-date explanation. The University of Rochester Medical Center Health Encyclopedia puts it this way:
It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet.
The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.
In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.
In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not necessarily at the same rate. That’s why when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling.
If we allow our discussion and debate about sensible firearms regulation to be informed by brain science, we will conclude that 25, not 21 or 18, is an appropriate age threshold for gun ownership. (Let here let me anticipate one facile objection: Yes, I understand that our infantry forces are generally younger than 25, and that use not only automatic and semi-automatic carbines but billion-dollar planes and armored vehicles. The difference is that our soldiers are rigorously screened and trained to function in a “well regulated militia.”)
Let’s not settle for 21. Neuroscience is telling us that 25 is a more appropriate age threshold for gun ownership. Please spread the word.
