States: Kid Hunting OK

Kid Drivers Dangerous

America’s Founders batted .900 on the Bill of Rights, knocking issue after issue out of the park in a triumph for democracy, individual rights and common sense.

But they struck out on the Tenth Amendment, which says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

That’s the so-called “State’s Rights” amendment which has been used to bless all sorts of mischief including the civil war, segregation and letting nine-year-olds carry lethal weapons.

While states generally limit driving a car to persons at least 16 and often with lots of training, some states have no restrictions on a kid toting a 30.06 while he hunts without adult supervision.

Driving is restricted because cars can kill people and using them requires mature judgment. Texas, for example, joins 46 other states and the District of Columbia in a graduated driver’s license program with firm requirements for those below 18.

On the other hand, Texas law permits someone nine years old to hunt deer alone. Which means the nine-year-old’s unsupervised judgment is in control of a weapon that can kill anything in a circle more than half a mile in diameter.

Not to pick on Texas, because it’s a paragon of intelligence compared to Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont and Washington. They set no minimum age at all, so it must be perfectly legal for an unsupervised five-year-old to tote a shotgun as long as he or she is “hunting.”

If those kindergarten kids are hunting brains in their state legislatures, they’re plumb out of luck.

Since anyone must be 18 years old to purchase a rifle or shotgun (21 for a handgun), what about a national law saying those are the same ages for unsupervised hunting?

But that would be a Common Sense pitch, and the Tenth Amendment’s record shows no hits on that pitch in years.

While gun advocates will say that it should be up to parents to judge when a child is able to carry a lethal weapon hunting without supervision, the rest of us will only agree when they let their eight-year-old daughter take their midlife- crisis sports car on a solo spin.

In the meantime, states which would lock down schools because a ten-year-old brought a Cub Scout pocketknife to class will have no problem with the same ten-year-old carrying a .30-.30 in the woods behind the school as long as he’s got a hunting license.

All if which is why we need to add to the Tenth Amendment so it says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, unless the States and people are being Really, Really Dumb.”

It would be an improvement.

Until it happens, if you’re walking down a street in many states and a tiny kid says “Bang! You’re Dead!” you might be.

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