Why am I not surprised that the "think of the children" line comes up with everything except gun control with inherently authoritarian measures in favor of tracking and control?
"Think of the children" has been one of the primary justifications for gun control as of late, with firearm injuries being one of the top causes of death among people under 20.
"
(while the age for rifle is federally 18...) Exceptions to this include if the gun is to be used for specified activities including employment, ranching, farming, target practice and hunting.
"
and
"
For example, in Vermont it’s legal to sell a handgun or rifle to someone over 16.
In Maine, Alaska, Minnesota or New York State you can sell a rifle to someone over 16.
In Minnesota, as long as it’s not in the city, you can sell a rifle to a 14-year-old without parental consent.
"
All you're doing is showing me there are restrictions are access to firearms and a plethora of enforcement/laws saying how younger kids can use them.
If your point is to say we don't need any restrictions on porn access you kinda failed.
Lastly, I don't think shooting a firearm for fun or hunting is at all equivalent to unrestricted access to porn that has proven to rewire young brains in a negative way.
There is no state that allows someone under 21 to buy alcohol/booze, but somehow teenagers do actually find alcohol, how very peculiar.
Furthermore, with a lower limit to 18, there's still an overlap with seniors who turn 18 soon before graduating, thus the argument in that regard is not particularly convincing either.
If you peruse through [1], you will find that in a non insignificant number of cases, the perpetrator was an adult. This then suggests that in the remaining cases the perpetrator was a teenager or a child, thus rendering the argument not particularly convincing.
So, you're telling me there are laws and enforcement in place for alcohol etc. but people are illegally skirting those laws. What happens to these people when they get caught? What happens to the store that sold the underage person alcohol? I shouldn't have to tell you they're fined and/or their license gets pulled.
How does this support your stance on unrestricted porn access again? Requiring an ID for porn would be equivalent to requiring an ID for alcohol would it not?
Let's look at firearms as well since you seem to really think you've proven something with your statements. What state can I click a website check box saying I'm 18 and have as may firearms as I want show up in my house?
The idea that some people get around laws is never a justification to just do away with laws or not have them in the first place. This is even more true when it comes to children, our society is ENTIRELY built on the agreement that under 18 is not an adult and they do not have full rights or access to whatever they want. There is a good scientific reason for this.
I merely pointed at the hypocrisy of using the line "think of the children" to enact laws that limit and control everyone else for issues that cause significantly less harm than guns which indicates that the goal is not to protect children, but to enforce certain beliefs and exert more control.
> How does this support your stance on unrestricted porn access again? Requiring an ID for porn would be equivalent to requiring an ID for alcohol would it not?
No because in the former the website will be forced to share my details with the government, I will be in a database, with no way of removing myself from there. I can also show a fake ID for alcohol if I wish to.
The difference here is the tracking, and I can't trust that my data will not be logged.
consequences.
> Let's look at firearms as well since you seem to really think you've proven something with your statements. What state can I click a website check box saying I'm 18 and have as may firearms as I want show up in my house?
I didn't intend on proving anything except that that argument, meaning that no firearms are sold to 18 year olds legally, is bogus with respect to shootings carried via assault weapons.
What you appear not to grasp is the difference in the order of magnitude of the consequences.
Having access to guns with intention to do harm is, by all means, not equivalent to having access to porn unless the person is actively seeking for ways to commit harm, at which point they are well into Tor.
> The idea that some people get around laws is never a justification to just do away with laws or not have them in the first place. This is even more true when it comes to children, our society is ENTIRELY built on the agreement that under 18 is not an adult and they do not have full rights or access to whatever they want. There is a good scientific reason for this.
I have never claimed anything to the contrary.
However, you made my point quite well without realizing it. I merely replaced a few words of a segment in your comment, and appended a clause.
What state can I purchase an assault rifle from a legal shop and have as many assault rifles as I want sold to me, if assault rifles are completely banned from the country?
You agreed, right there, that laws should exist even if people do seek for ways to go around them, and that making it harder to do a bad thing works. It follows then that reducing access and imposing further restrictions on ownership will make access significantly harder for bad actors, be it children or otherwise.
Ok, let's look at the equivalency here since you seem intent on comparing porn access to gun access.
Let's drop all FFL requirements for firearm purchases and we'll just let people click a tick box on a website saying they're over 18. After that we'll deliver the firearm straight to there front door.
All that's being asked here is that we actually ENFORCE the 18 year old age limit for porn.
Also, many states have laws that require gun owners to store their guns properly etc. and a kid just grabbing an improperly stored gun is illegal, therefore punishable by law.
There is no repercussion for illegal porn access and no onus on the porn provider to stop children from accessing it.