I’m very wary of this idea, mainly because the juvenile justice system has lesser due process protections than the criminal court system, such as the right to trial by jury. It was designed this way because the juvenile system is not supposed to operate in the traditional realm of crime and punishment, but as a means of rehabilitating a juvenile who had been adjudicated delinquent. At least that’s the theory. That’s why juvenile adjudications are treated differently than criminal convictions in the regular court system.
In most states the option exists to try juveniles as adults for serious, violent offenses. My preference would be that a juvenile be tried as an adult in these types of cases, which would remove his Second Amendment rights upon conviction. By applying a life-long civil rights disability to a juvenile, it defeats the point of the juvenile justice system. Presumably, much like Lautenberg, there would be an ex post facto component that would apply this retroactively, creating thousands of newly minted, and blissfully unaware felons overnight.
I’d have to agree with your concern.
http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/14/4winter1998/a_arrests.html
The stats track with what I recall, most juvi crimes are property, not violent. Of course, GTA and some burglaries are going to net you more than a year if you do them as an adult.
The better fix might be to, as has been discussed, go from “felony (equivalent)” to “violent felony (equivalent)” as the disqualifying conviction type for both adult and juvenile and ensure that restoration of rights programs exist and are funded.
Then a violent juvi offender could apply for their rights back upon reaching 18 or 21.
Let’s see: we don’t allow teenagers to vote or purchase firearms because we argue they are children and are not capable of bearing the responsibility for their actions that adults do.
Yet this man wants to punish them for their actions as if they were responsible for them. That is a bad move.
But nobody will stand up to this because they’ll be afraid of being seen as supporting violent juvenile gang members or some such. Never mind how ths will disqualify thousands of individuals from owning firerms.
Just another gun grabber looking for a back door to work through.
This is yet another reason I feel that felons have the natural right to carry guns. At the very least, if we’re going to forbid felons from carrying guns, it should only be those felons convicted of violent crime!