Kansas considers lowering concealed carry age to 18. Why it’s wrong for many reasons

How early an age is your child ready to carry a concealed weapon?

Whatever your opinion on the matter, it’s being decided for you by the legislature if you live in Kansas: The House last week passed a bill lowering the age for concealed carry to 18 from 21. It is now in the state Senate.

In reality, though, the Kansas Legislature is deciding the issue for surrounding states as well, as House Bill 2058 also expands concealed carry reciprocity — meaning that the right to carry travels across state lines.

It’s well-intended, no doubt. Indeed, one opponent of the bill, Rep. Stephanie Clayton, Democrat of Overland Park, allowed that, “The people who support this, they are coming from a good place. It’s laudable to want to defend people and to want to defend yourself.” And, indeed, bill proponent Rep. Stephen Owens, Republican of Hesston, said he is propelled by an incident in which his daughter narrowly escaped a would-be abductor in Wichita last October.

Still, Clayton was present at a shooting in a Kansas City bar in 1999 when bystanders struggled with an attempted robber. A woman near Clayton was shot dead. As a result, Clayton knows how difficult it is for even armed citizens to fight back.

‘It was very surreal. It was a split-second thing,” Clayton says. “Having been there in that type of situation, I know that just because you intend to protect people it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s going to happen. We all like to think that we could be the hero and shoot someone in the thigh and disarm the shooter and save tons of lives. But it goes so fast.”

And although the bill requires an eight-hour safety and training course for concealed carriers ages 18 to 20, Clayton would like more robust self-defense and active-shooter training.

The bill also is just asking for more guns on college campuses — which wasn’t supposed to happen under the state’s 2017 “campus carry” legislation, since most college students are over 21, right? Unless the concealed carry age is lowered to 18, that is.

“Thankfully, that hasn’t happened, and it shouldn’t happen,” says Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, Democrat of Lenexa.

“Most of my constituents are strongly against it,” Clayton adds.

They should be. It’s an odd move, especially in this day and age of gun violence, to be taking any steps to encourage more guns in public. Kansas law already allows the open carry of firearms by those 18 and up, which is already too much.

The move to lower the age for concealed weapons also is troubling considering the long-accepted scientific observation that a teen’s brain is not yet fully developed — and may not be until age 25.

“Adolescence is one of the most dynamic events of human growth and development, second only to infancy in terms of the rate of developmental changes that can occur within the brain,” according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. “It is well established that the brain undergoes a ‘rewiring’ process that is not complete until approximately 25 years of age.”

Scientists say the rational part of the brain, where reason and judgment occur, is the prefrontal cortex, which adults think more from than youths and children. Says the National Library of Medicine: “The prefrontal cortex is one of the last regions of the brain to reach maturation, which explains why some adolescents exhibit behavioral immaturity.”

Only soon they may be able to do it with a concealed weapon. And that includes 18-20-year-olds from other states, if they have concealed carry permits — without or without the training their Kansas peers will be required to take.

“I am concerned that we are setting adult teenagers up for trouble,” says Hoye. “HB 2058 is a far-reaching and extreme bill.” Noting that federal law requires gun buyers to be 21, Hoye says, “Why would we encourage young Kansans to load and hide a handgun on their body that they aren’t even old enough to purchase at a federally licensed gun dealer?”

In addition, Hoye notes, the state’s broad “stand your ground” law prompted Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe to once remark that, “Unfortunately, based on the interpretation by the courts, that means you can bring a gun to a fistfight.”

What could possibly go wrong?

It’s not a rhetorical question anymore.