The right to keep and bear arms ought to be interminably linked with the right to vote. After all, if we can’t trust someone with a personal arm, then how can we trust them with the power of law over all of us?

Once one had reached the age of majority, they are an adult and ought to be free to exercise all of their rights. As citizens, this means that once you hit 18, you may legally vote thanks to the 26th Amendment guaranteeing it. Yet another, more fundamental and more ancient, right is denied 18 to 20 year old citizens who have never lost their freedom due to criminal activity nor have been adjudicated as incapable of running their own lives due to mental illness or mental handicap: “The right to keep and bear arms” when it comes to handguns, which is also protected by the Constitution.

Thankfully, one Congressmen wishes to correct this denial of rights to adult Americans:

I just introduced the Second Amendment for Every Registrable Voter Act. HR 5112, The SAFER Voter Act, would repeal the federal law that prevents voting age adults, 18 to 20, from purchasing a handgun from a FFL. Why should a 20-yr-old mom be denied the right to defend herself? pic.twitter.com/bjXaznxrFQ — Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 1, 2018

The right to personal arms is a right going back to pre-Norman England where any freeman had the right to personal arms, including the Seax, the “assault pistol” of its time.

For freedom.

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