3/16/18

Why we should lower the voting age to 16 and raise the age to buy a firearm to 21.

Like many of us, I have been stunned at the thoughtful and articulate maturity of the Parkland, Florida students as they expressed their frustration and anger at school shootings and gun control laws.  They certainly didn’t fit the stereotype of phone-addicted, narcissistic slackers. But are they exceptions or just good examples? And what does this have to do with gun control?

There was a fascinating op-ed piece on this topic in the New York Times earlier this month. The author, professor Laurence Steinberg, suggests that the voting age should be lowered to 16. 

He begins by distinguishing between “cold” cognition and “hot” cognition. Cold cognition is the type of thinking we do in calm situations, where we look at evidence and weigh pros and cons.  Voting is a great example of this.  And Steinberg says that the research on adolescent thinking shows that cold cognitive abilities have matured by the time teenagers have reached age 16.  Hot cognition, on the other hand, concerns making good decisions in times of stress or emotional arousal, which requires self-regulation. As most of us remember, teenagers are notoriously short on this and will remain so until their early 20s when the related parts of the brain finish developing. 

Can we change the voting age?  Certainly. It was changed from 21 to 18 some years ago. 

Should we change the voting age?  Steinberg says definitely because voter turnout in this age group is significantly higher than among other young adults.  And when it comes to voting, we tend to continue as we've started. People who don't vote the first time they can are less like to vote in the future.

Will we change the voting age?  Probably not. Since younger people tend to be more liberal, that’s not going to happen in this political climate. Moreover, as my husband suggested when I brought this up, 16 year olds don’t have a wealth of experience to bring to bear on topics of foreign trade, economics, or the balance of powers. However, the research does provide excellent support for the notion of raising the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, when mechanisms in the brain for self-regulation have matured. That notion gets a big YES vote from me.