The laws that invite American teenagers to kill
Salvador Ramos celebrated his 18th birthday by buying two assault rifles. A few days later, he shot and killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Payton Gendron, who killed 11 people at a grocery store in Buffalo two weeks ago, was also 18. Adam Lanza, the 2012 Sandy Hook shooter, was 20. Nikolas Cruz, the 2018 mass shooter in Parkland, Fla., was 19.
Soon after the Parkland shooting, Florida passed a law raising the age for buying a gun from 18 to 21. In New York, Gov. Hochul is now proposing doing the same.
That makes sense. Young men have always perpetuated more violence than any other demographic. But there are three reasons why young men are particularly prone to violence and aggression these days — and thus three reasons to make sure that young adults too young to buy alcohol or cigarettes cannot buy assault rifles, if any firearms at all.
First, 18 is not what it used to be. When Boomers were young in the 1970s, most 18-year-olds worked at least part-time, frequently went out with friends and dates, and anticipated getting married within a few years. Not anymore. As I found in “iGen,” my book about Gen Z, today’s high school seniors are much less likely to work, date or have a drivers’ license compared to
Boomers at the same age. While Boomer young men married for the first time at 23, Gen Z and Millennial young men wait until 29.
In short, teens are taking longer to grow to adulthood. This has distinct advantages: Fewer are having sex and drinking alcohol. It also means that 18-year-olds have less experience with independence and with making decisions. When I give presentations about Gen Z on college campuses, I often hear faculty and staff say, “I have more and more students who can’t make even simple decisions without texting their parents.”
That’s in college, where impulsive mistakes and poor decisions have relatively low stakes. Then imagine the young person’s parents aren’t available and he’s depressed and alienated, as the Texas shooter was. The result: He made the tragically bad and impulsive decision to take an assault rifle to an elementary school and kill children. Although there surely were many factors behind his actions, it seems clear his brain had not developed the adult capacity to rein in impulsive behavior. For some teens, the consequence of impulsive behavior is a fistfight or online bullying. With access to assault rifles, it can be the death of 9- and 10-year-old children.
Second, social media has created a polarized and attention-seeking culture. While “doing it for the likes” is usually harmless, some violent offenders are clearly seeking social media fame with their actions. The Buffalo shooter live-streamed his massacre on Facebook. The Texas shooter told a girl he was chatting with on Facebook that he was going to shoot kids at a school.
Social media has also alienated us from one another. Studies have shown that angry and polarizing content is shared more widely, and it is too easy for users to end up down rabbit holes of extreme content. The Buffalo shooter did just that, absorbing hate that led him to target Black people.
Third, the age of smartphones and social media has coincided with an epidemic of depression. Major depression among young adults doubled over the last 10 years. The overwhelming majority of depressed people are not violent. But in some young men, a toxic combination of depression, alienation and desensitization results in extreme violence.
Each of these reasons behind these recent mass shootings suggests a solution. Because teens grow up more slowly, states such as New York and California recently raised the age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21. It makes perfect sense to do the same for guns. That would not restrict young people from using guns (say, on a hunting trip with a parent) — just from buying guns on their own. This should be a law both parties can get behind.
Social media defies such straightforward solutions, but there are some ways forward. Social media platforms operate exactly the same for people regardless of their age, and age is not reliably verified. If it were, social media platforms could be made safer for younger users. For example, social media apps for minors could allow communication only with like-aged peers, restricting other content. That would help guard against radicalization and could also mitigate other social media dangers including sexual predators easily contacting children and teens being exposed to pro-anorexia and self-harm ideas.
Teens should not be absorbing hate online, and they should not be buying assault rifles. Children should not be shot at school. We have the power to take common-sense steps toward preventing all of these outcomes, and we should. Our kids are depending on us.
Twenge is the author of “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.”