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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4865 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 25, 2026

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Just before Covid, a gun store was robbed in my town. I worked in a different gun store, so we got some of the inside scoop. Proprietor of the robbed store used to work on my computer whenever I fucked it up too badly. The shop was the shittiest one in the county, lodged in a former meat market. The robbers just pulled part of the roof off the building to get into the secure room.

Turned out to be the local high school football team. They stole around fifty guns, fifteen of which have been recovered some seven years later. The recovered guns have been used in at least three homicides so far. One was just recovered at a traffic stop this year, one killed a high school senior just after prom not two weeks ago. Perp there hasn't been identified or caught.

The kids who robbed the place were caught within days. It remains unclear exactly how many people were involved, at least two unnamed juveniles were processed, but shield laws prevent the public knowing anything. Three of the older kids were charged for the robbery, one got no time, other two got three and ten months respectively, despite not cooperating with police in the recovery of the firearms or identification of other perpetrators. Everyone involved was put into a youth criminal diversion program that released them without a criminal record.

The ringleader and one who got the most time, one Travontis (Drink!) Miller, was given the ten month sentence, but due to the protective nature of the diversion program, it will never be public knowledge that he plead guilty to multiple firearm felonies or how long he actually served of that jail term. What we do know is that he was out prior to December of 2021, because that's when he was arrested for a series of other crimes we're not entirely sure what happened.

He was charged with assault and battery (strangulation), robbery and domestic violence, but once again was given protected youth status despite being in his twenties by this point (the program runs until age 24). He also picked up charges of resisting arrest and being in possession of one of the stolen firearms from the original gun store case. These charges too were concealed under the diversion program.

So when people tell me that what we really need to cut down on gun violence in this country is to ensure that every state has a different magazine limit, or force used gun sales into stores, or ban AR-15s, or not allow gun companies to advertise, it makes me irrationally angry. This dude, when he hits 25, will have no criminal record and will be able to pass a background check to buy a firearm legally. At least until his next felony, which I don't expect to take long.

Below are two quote sets for those who didn't read the articles, first the prosecution in the original case:

At the June sentencing, Stevenson objected to Borrello’s indication that he would grant the defendants HYTA status.

“In this case, the defendants stole 50 guns from Showtime Guns,” Stevenson said. “Fifty guns. Only 14 of those firearms have been recovered as of April 8 of this year. And no surprise, Judge, all of them have been found in the hands of convicted felons. In fact, one of those firearms was used in a homicide in December in which an 87-year-old grandmother was shot in the face and killed.”

The judge wasn't interested, and had The Science on his side.

"It’s very clear science, evidence-based conclusions that the brain isn’t fully developed in young men until roughly around the age of the mid 20s,” Borrello said. “These gentlemen allegedly committed these crimes when they were teenagers, not even adults. If I learned one thing in handling juvenile lifers, it’s that we have to look at these things a little bit differently than we look at adults making the same poor decisions that these gentlemen may have made.”

But sure, the problem with gun violence in the US is that Billy Bob put a giggle trigger on his PSA.

Edit: added/fixed links

"It’s very clear science, evidence-based conclusions that the brain isn’t fully developed in young men until roughly around the age of the mid 20s,” Borrello said.

Hasn't this been pretty thoroughly repudiated by more recent studies? Yet it seems to live on in legal activism circles and anti-drug PSAs.

Not just recent studies, even one of the main guys behind the original studies that started the myth has no idea where the number 25 came from.

Steinberg is a giant in the field of adolescent development, well known for his four decades of research on adolescent and young adults. The passage YourTango quoted accurately describes the science, but it’s definitely a stretch to imply that it explains Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating history. When we spoke, I told Steinberg his work had been referenced in this way. “Oh no,” he said, laughing. I then asked whether he had insights about where the figure 25 came from, and he said roughly the same thing as Cohen: There’s consensus among neuroscientists that brain development continues into the 20s, but there’s far from any consensus about any specific age that defines the boundary between adolescence and adulthood. “I honestly don’t know why people picked 25,” he said. “It’s a nice-sounding number? It’s divisible by five?”

Yes the brain continues development later into life (some suggesting it keeps on till the 30s at least if not even longer), but the whole idea of it actually stopping at 25 or that 18 year olds suddenly aren't mature enough to be doing the things they've been since the dawn of time or that such continued brain development even reflects maturity benchmarks just came out of nowhere.

I wouldn’t say he’s repudiating it. This is the same thing as puberty. It occurs in people at different ages. For me it was late and I had a growth spurt over 18. Others it occurs at 12.

The law though needs a specific age. Theoretically we could someday do brain scans that can declare “X process in brain development occurred” and thus he’s an adult. I don’t know if the tech is there yet but it’s probably expensive if it has. 25 is good enough for the law.

The law though needs a specific age. Theoretically we could someday do brain scans that can declare “X process in brain development occurred” and thus he’s an adult

I'm not sure why all of those are linked. Societies throughout all of time have shown us that the time between roughly 16-20 is good enough for maturity in a society that expects actual maturity. Often younger, midshipmen were often like 11-12 when they joined (David Farragut being a famous example of 9). They skewed so young that being over 18 made you an oldster. A young boy in the medieval period might begin working as an attendant as early as seven years old.

The idea that legal adulthood needs to be set at a point where brain development of all forms stopped, and that point is into the 20s-30s just doesn't match up with what society already knew, teenagers especially the older ones are mature enough to be accountable for their choices.

What exact age we pick for easy legal schelling point reasons doesn't matter too much, but it should generally be in the 16-20 range at most so we don't unnecessarily take away too many years of freedom from mature enough people.

Potentially true. I am not expert here.

But if we are basing adulthood on brain maturation the biological won’t occur at a specific age for everyone. Picking a legal age would just be an age where most people have done the thing biologically.

basing adulthood on brain maturation

Which is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

People think this process occurs magically, like some sort of "everyone's born black but they lighten gradually over time, and are granted rights at a specific shade of white", but people who maturity isn't expected of do not mature.

Set the age and expectations at X, and you'll see development delayed to match. The soft bigotry of low expectations is a thing.

I 100% think there is a cultural component to behavior.

You would agree right that if expected me to be full height earlier it would not have made me grow at a younger age? I hit my growth spurt at age 17-19?

I think there is almost certainly a biological component with the mind too.

Would you agree that assuming you want to play basketball, it would be better to teach you how to play basketball before your growth spurt hit, rather than wait until you're the tallest you'll ever be?

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