I never said they were innocent.. I said most cannot grasp the idea of death yet. Why are 16/17 year olds only treated as adults when they do something bad? Why not give them the right to drink,drive in all states,marry in all states,and buy firearms? Why? because we feel they are not "ready".. So why should we only treat them as adults in any case? Its a total double standard.. Now i dont advocate doing this but its just to make a point.. You cant drink, cant have sex with anyone over 18, cant get married in most states, cant buy a gun, cant join the army, cant drive in some states (like mine NJ).. because we feel your not an adult yet.. but so something bad and you are... nope does not compute for me.. If they are not adults, they are not adults.. thus they should not be treated as such because they have not fully developed yet.
We have a society where we try to incrementally move minors into adulthood. If the legal drinking age were 16 I think we'd see a lot more drop outs and more alcohol abuse. We don't take them into the military because we want to educate minors.
Recruiters get into trouble for things like forging high school diplomas.
These things shouldn't HAVE to be explained!
You ask any eight year old and he knows what death is.