[Arthalion]

No, the right to bear arms doesn't extend to minors. Just like the right to vote and unlimited free speech don't extend to them either. The courts have ruled repeatedly, and the Supreme Court has affirmed, that minors do not share the same legal rights and responsibilities as adults. This protects society by preventing 15 year olds from electing Brittney Spears president, and it protects kids by preventing the government from drafting them.

The second amendment is no more or less important than any of the other amendments from a legal standpoint.

As for this particular case, I agree with them being punished. If a passing police officer had seen kids with rifles in the parking lot, this could have easily become a tragic situation. That's not even getting into the reality that these doofuses publically displayed the fact that they were leaving a firearm in an unsecured and unprotected vehicle all day. Even if these kids meant no harm, it's incredibly easy to pop the trunk on a car, and anyone who saw them swap the rifle could have stolen it in a matter of minutes.

There's a lot of stupid in this story, and most of it belongs to the two kids.

[American_Centurion]

First I never said that the teens shouldn't be punished nor did I state that there were not circumstances where firearms should be restricted.

As far as who the Bill of Rights pertains to, my answer stands as every single living American. Yes those rights have been curbed and infringed, and that may have been upheld by the USSC in many cases. The fact that the USSC has been complicit in infringing upon God given rights does not surprise me in the least. Inevitably every government will break the bounds of it's constraints, it's survival depends solely on how skillfully it does so.

Another Freeper pointed out that if a law merely stating an age can curb that right, then what will prevent the Government from simply stating that 100 is the age all constitutional rights apply? That wouldn't be skillful, but it would be the death knell for this current iteration of the United States.

[justshutupandtakeit]

There you go standing in the way of fanaticism.

[Mulder]

If a passing police officer had seen kids with rifles in the parking lot, this could have easily become a tragic situation.

There was a time in this country when it wasn't uncommon to see a "kid with a rifle" walking down the street.