Pretty hard to distinguish. Exercising your right to cry fire doesn't mean anyone was required to react. There are numerous laws curbing "free speech", just as there are numerous laws curbing the ownership and use of firearms. Should a 6 year old be allowed to own and use a firearm? How about a felon? As long as the licensing doesn't prohibit reasonable ownership and use, it doesn't violate the 2d Amendment, and it will likely be held so.
"Should a 6 year old be allowed to own and use a firearm? How about a felon? As long as the licensing doesn't prohibit reasonable ownership and use, it doesn't violate the 2d Amendment, and it will likely be held so."
There are those that would argue that those laws are unconstitutional.
By the way, there are many states that give all rights back to felons, except 2nd amendment, when released from jail/prison. Why should the 2nd be treated any different? Because guns can be dangerous? Sorry, but they are not barred from archery equipment; baseball bats; golf clubs; etc.
I am of the school of thought which says that if someone is too dangerous to be trusted with a firearm, they should not have been released in the first place.
No problem for the 6 year old...with proper parental supervision. As for the felon, it depends on the felony. Martha Stewart is a convicted felon. I wouldn't have any problem with allowing her to own a firearm. Charles Manson is a convicted felon too. I wouldn't let him near a firearm. The loss of 2nd Amendment rights as a consequence of being a "convicted felon" is far too broad. Politicians always look for the easy way out. Zero tolerance policies that suspend or expel a kid for taking aspirin at school fall under the same inane style of thought.
I'd say that's a matter for her parents. In general they'd say no, but I would have said yes in the case of one of my nephews. He was a very responsible 6 y/o, and now "Dead Eye" is what we should call him, but then so are his Dad, Grandfather and namesake Uncle. (Not me, I'm embarrassed to shoot with my in-laws, but they are nice folks and don't rub it in).
My younger daughter was pretty good with a S&W 922 when she was about that age as well, but her I wouldn't have trusted on her own until a few years later than that.
Society has long held that unemancipated minors are almost completely under the authority of their parents. Legislation which forbid the sale of firearms to unemancipated minors without parental consent would be constitutional if the terms of enforcement were not onerous; since minors have few rights to do anything without parental consent, such a law would serve to uphold parents' rights to control their children, rather than infringing anyone's legitimate rights.
Of course, if the law required excessive background checks, record keeping, etc. in the supposed name of preventing minors from claiming to be adults, that would be another story. The authority over unemancipated minors does not imply authority to harass adults.