Media outlets from The Washington Post to CNN are now calling for changes in law that will allow children to vote. 

The motivation appears to be the perception that teenagers are more in favor of gun control than older people. Thus, gun control advocates right now are seeing young people are more reasonable, and humane than their elders. So why not give them the vote? At least then, we would have young people to balance out those awful old people who refuse to defer to the sensible position that cops and soldiers — undoubtedly the most enlightened people among us — should be the only people with guns. 

Of course, whether or not most children actually agree with gun control advocates is an empirical question and may or may not be true. After all, in the past, polling suggests that young people are not especially pacifist in their views. As Pew has noted, the youngest age group (i.e., 18-26) was the most pro-war group in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This was also true in the days before the Gulf War of 1991, when "on the eve of war in January 1991, young people favored military action over giving sanctions more time by a 54% to 40% margin." Older people were evenly divided on the matter. 

Even during the Vietnam War, younger people were more likely to reply "no" to the proposition that the invasion of Vietnam had been a mistake. By 1973, 69 percent of the over-fifty crowd thought that the Vietnam War had been a mistake. Only 53 percent of the under-thirty respondents agreed. 

Apparently, as recently as 2006, a great many young people have had no problem with shooting — or dropping bombs on — innocent people.

So, if some activists believe that youth voting is the key to ushering in a utopia of kindler, gentler, more peaceful public policy, they may be very wrong. 

After all, objectionable views held by young people aren't exactly a new thing. As one young young female abolitionist explained in nineteenth century America, there were no eligible bachelors in her community because "there is [sic] no young men here except Copperheads, and they are beneath our notice."