As states grapple with age limits for buying guns, whats the potential effect?

John Yang:

It's been an up and down week for both advocates and opponents of laws restricting gun buyers by age. On Monday in Texas, where there were two mass murders this month, in the space of a week, a House committee unexpectedly passed a bill to raise the age for buying a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21. The legislation has stalled and is now unlikely to get a vote in the full House.

And on Wednesday, a judge in Virginia struck down federal laws barring gun dealers from selling handguns to anyone younger than 21. The Justice Department is likely to appeal that ruling, which does not affect either state laws or private gun sales.

Lisa Geller is the Director, State Affairs, The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

Lisa, there are eight states that have age restrictions, fairly tight age restrictions for buying any kind of firearm, any firearm at all. Do we have an expense sense of what it tells us about whether it helps or not?

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