“Ethan Crumbley,” Reuters reported in December, “was 15 years old when he opened fire at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021,” killing four and wounding seven. At 17, per the Reuters story, Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

At the times of both the shootings and the sentencing, Crumbley was considered a “child” by the state of Michigan. He couldn’t legally drink. He couldn’t legally vote. He couldn’t enlist in the armed forces, or get married, without parental consent. And he couldn’t legally buy a gun.

Crumbley became an “adult” in the state’s eyes only when it concerned charging,  trying, convicting, and sentencing him for murder.

But then a curious thing happened. The state waved its magic wand again and his instant “adulthood” reversed itself, Benjamin Button style. He became a “child” once more.

Why? Because if Ethan was an adult at the time he committed his crime, his mother wasn’t responsible for his mental health status, medical treatment needs, or ownership or possession of firearms.

Since the state wanted to convict Jennifer Crumbley of involuntary manslaughter for her son’s crimes,  Ethan Crumbley had to retroactively stop being the adult he’d previously been magically transformed into for purposes of the prior case.

On February 6, a jury agreed with the state that Ethan Crumbley is Schrodinger’s Child — simultaneously minor child and responsible adult inside his cell,  fully becoming whichever one of those things the state needs him to be when there’s a prosecution in progress.

There are many problems with legally defining “childhood” and “adulthood” on the basis of drawing a number out of a hat. Some 15-year-olds are more mature than others — and, for that matter, sometimes more mature than some 45-year-olds.

Letting prosecutors arbitrarily drop the random number in favor of a more convenient number doesn’t fix any of those problems. It just adds to them.

If Ethan Crumbley had previously been allowed to take, and had passed, some kind of competency test to unlock his rights to vote, drink, purchase and possess guns, marry, and enlist, trying him “as an adult” for his crimes would have been reasonable.

If Ethan Crumbley was a child for all those purposes, it would likewise be reasonable to assert some measure of parental responsibility for  supervisory failures culminating in those crimes.

But it should be one or the other, not whichever pleaseth the crown at any particular moment.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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For the second year in a row, Florida’s  state legislature has an “end of life options” — or “medical aid in dying” — bill before it.

SB 1642 / HB 561 would “allow” terminally ill patients, diagnosed as having less than six months to live, to “request” (and doctors to prescribe) medication to end their lives “peacefully” instead of waiting for the prognosis to run its course.

Although this partial and minimal accommodation of patients’ rights should pass with a veto-proof majority faster than the TV cameras pan to Taylor Swift when Travis Kelce scores a touchdown, it’s probably deader than its beneficiaries will be in, say, six months.

Since it’s unlikely to pass, and since nothing I write is likely to change that, I’d like to turn to a simpler question:

Why do we tolerate politicians claiming that our lives belong to them and that whether, when, and how those lives end should be their decision rather than ours?

Nature (and human nature) preclude, at least for the moment, the choice to live forever. Illness, accident, and crime cut lives short every day despite the perfectly normal desire to continue living.

But the desire to NOT continue living, for whatever reason, brings up a choice that rightfully belongs to all mentally competent adults. Entirely. Completely. Without exception.

I might not agree that you’re making a good choice, but it’s your choice to make. Not mine. Not the legislature’s. Not your doctor’s. Not even your loved ones’. Yours and yours alone.

Attempting to forbid that choice is evil in all cases, and especially evil when the victims of that prohibition are going to die shortly, know they are going to die shortly, and are likely in considerable pain and unable to do the things that make further life enjoyable while they await the inevitable.

While the Florida bill represents what one might call “a good start,” it’s flawed because it builds on the faulty and morally abhorrent idea that you are property, owned by the state, rather than a free individual who’s responsible for your own life and entitled to decide whether or not that life continues.

Instead of asking politicians to “allow” us to “request” limited control over such matters, we should ask ourselves why we “allow” those politicians to exercise such control over us in the first place.

And we should take back that control and that choice instead of begging for exceptions.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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In the run-up to 1992’s presidential election, chief strategist James Carville relentlessly hammered on a simple message for Bill Clinton’s Democratic campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Social issues and foreign policy, Carville theorized, were mere distractions. Voters would prioritize their pocketbook prospects over such things when choosing between Clinton and incumbent president George H.W. Bush, so Clinton should focus on those prospects.

It worked, and operatives from both “major” parties took the lesson to heart.

More than three decades later, Donald Trump and his proxies are hitting hard with talk about how great the economy was four years ago and how terrible it is now.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his proxies are advertising various economic indicators as evidence that his policies have “worked” to revive an economy terribly damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic (while not so casually mentioning that the damage started on Donald Trump’s watch, while the recovery began on Biden’s).

Back in 1992, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh questioned the Clinton strategy on a near-daily basis.

He pointed to polls showing that most Americans thought the overall economy was terrible, while also describing their personal economic situations as pretty good.

Well, guess what:

According to a late January poll by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs, only 35% of American adults rate the national economy as “good,” while 65% call it “poor.”

But according to the Harris Poll /Axios “Vibes Survey,” 63% of Americans say their own financial situations are “good” or “very good.”

As in 1992, the 2024 incumbent lags his challenger and, where the economy is concerned, does so on a similar set of poll responses.

I’m not interested in convincing you that “Bidenomics” has “worked” (it hasn’t).

Nor am I interested in convincing you that Trump’s first term was some kind of economic golden age (it wasn’t).

In fact, both presidents have done terrible damage to the general economy and to your personal well-being, pledged to continue doing such damage if returned to office, and worked hard to expand presidential power to do such damage. Their policies made the economic impact of the pandemic far worse, and the recovery much slower and weaker, than it should have been — and   WOULD have been if they’d stepped out of your way instead of locking you down and throwing “stimulus” checks at you.

If you’re seeking a reason to support either of them, look elsewhere — it’s not the economy, stupid.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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