Tennessee House Bill 1735 proposes the lowering of the Concealed Carry age from 21 years of age to 18 years of age. This will allow 18-year-olds to legally carry a concealed firearm in public. This is troubling for many reasons. To start, we know that 18 to 20-year-olds are far more likely to commit violent crimes. As you can imagine, this could be increasingly more dangerous when there is a firearm involved. We are also already experiencing a crisis in the 18-20-year-old age range with 18-20-year-olds being 4 times as likely to commit gun-related homicides. Should we really be considering lowering the concealed carry age for firearms? It's very counterproductive to the mission we should be pushing, which is, allowing our young adults to live in safe communities where they do not have to fear for their lives on a daily basis. Tennessee is already a permitless carry state, with permitless carry states having a 13-14% increase in violent crimes. So what is the agenda with this bill? Are we passing the bill to eventually not require a permit to carry a handgun? I know that I want our young people to feel safe everywhere they go as the world is stressful enough. They should not have to worry about who may or may not be carrying a firearm. Protect our communities and our young people and vote against House Bill 1735.