New Hampshire State House by Jared C. Benedict (CC)

New Hampshire state Rep. Bob Kingsbury, an 86-year-old freshmen legislator, has spent the last 16 years trying to determine the causes of crime. He has had a hypothesis over that time that he thinks proves one of the sources of crime: kindergarten.

Kingsbury claims that communities with kindergartens have a higher rate of crime than those without kindergarten. So how does kindergarten turn five-year-olds into future criminals?

“We’re taking children away from their mothers too soon,” Kingsbury said.

If that is true, then just imagine what preschools must do to young minds, which I can only assume leads to serial murderers and warped minds like Hitler’s.

None of Kingsbury’s data on kindergartens has been reported publicly so it is impossible to analyze his data. Nevertheless, it remains highly unlikely that Kingsbury is onto something. If anything, kindergarten allows children to socialize and prepare themselves for the primary grades. No one else has provided concrete information that preparing kids for the basics of math and reading is a gateway to a life of crime.

The problem of growing crime is more insidious than just kindergarten, according to Kingsbury. The decline in gun ownership is also to blame. In addition, Kingsbury also charged that the demise of boxing classes in schools has also led to more crime.

Presumably, the theory here is that children can channel their aggression by properly beating another kid in the face while at school, but neither of those kids will take that aggression back to their homes as long as their families own guns. This is supposed to create some form of mutual deterrence. Of course, all that peacefulness may as well be thrown out the window if either has attended kindergarten.