The age of majority is the age at which a person reaches legal adulthood. At that age, one should be able to carry out all the functions of adulthood: Signing contracts, getting married, joining the military, buying a gun, buying a bottle of booze, or a pack of smokes. Not to mention voting. There's an age, largely arbitrary within a certain range, where most countries decide one is old enough, and therefore experienced and responsible enough, to play these parts on the stage of life.
But that's not how it works today in the United States. Instead, we have a graduated age of majority. At 16, in most states, you can get a driver's license. The generally accepted age of majority for signing contracts, joining the military, getting married, voting, and much more, is 18. But you can't buy a handgun, or a bottle of hooch, or in some places a pack of smokes until you're 21.
That's a downright stupid state of affairs. Why? Here's why, and I'm going to tell you.
If there's one thing we should be entitled to from our elected servants, it's consistency. If there's one thing we should expect in matters of public policy, it's consistency. If you're going to be anything, you should be consistent. That should apply in deciding the age of majority, which for most things, right now, in these United States, is set at 18. So, if you’re an adult, you’re an adult. That age will always be somewhat arbitrary, but it has to be set somewhere. Since we have a Constitutional amendment setting it at 18 for voting purposes, then that’s our bar. When you’re 18, you should be able to:
- Buy a handgun and apply for a carry permit, subject to the same requirements as any other adult.
- Drink a beer, or a shot of whiskey, or a martini. Or, in Alaska and several other states where it’s legal, to buy some weed.
- Join the military.
- Sign a contract. That includes such things as buying a house or taking out a loan.
- Buy a pack of smokes or a good cigar.
- Get married.
- Vote.
- And anything else that requires a legal majority.
Sure, 18-year-olds are sometimes (OK, frequently) immature, impulsive, irrational, irresponsible. And sometimes they aren’t. Eighteen is an age of transition, where you have one foot in each in two different worlds. The problem is that this applies to people of all ages. Congress, our elected representatives, has, however, decided that the citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 are somehow not quite adults; they can only do some of the things legal adults over 21 can do.
Are they too inexperienced? Are they not developed enough, emotionally, intellectually, or physiologically? And if they are, why do we let them vote?
The point isn’t so much where the age is set – the thing is to have it set at the same bar for everything. No more incrementalism. You’re an adult, or you aren’t.
Read More: Not Content With the Current Pace of National Destruction, the UK Lowers the Voting Age to 16
And where to set that age? Well, since Congress seems to think that young skulls full of mush aren't responsible enough for booze or tobacco, that age should clearly be set at 21. Congress should immediately act to raise the age of majority overall to 21. Before that age, youths will not be allowed to drink, to drive, to sign contracts, to join the military, to purchase firearms, and, most important of all, to vote. That will require repealing the 26th Amendment, but is that too small a step to take to ensure some sanity in government? At least then our graduated-age-of-majority system will be gone; at least then we will have some consistency.
And, yes, I am being sarcastic. I actually am in favor of regularizing the age of majority for all things. At 18. But occasionally it’s useful to take an argument to its ultimate, ridiculous conclusion.
Here's another argument: Congress has, in the past, used federal highway funds as a cudgel to bend the states to its will. They did it with mandatory seat-belt laws, they did it with the infamous 55 mph speed limit, and they have done it with the drinking age.
In an ideal world, Washington wouldn’t have this kind of hold over the states. State highways should be state business, and if we are going to have a national highway net – as in, the U.S. highways and the interstate highway system – then either Washington pays for them, or the states pay for construction and maintenance within their borders – no payment of tax money into the federal government to be doled back out piecemeal and oh, by the way, used as a cudgel to force recalcitrant states into submission with federal whims.
This whole thing is baffling. There are very few good reasons for it. As a nation, we need to decide on an age of majority and make it apply to everything. Make it 18, 19, or 21 - just pick an age and stick with it. Like Daylight Savings Time, this whole idea needs to be consigned to the ash-heap of history.
