Sometimes I Can Only Laugh Out Loud.

When I was a young lad I could hunt with my own gun at 16, drink and be drafted at 18, and vote at 21.

Then things changed.

We had a war. Politicians and their experts said if young men can die for their country they should vote – and with the 26^th amendment the voting was changed to 18 years of age

Then politicians and their experts looked at alcohol-related traffic accident rates and said "golly young people aren't ready to drink until they are 21” so the minimum age for drinking was raised by the National Minimum Age for Drinking Act in 1984. (BTW the Center for Disease Control says 4,300 deaths/year still occur from underage drinking)

Today we have the on-going debate as to when young men are mature enough to own a gun and reasonably be expected not to shoot up a school. 

The politicians and their experts now say 21 years old is the age when that occurs.  Even though we can arm 18-year olds with rifles, fully automatic weapons, grenades and grenade launchers, guided and unguided rockets, and tanks with 50-caliber and 120mm weapons (if they have adult supervision). 

I find this amusing since recent history suggests if age is the true variable it should probably be over 64 if we want to account for the violence of people like Stephen Paddock.

Since it seems unlikely we will ever have enough agreement to amend the constitution again how can we ever decide when a whole population is mature enough to do something?  Maybe we should have a test?  Like a driving test or “common sense” test where if the candidate fails he or she receives a “not mature enough” stamp that remains until they are retested at 40.