Age of Maturity
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Albert Einstein
I keep hearing the excuse that a brain doesn't fully mature until the mid 20s, being used to raise the age to purchase guns to 21. Well, if we want to stay with that logic, then shouldn't there be a unilateral change? Raise the age to Vote, Enlist and Drive to 21 as well.
I keep reading such bad logic when we speak of age restrictions in the U.S, and to be frank, it's driving me fucking insane. The average age of sexual consent or to be married is 18, 17 in lots of states and even younger in some others . Which means at this age, one can freely choose who they can have sex with or marry and even have children. This seems like a pretty mature decision.
Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.
Samuel Ullman
Moving on, onOne has to be 17 to smoke and 21 to drink, so at these ages one can make decisions that affect their own health and can potentially put the lives of themselves and/or others at risk. e has to be 16 to either legally work or drive in most state. This means being able to operate machinery that has the capacity to take one's own life or potentially the lives of many others.
You can legally enlist into the armed forces at 18. This is a no brainer. At this age you can literally operate weapons of war that can potentially take the lives of many others, as well as oneself. The legal age to vote, an action that has the potential to affect the everyday lives of millions of people, is 18.
Everything that I just mentioned requires a level of maturity to handle the responsibility of that which may affect their own lives and/or the lives of others , yet, a 24 year old is not mature enough to find their own health insurance and can stay on their parents insurance until the age of 25?
Currently there is a push to raise the age to legally purchase a gun to 21 years old because they're not mature yet, BUT there's a simultaneous push to lower the voting age to 16 because they are mature enough to make decisions that affect their lives and the lives of many, many, others?!
Which is it!? Are 16 year olds old enough to make these life-altering decisions or do they have to wait until their brains are fully matured; mid 20s?
'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
Martha Graham
Now, I have no problem having the age to purchase guns being raised to 21, but if we are going to do this, citing maturity levels, then this is going to have be a unilateral change to keep with the logic , which means the legal age of sexual consent and legal marriage is also now 21, the legal age to work and operate a motor vehicle is 21, the legal age to buy tobacco and alcohol is 21, to enlist into the armed forces is 21 , to vote is 21 and to stay on the parents health insurance is now 21 as well.
If you are willing to do all this, then I am all for it too ,but if in fact a person is mature enough to make these decisions at a younger age, then we must move all these other things down as well.
Either you're mature enough or you're not. There is no inbetween.
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BRAYN NOISE