So... the newest trend is that you can't be trusted to purchase a firearm until you are now 21 years of age (or that is what a number of people are now proposing). Why?
I am personally against this, then again, I am not a fan of the fact that you can't buy beer at 18 years old either. If you are a legal adult at 18, then get all the benefits of it as well as the drawbacks. The summer after I graduated Highschool, my parents made an agreement with me that was basically the following:
"At our age, we could buy beer (3/2 beer) and you can't. So, we will get you beer. Don't overdo it or we will stop it. You can't give it to your friends, and once you open one -- regardless of even having a sip, you are home for the night."
I was living under their roof all the way through college, and never had an issue with this. There were countless times my buddies would call saying there was a party, get together, going to hang out as a group, and I would pass without even asking my folks. Was I just ahead of my time?
Same was true for guns. When I turned 18, I went to my local bank where I had a savings account, and applied for my first credit card. $750.00 limit... and proceeded that afternoon to buy MY shotgun. I was tired of using my dads everytime I went out and just wanted my own. I made my way down to a big-box store called 'All About Sports' - now gone... and came to my first crossroads as a true gun owner: What one do I buy??? So what did I do? I tucked my crispy new credit card back in my wallet, and dragged my dad out to the sportgoods store that night when he got home from work for some Father-Son bonding. We looked over the two models on sale in that weeks ad. Chose the one that we felt would serve me best, and then I processed my first of many sets of ATF forms, and walked out with it tucked under my arm.
I still have that Remington 870 Express Magnum... and have used it for everything from rabbits, pheasants, and countless angry sporting clays over the 27 years I have owned it. I have changed out the stock to a nice laminate pattern... I have bought different barrels, chokes and even a tube extension for it, yet at the core, it is still that same shotgun that my father helped me to pick out, and he even still talks about that evening when we talk guns.
So I guess now, if someone is below the legal drinking age, we get to call them a kid??? I bet that is going to go over great. Maybe all those 18-20 year olds in prison should start complaining that they should have been judged by a juvenile court system instead? While we are at it... let's take their smokes away as well and just make the ATF club entirely a 21+ group? It's stupid because it basically says that we have no belief in their ability to make adult decisions.
Or, better question: How do we expect our daughters who live on their own to defend themselves if they move out after 18 years of age, and before 21???