[bassmaner]

Isn't it nice that 18-year-olds can be sent off to Afghanistan, be given an AR-15, and be told to kill the enemy, but are treated as criminals if they drink a beer when they get home.

Whatever decreases the influence of the nanny state gets my support.

[Kansas58]

And then HS Seniors can supply all of the Freshman?

Bad idea.

[ilgipper]

I am with you. The assumption is that high schools can’t get their hands on it with the current law, which most of us can attest is not true. It just becomes more hidden from parents and leads to more problems. More drunk driving, more fake ids, more crime. It also conditions young people to flaunt the law early on, rather than preparing them to be law-abiding adults.

[fwdude]

Whatever decreases the influence of the nanny state gets my support.

So, by your raw reasoning, lowering the drinking age to 12 would also get your support, since it reduces the effect of "nanny statism" on yet more of our populace?

Not saying I disagree with the proposed AK law, but please first think through the reasoning you use to arrive at the conclusion. Some laws are GOOD, and work to preserve and maintain our free American way of life.

[Artemis Webb]

Nice to have rhetorical arguments about bad ideas that have (in this case thankfully) zero chance of occurring.

[brytlea]

Why do we have a drinking age? Just let everyone decide for themselves and be done with it.

[kevslisababy]

A co-worker of mine pointed out this morning that his 16 year old daughter can drive herself to an abortion clinic and obtain an abortion without his consent, but only if it's before 10pm. That is the curfew for 16 year old drivers in Michigan. And if she violates curfew, I would bet he gets reprimanded too, because on that issue they would probably tell him she is a minor and he is responsible for her.

[Yo-Yo]

When I was 18 the drinking age was 18. When I was in the Air Force, the drinking age at the Airman's Club or NCO Club was 18, but off base it was whatever state law said it was.

Is this still the case today?

[John.Galt2012]

Insurance companies have done extensive research and determined that drivers under 25 are the greatest risk, therefore the premiums are highest for that age. Rental agencies won't even rent to those under 25 except in certain situations.

A National Institutes of Health study found that the part of the brain that restrains risky behavior, including reckless driving, and thinking skills is not fully developed until the age of 25. Jay Giedd, the psychiatrist leading the study, told said that this finding came as a surprise to him because he used to think that the brain was fully developed by the age of 18. In fact, the continuous study uses magnetic resonance imaging to scan 2,000 people’s brains every two years. It has been found that teenage brains have extra synapses in the areas where decision making and risk assessment take place. Most of these synapses are useless and even get in the way of one’s judgment. Eventually, as teenagers become adults the synapses disappear, but the findings imply that many life choices are made before the brain’s decision making center is fully developed.

So I say don't let them vote, drink or enlist until 25. It's the safest way to go. and watch the dems spin out of control when they lose their voting base!!!

[doublecansiter]

I’m with you.

Old enough to vote
Old enough to serve in the Armed Forces
Old enough to pay taxes

Should be old enough to drink

Mike

[BenLurkin]

Why do we consider 18-year-olds old enough to join the military, to fight and die for our country, but not to have a drink with their friends before they ship out or while they’re home on leave?

That's as stupid as "Why do we consider 18-year-olds old enough to join the military, to fight and die for our country, but not old enough to vote"

[OldDeckHand]

"The bill is already facing strong opposition from self-styled public-health advocates."

Good. Now I know it's EXACTLY the right thing to do - it's pissing off all the right kind of people.

I'm so sick of the nanny-state, I could vomit.

[Dead Corpse]

Each State should be able to set it's own standards for Age of Majority. However, once you are legally an "adult", you should have the full privileges, immunities, and responsibilities of every other Adult out there.

This "sliding scale" nonsense creates arbitrary classes of criminal based on nothing more than a Prohibitionist mindset looking for an excuse to nanny someone. Be it alcohol, firearms, or anything else.

[Melas]

Just fyi you won’t find soldiers carrying AR-15’s in Afghanistan.

[Le Chien Rouge]

How many of us were 16 and drinking in bars when the legal age was 19???

How many of us were buying beer at 17 when the legal age was 21???

How many of us raided our parents liquor cabinets???

How many of us learned early that hangovers sucked??

How many of us after discovering tequila,’worshiped the porcelain god’ at 18???

[CharlesWayneCT]

I do not drink. But I support lowering the drinking age to 18. Actually, I support lowering the drink purchase age and the public drinking age to 18, and allowing children at any age to drink in the presence of their legal guardians (not some other guardian, their own parents).

Increase the punishment for drinking and driving if that is the problem. Stop punishing harmless people who act responsibly because others are stupid and harmful. Punish the wicked, and stop taking away the rights of the lawful.

[Wiser now]

In the military the young people do what they are told to do. very little is left to the judgement of 18 to 21 year olds.
They are told what to wear, when to get up and go to bed, and when and what to eat. The military is actually super parent until real maturity and good judgement have been inculcated into them.
Serving in the military puts a young person on the final path to maturity, it isn’t the end of the journey.
Drinking requires jugement and self knowledge an 18 to 21 year simply has not yet developed.
Do you want to share the road with the drunk kid who just returned from bootcamp? I don’t.

[FrankR]

We could drink in Denver, Colorado when I was 18, stationed at Lowry AFB...of course, it was only 3.2 beer, but we could toast with that, and "act" grown up. About all 3.2 beer does for you is make you pee a lot.

A true, sincere, toast can be done with a glass of water...it's the thought that counts, not the alcohol content.

[Disambiguator]

This is another manifestation of the “degrees of adulthood” that we have in this country.

When you’re 18, you can vote, enter into contracts, buy long guns, and join the military.

When you’re 21 you can buy alcohol and handguns.

When you’re 25 you can get a CCW (varies by state).

[Forgotten Amendments]

then you are old and responsible enough to buy a bottle of beer and toast to living in a country that respects and protects individual rights.

And if you think that country is the USA, you're drunk!

[raccoonradio]

>>American teens learn to drink in the unmonitored environment of a basement or the backwoods with their friends.

Saugus MA a couple years ago; every effort was made to make the high school cruise/prom a sober event...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/17/saugus_pedestrian_killed_by_car_in_post_prom_crash/

>>A high school senior on his way home from his prom was allegedly driving drunk when he crashed at 7:30 a.m. yesterday into a mother and daughter walking their dog, killing the older woman...Police arrested Jonathan Caruso, 18, of Saugus, who had attended a school-sponsored post-prom harbor cruise in Boston and was bused back to the high school at about 4 a.m., police said. Caruso had two other students in the car, a male and a female, when he drove off the street...

So they had a sober prom followed by a sober cruise and by 4 am, everyone was expected to go home and sleep after a very long day. Instead, these kids go out in the woods
drinking. Beer was found in the trunk of the car, etc.
So booze was the forbidden thing for these teens and sometimes when you’re denied something, you go right out and get it anyway. Look what happened...

http://www.necn.com/pages/landing?blockID=155644&tagID=22399

>>Prosecutors say Caruso admitted to drinking 10 beers. Police say they found beer in the trunk. And say he failed a field sobriety test, even though he would later pass a Breathalyzer test. Prosecutors say Caruso told them he must have fallen asleep. Joe Talluto, Caruso’s friend: “You got to put a limit on it, 4 in the morning what the hell are you going out drinking.” Joe Talluto says he is also Jonathan’s friend. Just one week ago they all attended a mock demonstration of a drinking and driving accident.

(I think the Breathalyzer wasn’t administered till 10 am)

Whether making the legal age lower, who knows if it’ll help, but sometimes when you make something forbidden,
the allure for it only gets stronger.