# Is it legal for stores to raise the age for buying guns? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 1, 2018, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808 "2018-03-01T10:01:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/21 "2018-03-03T01:02:13Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > So maybe it can’t be a machinegun, and maybe you should have to show proof of training before you get the weapon or something, but how can they just arbitrarily deny you the weapon if you’re a legal adult between 18 and 21? If you can just declare a constitutional right doesn’t exist because of age, why not make it 18 to 65? Or women-only? It’s not clear to me why they can say people under 18 can’t have one. Are there any other individual rights that you don’t have until you turn 18? Can congress stop you from exercising your religion if you’re under 18? Can they search your property without a warrant? Compel you to testify against yourself? If it’s a right “of the people”… are children not “people”? The 14th Amendment certainly seems to say that they are. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. I’m aware that when 2A was written they had no intention of letting women or black people have equal rights, let alone children under 18. But it makes me wonder. Why 18? The voting age used to be 21 IIRC. If the founding parents thought there was an obvious red line demarcating childhood from adulthood, wouldn’t 21 be the line? Help me out here, does the constitution mention the age of 18 anywhere? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/22 "2018-03-03T01:04:32Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > It’s an interesting question, given a baker can’t refuse to make a cake for a gay couple. I thought the whole core of that case was not that the baker refused to serve them, but that the baker refused to put a particular message on the cake. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/23 "2018-03-03T01:11:28Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > So I thought the Supreme Court dropped the hammer on the “well regulated militia” vs “self defense” argument with [DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html) District of Columbia v. Heller. No. _Heller_ basically just affirmed the Second Amendment protects an _individual_ right and not a “collective” right. i.e. you don’t have to be a member of a particular group (government run or otherwise) in order to keep and bear arms. It also ruled that the _specific_ law being contested ran afoul of that. _Heller_ does not make gun control laws unconstitutional. IIRC the stricken laws leading up to the case were ruled unconstitutional because they required people keep their firearms in an essentially non-functional state. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/24 "2018-03-03T01:12:44Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > It’s not clear to me why they can say people under 18 can’t have one. Are there any other individual rights that you don’t have until you turn 18? Can congress stop you from exercising your religion if you’re under 18? Can they search your property without a warrant? Compel you to testify against yourself? Yes to all of that. And the penalties are also less, except for marginally defensible exceptions. (trying someone as an adult only when they’ve done a really bad crime is incoherent as a policy) In all those cases, any rights go to your parents. Unless the state has decided your parents don’t mean minimal standards. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/25 "2018-03-03T01:16:03Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > No. _Heller_ basically just affirmed the Second Amendment protects an _individual_ right and not a “collective” right. i.e. you don’t have to be a member of a particular group (government run or otherwise) in order to keep and bear arms. It also ruled that the _specific_ law being contested ran afoul of that. _Heller_ does not make gun control laws unconstitutional. IIRC the stricken laws leading up to the case were ruled unconstitutional because they required people keep their firearms in an essentially non-functional state. Ok, so the District of Columbia decides that since men under the age of 35 are the most likely individuals to misuse a firearm, they may not have a permit to purchase one. That is, women over 18, and men over 35 can have firearms for the purpose of self defense, no one else. Does this, in your mind, pass the new standard set by Heller or not? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/26 "2018-03-03T01:18:46Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > Ok, so the District of Columbia decides that since men under the age of 35 are the most likely individuals to misuse a firearm, they may not have a permit to purchase one. > > That is, women over 18, and men over 35 can have firearms for the purpose of self defense, no one else. > > Does this, in your mind, pass the new standard set by Heller or not? is D.C. trying to do this? ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/27 "2018-03-03T01:34:31Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > is D.C. trying to do this? I think they and other states with heavy gun control laws are currently just trying to enforce flatly unconstitutional ordinances more along the lines of a total ban. This is just a hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/28 "2018-03-03T15:17:45Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > Ok, so the District of Columbia decides that since men under the age of 35 are the most likely individuals to misuse a firearm, they may not have a permit to purchase one. > > That is, women over 18, and men over 35 can have firearms for the purpose of self defense, no one else. > > Does this, in your mind, pass the new standard set by Heller or not? Heller would be immaterial because you have sex-based discrimination going on. The question would be whether that sex-based discrimination passes a rational basis test–I think. I can’t remember exactly which level of scrutiny is invoked by sex discrimination. The relevant question would be if no one under 35 could legally own a gun. I would expect that to have to pass some sort of test (like the rational basis or strict scrutiny tests) to prove it’s not just an attempt to ban guns. I do not know if it would pass. If we presume your information is correct, and there is a clear line at age 35, then I could see it passing. However, I would find that one at age 21 to be much more likely to survive. It’s easier to prove that a restriction for 3 years is narrow tailored. As for my own opinion: DC is a city. Urban areas have less need for guns than rural areas, and not recognizing that will cause an impasse. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/29 "2018-03-03T16:08:26Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Unless explicitly forbidden by statute, as in the above examples regarding nondiscrimination laws, a business today can certainly say “no guns under 21” as a free business decision. How future law or court ruling may change that is a different story. > > And one could expect a number of those “everyone over 18 has to be treated equally even in private transactions” states may not resist too much carving out an exception for firearms. On the first, yes obviously. It’s not written in the US constitution nor previously decided in federal court the constitution implies such commercial rights for 18-20 yr olds, so a future federal court decision is ‘a different story’ than state laws saying you can’t discriminate by age (even against younger people). But some state laws do seem to prohibit this kind of age discrimination. And on the second yes, but in anti-gun states much more likely new laws are passed _prohibiting_ gun sales to 18-20 yr olds than just ‘carve outs’ _allowing_ gun retailers to impose such sales restrictions. ‘What is desirable shall be mandatory’ is a pretty basic thought process nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/30 "2018-03-03T16:19:07Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > Help me out here, does the constitution mention the age of 18 anywhere? It happens that it does: > [@](#): > > **Amendment XXVI** (Amendment 26 - Reduction of Voting Age Qualification) > > 1: The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age. > > 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/31 "2018-03-03T16:32:21Z")
A business not selling guns to people under a certain age (or people who drive a particular kind of car, or people who don’t have an established history of shopping at that store, or people wearing MAGA hats, or whatever) doesn’t violate the Second Amendment. Just because people are allowed to have guns, doesn’t mean that any particular business is obligated to sell them. Some of those examples _might_ violate equal protection laws, if any of those categories is a protected class in the relevant jurisdiction: The MAGA hats probably would be, and the age would be in at least a few states. But then, that would also apply for anything else those businesses might sell, not just guns. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/32 "2018-03-03T16:48:49Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > If it’s a right “of the people”… are children not “people”? The 14th Amendment certainly seems to say that they are. No, children are “minors” and under the care of their parents or guardians (with few exceptions for emacipated minors). All of their rights are subject to different levels of protection from the government. > [@](#): > > But it makes me wonder. Why 18? The voting age used to be 21 IIRC. If the founding parents thought there was an obvious red line demarcating childhood from adulthood, wouldn’t 21 be the line? Help me out here, does the constitution mention the age of 18 anywhere? As **dtilque** shows, the voting age specifically was lowered to 18. This was done because 18 to 20 year olds were being drafted to fight wars but did not have the right to vote against wars. This does not mean other rights automatically are protected at 18 - as the drinking age laws demonstrate. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/33 "2018-03-03T17:33:37Z")
Yeah, I know the voting age was lowered to 18 by the 26th Amendment. That’s why I said it USED TO BE 21. I was talking about the founders of our country and what they meant when they wrote the constitution and voted on it. The 26th Amendment was nearly two centuries later. That doesn’t apply because I’m trying to understand what the authors of the constitution had in mind. Did they believe that being 18 makes you an adult? Or could the case be made that the founders actually thought being 21 makes you an adult? ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/34 "2018-03-03T19:15:59Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > Yeah, I know the voting age was lowered to 18 by the 26th Amendment. That’s why I said it USED TO BE 21. I was talking about the founders of our country and what they meant when they wrote the constitution and voted on it. The 26th Amendment was nearly two centuries later. That doesn’t apply because I’m trying to understand what the authors of the constitution had in mind. Did they believe that being 18 makes you an adult? Or could the case be made that the founders actually thought being 21 makes you an adult? The voting age was not always 21 before the 26th Amendment. The Constitution was silent on voting age requirements and left the matter entirely to the states to decide. The 26th Amendment was passed in part as a response to certain states challenging the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited voting requirements that discriminated against racial minorities and, relevantly, included a provision lowering the voting age at 18. The issue of whether there was a bright line age after which the founding fathers viewed someone as an adult is not especially helpful because in their view being an “adult” in itself was not sufficient for enfranchisement historically. Women, Blacks, Slaves (as opposed to freed slaves), individuals who did not own property, whether at a “adult” age or not, where at various points in American history not eligible to vote under some State voting laws. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/35 "2018-03-03T19:33:50Z")
I feel like we’re going around in circles here. I just want to know whether 18th century people in general, and out founders specifically, thought that 18 was the age when you become an adult or whether they thought it was 21. > [@dofe](#): > > The issue of whether there was a bright line age after which the founding fathers viewed someone as an adult is not especially helpful because in their view being an “adult” in itself was not sufficient for enfranchisement historically. Women, Blacks, Slaves (as opposed to freed slaves), individuals who did not own property, whether at a “adult” age or not, where at various points in American history not eligible to vote under some State voting laws. Yeah, I know. That’s why I wrote in [post #21](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20823760&postcount=21), _ **I’m aware that when 2A was written they had no intention of letting women or black people have equal rights, let alone children under 18.** _ That’s literally in the same paragraph where I asked this question. ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/36 "2018-03-03T20:03:16Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I feel like we’re going around in circles here. I just want to know whether 18th century people in general, and out founders specifically, thought that 18 was the age when you become an adult or whether they thought it was 21. > > Yeah, I know. That’s why I wrote in [post #21](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20823760&postcount=21), _ **I’m aware that when 2A was written they had no intention of letting women or black people have equal rights, let alone children under 18.** _ That’s literally in the same paragraph where I asked this question. I don’t think you’re going to find any clear consensus on whether the founding fathers believed an individual became an “adult” at age 18 or 21. I supposed you could research the age of majority in the different states during the 18th century, but the age would be fairly arbitrary. Ultimately, I don’t know how relevant the framer’s beliefs really is if your question is whether the 14th Amendment (adopted one hundred years after the founding fathers drafted the constitution) provides an equal protection basis to challenge a minimum age limit to gun purchases. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/37 "2018-03-03T20:40:41Z")
> [@dofe](#): > > Ultimately, I don’t know how relevant the framer’s beliefs really is if your question is whether the 14th Amendment (adopted one hundred years after the founding fathers drafted the constitution) provides an equal protection basis to challenge a minimum age limit to gun purchases. No, that’s not my question. Suppose that my conservative coworker says to me tomorrow “The founding fathers will roll over in their graves if we raise the minimum age for owning a gun from 18 to 21.” Would my coworker be wrong? Would the collective ghosts of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson merely shrug because they thought 21 is the real age when you become an adult? That’s my question. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/38 "2018-03-03T22:38:05Z")
> [@dofe](#): > > I don’t think you’re going to find any clear consensus on whether the founding fathers believed an individual became an “adult” at age 18 or 21. I supposed you could research the age of majority in the different states during the 18th century, but the age would be fairly arbitrary. > > Ultimately, I don’t know how relevant the framer’s beliefs really is if your question is whether the 14th Amendment (adopted one hundred years after the founding fathers drafted the constitution) provides an equal protection basis to challenge a minimum age limit to gun purchases. The age of majority was generally considered 21 in early modern times, a common law concept. However like today it didn’t apply uniformly to everything. Now for example people can vote at 18 and drink at 21. Then legal majority was 21 but men or boys could be subject to militia service or volunteer on their own younger even than 18. So in the specific case of guns this might enter into contemporary thinking, under the concept (a lot of people have trouble understanding now, or just refuse to accept, but it’s pretty clear) that one, not the exclusive, reason the people had to have to the right to keep and bear (their own) arms was to defend the state, and for that purpose, not the only purpose, the state would organize and regulate a militia. It’s really not that convoluted or contradictory, especially since some basically contemporary state constitutions spell out the same concept in different but even clearer, terms (PA’s of 1776 for example: “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.” nobody then thought the federal 2A contradicted or narrowed that right to one of the states and not the people, the federal C just stated it in slightly different words). Two caveats: -it’s fine to opine that this concept is obsolete or even now deleterious to general welfare. Just get the votes in Congress and state legislatures to change or repeal it. It’s much less valid IMO to pretend it doesn’t say what it clearly was meant to say. -Defining the rights of ‘the people’ and how to define who constitutes ‘the people’ (by age or other things) are separate questions. Those two things were never IMO tied together closely enough to say that BoR items have to be applied to whom (and only those) the Founders considered ‘the people’. So if the prevailing observation and belief at the time was that it was common and proper for late teen males to arm themselves before full majority, that doesn’t amount to much of an argument that the 2nd amendment defines gun rights as starting at 18. If the much later addition of age specification for voting had been intended to prohibit any other limitation on rights based on being too young, it could have said so. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/39 "2018-03-03T23:03:08Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > Two caveats: > -it’s fine to opine that this concept is obsolete or even now deleterious to general welfare. Just get the votes in Congress and state legislatures to change or repeal it. It’s much less valid IMO to pretend it doesn’t say what it clearly was meant to say. > > -Defining the rights of ‘the people’ and how to define who constitutes ‘the people’ (by age or other things) are separate questions. Those two things were never IMO tied together closely enough to say that BoR items have to be applied to whom (and only those) the Founders considered ‘the people’. So if the prevailing observation and belief at the time was that it was common and proper for late teen males to arm themselves before full majority, that doesn’t amount to much of an argument that the 2nd amendment defines gun rights as starting at 18. If the much later addition of age specification for voting had been intended to prohibit any other limitation on rights based on being too young, it could have said so. So if you declare that “the people” are adults over the age of 40, when crime and firearm misuse drops off, but under the age of 65, because the elderly often have poor judgement, and you cannot possess a weapon before then unless you’re in the military, would that pass muster? Because it frankly would be little different from a ban if laws like that were permitted. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808/40 "2018-03-03T23:55:57Z")
Car-rental agencies won’t rent to under-25s. Same difference. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-for-stores-to-raise-the-age-for-buying-guns/809808.md?page=3)