Is age really just a number?

Consider this. I read an article the other day about two black men, brothers, one of which was recently released from Death Row for murdering 2 police officers in cold blood. In summary, it was a routine highway traffic stop near Fayetteville, NC. The Sheriff pulled the guys over. There was a warrant out for their arrests in South Carolina, so the patrolman called for backup. Somewhere after backup arrived and they were trying to arrest these guys, one of them got loose, grabbed the patrolman’s rifle and shot both policeman dead. The brothers were ages 17 and 19 at the time of the murders. They were originally sentenced to death. Some time after that, the supreme court ruled that the death penalty should be enforced on criminals younger than 18 at the time of the crime, so the younger brother was re-sentenced to life in prison. I am not a big fan of the death penalty, but I do think that sometimes it is just punishment, and this is one of those times. I do not think that his age (90 days from being 18) should have made him exempt, not when he did it intentionally in cold blood.
So now I think about how screwed up this nations policy on age and responsibility is. At age 16 you can be responsible enough to drive a car without supervision on a highway AND have a job that pays taxes, but you can’t go to a R rated movie without a parent. So you can drive your car to work at the movie theatre, but you can’t watch the movies being shown. Hmmmm. How is it that one can understand all those crazy statistics about alcoholism and driving accidents to pass a test for a license, yet not understand the consequences of killing another human being? Why isn’t that a requirement in schools rather than putting a condom on a banana?

Moving on up the age bracket, at age 18 you supposedly become responsible for your own actions. You can now vote for the lawmakers that create (and supposedly enforce) these laws about age and responsibility…but you can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes for another 3 years when you’re 21. This makes absolutely no sense. If you think about it, most 18 year olds are usually the oldest in the high school crowd, where you definitely don’t want alcohol or the youngest of the crowd in other scenarios: military, college, blue collar and white collar jobs, where alcohol is much more prevalent. If kids want to sneak, they are going to sneak, no ifs ands or buts, however in my opinion, making a few shifts could make things a lot better.
What I think makes the most sense is to leave the working age the same, but raise the driving age to 17, as in when you are junior/senior finishing high school. If you are working and need to drive to work, then there are “provisional” license privileges that allow you to drive to and from work. I would suggest making the learner’s permit age 15. Supervised driving is fine.

Now for the other responsibilities I would like to say raise the adult age to 19, but then in cases like mine where I finished high school at age 17, to not be able to sign for things like medical procedures without a parent present would be a real hassle. Also consent for things like marriage, personally I think 18 is very young, but considering kids having babies at 13 and 14, can marriage be all that bad? If you have a job and can vote, why not be able to choose your spouse? I guess. As far as drinking and smoking, I would leave those the same, because, well lowering the age would make underage drinking worse because then more people would have access to it legally, and raising it would make a larger group want to access it illegally. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What’s your take?