In NJ age of majority is 18

In NJ age of majority is 18

BUT you can’t drink until you are 21
but you can OWN a liquor license at age 18
AND you can SELL or SERVE alcohol at age 18
but you can’t sell or serve it to anyone under 21
but you are ALLOWED to DRINK at ANY AGE on private property or if involved in religious services

In fact we trust our children so little to drink responsibly on graduation night (even when some of them are 18) that we spend 10s of thousands of dollars on Project Graduation.

***** Equally messed up is that:

– In NJ you can marry at 16 (w/parental consent)

– enter into certain contracts at 15

– work at 14

– You can join the army (and legally kill people) at 17 (w/parental consent)

-You are legally responsible for your actions at age 18 (earlier if you are married)

– you can purchase a gun at 18 (but you can’t purchase a handgun until you are 21)

– you can fire a gun (hunt) at age 10 (with adult) or INDEPENDENTLY at 14

Why not:
– Up the drinking age to 25
– Lower the voting age to 15
– Legalize marijuana
– Lower gun hunting age to 5
– Raise handgun use age to 30
– Lower voting age to 13

or better yet – why not stick with the age of majority — 18 in this case — to be able to do all of these things?
or change the age to what ever number you want – but lets align all of these responsibilities to the age of majority.

I could be probably be talked into an exception for working at 14 and some limited hunting with parental supervision under the age of majority but other than that – lets leave adult responsibilities to the adults.