Raise the minimum age or lower it?

Last month, Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) introduced a bill to the House that would set the minimum age for gun ownership at 21.

This month, she voted to lower the minimum voting age to 16 (the Pressley Amendment, H. Amdt. 76 to H.R. 1).

Where’s the logic?

Why raise the gun ownership age and lower the voting age?

If you don’t trust that anyone not yet 21 is mature enough to handle a lethal weapon responsibly, why would you trust someone five years younger than that with deciding America’s future by voting for our nation’s leaders? After all, 21-year-olds are far more likely than 16-year-olds to be self-supporting, tax-paying adults, living on their own and not in their parents’ house or in college dorms.

I believe it was a seriously and profoundly irresponsible act for any member of the House of Representatives to have voted in favor of lowering the voting age to 16. And while I assume that some members of Congress who voted for the Pressley amendment did so as an expression of some misguided principle, it could also be seen as a Democratic Party ploy to boost their odds at the polls.