Posted by Psilocybin at 10:42pm Aug 3 '14A lot of the time people object to trying someone as an adult because said defendant isn't old enough to vote and is assumed to be too immature to vote. But the "Don't try minors as adults crowd!" too often even fail to consider the possibility that it's not the belief that under18s are mature enough to understand that their murder was wrong that is in error, but the belief that they're not mature enough for other things that is in error.
It should be obvious that by the time you're 14 you understand right and wrong, and can truly comprehend that murder is wrong, rather than simply not murdering because of the consequences should you get nabbed. So the simplest solution would be to set the adult trial age at 14 and set the other ages at 14 as well. Most people would agree that a 14-year-old murderer really understood what he or she did, at least in most cases, and was adult-like enough to pull it through and go through with such a heinous, innocence-stripped crime. A lot of people would hate to do this because of the contempt they have for teen-agers, but why not set the voting age, the working age, the age to buy a lotto ticket, the school-leaving age, the age to sign up for the military (voluntarily, of course -- we need to scrap that sexist anachronism known as the draft), and the age to break free from your parents' rules at 14 as well? (I could allow for an exception in either driving age or drinking age, because if the driving age and drinking age are both set at 14, too many kids will celebrate by going out and getting drunk on the same day they first experiment with their drivers' licenses.) Also, some things such as freedom of religion and medical consent should be granted to all Americans (and indeed all Terrans), regardless of age.
People who are opposed to trying the current defendant in the news as an adult because he (or she) is under 18 hurt their credibility when they pretend to believe that 17-year-olds aren't old enough to know the difference between life and death or the difference between right and wrong (especially in such a stark case as murder).
If India followed suit in lowering ages to 14, the issue with the 17-year-olds who were close to 18 wouldn't come up because then the oldest people below the cut-off would be 13-year-olds, and people are unlikely to argue that even a 13-year-11-month-old was diabolical in his crime, was adult-like, and really needed to be tried as an adult. (Plus, 17-year-olds would be free to hold a job again! It sucks that the working age in India is 18.)
Simple solution - Psilocybin