Is it unconstitutional for sellers to have higher minimum age for gun purchases than the federal government? The last few days (I am writing this on March 1, 2018) have seen several businesses raise the minimum age required to buy a gun to 21. Some examples: Walmart, Dick's Sporting Goods, Kroger. Under current US federal law though, the minimum age necessary to purchase a rifle is 18. Because of this, can it be said that those businesses that will not sell rifles to otherwise qualified individuals between the ages of 18 and 21 are in violation of the Second Amendment? Are there any cases that have treated this in the past?
Volokh commented on this. There is no 2nd Amendment issue, nor does federal law. It may be illegal in some states, depending on whether age is included in public accommodation anti-discrimination laws. For instance, Conn. Gen. Stat. §§46a-64 says (a) It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section: (1) To deny any person within the jurisdiction of this state full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status, age, lawful source of income, intellectual disability, mental disability or physical disability, including, but not limited to, blindness or deafness of the applicant, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons; §46a-63 defines "public accommodation" (1) “Place of public accommodation, resort or amusement” means any establishment which caters or offers its services or facilities or goods to the general public, including, but not limited to, any commercial property or building lot, on which it is intended that a commercial building will be constructed or offered for sale or rent Public accomodation laws are how states deal with discrimination in sales, such as selling wedding cakes Illinois 775 ILCS 5/1-103 likewise prohibits age discrimination in public accomodations, but defines "age" as "the chronological age of a person who is at least 40 years old". Connecticut used to define "age" as "any age between forty and sixty-five, inclusive", but that clause was deleted. Lousiana also prohibits age discrimination (La. Rev. Stat. §51:2247). Their statement about age likewise limits anti-discrimination protection to "individuals who are at least forty years of age". Maryland in MD State Govt Code § 20-304 also bans age discrimination, and does not redefine "age" or limit the scope of those ages that are protected. So while it is generally legal to refuse to sell goods to the young (and sometimes mandatory, e.g. alcohol, firearms, tobacco), there are a few states where such a policy would violate state anti-discrimination laws. There can also be city laws (Seattle has very broad anti-discrimination laws), but they exclude age from the Public Accommodation subset of discrimination.
ORS 166.220 suggests this would be illegal - specifically its &quot;unlawful use of a weapon&quot; if a person (emphasis mine): Intentionally discharges a firearm, blowgun, bow and arrow, crossbow or explosive device within the city limits of any city or within residential areas within urban growth boundaries at or in the direction of any person, building, structure or vehicle within the range of the weapon without having legal authority for such discharge. So what's &quot;within range&quot;? With a homemade bow of unknown construction, draw weight, and unknown arrows I'd say it's pretty much going to be something you find out when an arrow goes that far. I wouldn't expect it to match the range of high-end bows and arrows (I've seen 40lb recurves cover ~250 yards) but 100 yards plus doesn't sound ridiculous - more if it's got some elevation to it. The point is you really don't want to find out the hard way when a shot goes astray giving your neighbours the old King Harold treatment.
As Mark's answer indicates, you are evidently thinking of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. "Public acts" being laws, it may seem at first glance that states must fully respect the laws of other states. But the interpretation of this clause by the courts is rather different, and has evolved a bit over time. The short of the (modern) matter is that it mostly applies to matters concerning the judiciary. SCOTUS has recognized a "public policy exception" to the clause, which limits the ability of the clause to force a state to abide by laws which are in conflict with their own (for the most part: they don't have to). Driving privileges, and more generally who is licensed to do what (doctors, hunting, concealed carry, etc.), within a state falls under that public policy exception. So Texas does not have to obey New Hampshire's laws concerning the legal privilege to drive. As a basic sanity test, if this were not the case, then why wouldn't everybody in Texas not simply bounce off to New Hampshire for a summer to get their license there and then return to Texas and never bother with insurance? It entirely undercuts the state's sovereignty and ability to set their own laws if any other state can so easily create loopholes around them. Moreover, despite what the name might suggest, a "driver's license" is more a certification that you have the requisite skills, physical performance (passing an eye test), and knowledge to drive safely and in accordance with that state's traffic laws. It certainly makes sense for a state to require you to demonstrate at least that much, but they may also impose additional requirements. A requirement for insurance demonstrates your ability to handle financial liabilities that may reasonably result from your driving. All states currently accept a valid out-of-state license in the above sense: that you are certified to have the requisite skills, that it is valid proof of age, etc. Though if you become a permanent resident there they may require you to take new tests. However to legally drive in any particular state you must not only have such certification (a driver's license) but also satisfy any other conditions, such as age requirements and insurance requirements. As an aside, such state-by-state variations as to who is licensed to do what are in fact quite common, especially across history, even on very prominent issues. But even nationwide resolutions of those issues via SCOTUS have never, to my knowledge, utilized the Full Faith and Credit clause to do so. And, really, how could they? By saying since some state could force all other states to do X via the clause, then X must be a constitutional requirement? Or that any one state could unilaterally dictate laws in all other states? Madness! For one example, anti-miscegenation laws, which outlawed (certain) interracial marriages, were quite common until 1967, when SCOTUS struck them all down using the 14th amendment. More recently, gay marriage was forced to be recognized in all states, also via the 14th amendment. In both cases, before those SCOTUS rulings, the courts had generally recognized that the Full Faith and Credit clause did not compel the state to recognize (out-of-state) marriages it did not want to recognize. These both fell under the public policy exception.
In general, people have less expectation of privacy in cars than in their homes. To challenge a search and/or seizure under the Fourth Amendment, a person must have standing - the right to sue (that is, you must have had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place where the search happened; if you didn't, no standing - can't claim your privacy was violated if you had no privacy). The US Circuit Courts are split on the issue of unauthorized rental drivers and whether they have the same reasonable expectation of privacy as the authorized driver of a rental car would have. Some Circuits allow the unauthorized driver to challenge a car search if the authorized driver gave them permission. Some Circuits look only at the agreement and if the driver isn't authorized on that, they're out of luck. The 6th Circuit is more case-by-case, with a presumption that driver can't challenge the search that can be overcome based on the facts. (All this info from US v. Haywood, 324 F.3d 514) There's a current case before the Supreme Court (argued January 9, 2018), Byrd v. US, on this very issue. This SCOTUSblog page has a lot of information on the case. Edited to add: Texas is in the Fifth Circuit, which follows the rule that unauthorized drivers don't have standing to challenge a search/seizure even with the authorized driver's permission to drive the car; unauthorized drivers of rental cars don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy because they lack a possessory interest in the car and/or they're violating the rental agreement. Basically, even though it seems the cops' stop of the car would've violated the Fourth Amendment if he were the authorized driver, since this happened in Texas, he's not going to be able to challenge the stop. IMO, this is incredibly unjust especially when the cops admitted there was no probable cause, so hopefully the Supreme Court makes this rule obsolete and allows unauthorized drivers to exercise their Fourth Amendment rights. Some law review articles on the topic of unauthorized rental drivers: "Hertz and the Fourth Amendment" "Resolving a Three-Way Circuit Split"
"Explanations relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights" on the website you linked to is very clear that the Charter of Fundamental Rights only means the EU institutions can't discriminate based on age, and that EU law is not allowed to be age discriminatory. It doesn't mean that individual acts of age discrimination are illegal: In contrast, the provision in Article 21(1) does not create any power to enact anti-discrimination laws in these areas of Member State or private action, nor does it lay down a sweeping ban of discrimination in such wide-ranging areas. Instead, it only addresses discriminations by the institutions and bodies of the Union themselves, when exercising powers conferred under the Treaties, and by Member States only when they are implementing Union law. The practice of youth and senior discounts is older than the charter of fundamental rights. The charter will be interpreted in the light of continuity, it definitely wasn't the intention to outlaw price discrimination. There are specific laws that make price discrimination based on certain principles legal, e.g. UK equality act: Age discrimination - when discrimination is allowed in the provision of goods or services
It is quite likely that a constitutional amendment was (and is) not needed to ban alcohol. For example, if the Controlled Substances Act is constitutional (and I have no reason to believe it isn't) then alcohol could be added to it tomorrow and it could be removed the day after tomorrow. Right there is the reason that you choose to use a constitutional amendment - it is as hard to reverse as it was to enact; it needs another constitutional ammendment.
My understanding is that this isn't a contractual term, but rather a warning that the items don't satisfy legal requirements for individual sale. The seller and manufacturer likely don't care whether you resell the items, but the government does. In the US, at least, regulations of the Food and Drug Administration require that (with certain exceptions) food items sold at retail must be marked with a Nutrition Facts label, showing calorie counts, fat and sugar content, and so on. The FDA has information on this requirement, including citations to the relevant sections of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). For example, if you buy a big multipack of tiny ("fun size") candy bars, the manufacturer usually won't have printed Nutrition Facts on each candy bar's wrapper (because it's too small). There will instead be a label on the outer bag. As such, you can't legally resell the candy bars individually, because they don't meet labeling requirements. In fact, in the FDA page I linked above, you can see that manufacturers are required to print "This unit not labeled for retail sale" on individual items if they don't have Nutrition Facts labels. See the 12th item in the table of exemptions.
Barela was convicted of robbery affecting interstate commerce and faces a sentence of up to 20 years and $250,000 in fines. I assume your issue is that you think this is too high (although I don't see what it has to do with the 14th or 6th Amendments). Fortunately, it's also almost completely unrelated to the actual sentence. The number that was quoted is the statutory maximum for robbery or extortion affecting interstate commerce. It represents the maximum amount that any defendant under any circumstances could receive for one count of that crime. A career criminal who threatened to kill an armored car guard in order to steal $10,000,000 would face the same 20-year statutory maximum as someone with no record who threatened to give COVID to a store clerk in order to steal $90. In some situations, things like the amount stolen or the defendant's criminal record affect the actual crime the defendant is convicted of. At the federal level, that's mostly not the case. Robbery affecting interstate commerce doesn't have degrees or statutory enhancements. Instead, a judge decides what sentence is appropriate. The judge can, in theory, pick anything between the statutory minimum (here there is none) and the statutory maximum (here it's 20 years). 18 U.S. Code § 3553 lays out the factors for the court to consider. In practice, federal courts generally sentence within the range given in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. While the statute itself doesn't distinguish between stealing $90 by threatening to cough and stealing millions by threatening to shoot, the Guidelines do. Courts don't have to follow the Guidelines range but typically do. If they don't, it's much more likely their sentence will be overturned as unreasonable on appeal. Popehat has a good blog post on the Guidelines, how they work, and why press releases quoting statutory maximums are basically straight-up lies. Sentencing.us has an unofficial calculator you can use to estimate the Guidelines range for a particular crime. If you plug in 18 U.S. Code § 1951 (which translates to the &quot;Robbery&quot; guideline) and enter in $90 stolen, no weapon used, no threat of death, and no criminal record, then you get a range of 33-41 months and/or a fine of $7,500 to $75,000. This is basically the lowest Guidelines range possible for robbery. For comparison, under California state law robbery is punishable by two, three, or five years in state prison. Robbery is a serious and violent crime, so a sentence of multiple years would not be considered unreasonable. But it takes a lot for the Guidelines range to approach the statutory maximum of 20 years.