0

Several companies have changed policies requiring you be 21 years old to buy firearms.

I am wondering if refusal of service of persons under 21 s similar to a baker/florist refusing service based on religious beliefs?

Question: Can private companies deny buying firearms for persons under 21?

Improve this question
6
  • 3
    This might be better at law.se – user4460 Mar 3 '18 at 0:26
  • 4
    There was actually an article on precisely this by Eugene Volokh. – David A Mar 3 '18 at 1:43
  • @Hay - I have changed the question in an effort to make it on-topic. Please, feel free to revert the change if it is not OK with you. – Alexei Mar 3 '18 at 6:32
  • 1
    @Alexei: The question is now a real question, but it’s still off topic – nothing about politics or government here. – chirlu Mar 3 '18 at 7:56
  • I agree with chirlu. It is now less of a political statement concealed as a question, but it is a question about application of laws, not making of laws. I will migrate it to law stackexchange. – Philipp Mar 3 '18 at 10:10
3

As the comments suggest, "too young" is not a protected class.

As another example of this principle, most car rental companies (if not all) will not rent to anyone under 25 years of age (regardless of their driving record or insurance status). This is not a legal restriction, but a standard industry practice.

Companies can legally claim that they believe any kind of fiction about their customers if it's not explicitly illegal to do so. If they think that being below a certain age makes a person too young to have a good judgement, they don't need to be correct about it. They can act on that opinion (and lose business) as they please.

Improve this answer
0
-1

The only Federal discrimination laws apply to employment.

The famous Colorado baker lawsuit was based on a state law that prohibits businesses from refusing service for certain reasons including sexual orientation but not age. The baker is challenging the ruling saying it violates his first amendment rights and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Improve this answer
1
  • Your first sentence is demonstrably false. There are federal laws restricting certain forms of discrimination in voting, for example. It is not surprising, however, that those laws are not mentioned in the website of the EEOC, whose mandate covers only employment discrimination. – phoog Mar 3 '18 at 15:06