A friend recently sent me a link to an article at bloomberg.com: Concealed Carry For All, Like It Or Not. Give the source, I was expecting Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun rights media lackeys to complain about the forthcoming push for nationwide concealed carry reciprocity. I was not disappointed. But without intending to, Bloomberg actually makes the case for national reciprocity:
The bill does indeed strengthen the constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves using a firearm. Unfortunately, it also strengthens the right of many others who are not law-abiding, and who are more prone to aggression than protection.
For example, stalkers, drunk drivers and abusive partners can carry a concealed weapon in some states. Other states prohibit them from doing so. Under [Texas Senator John] Cornyn’s bill, those people would be able to take their concealed, loaded weapons anywhere.
The Bloomberg Editorial Board’s admission that national reciprocity strengthens the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens is a uuuge surprise. By making this admission, their argument against nati0nal reciprocity is reduced to “it’s a net loss.” How compelling is that?
At the same time, the article leaves– or at least should leave — readers wondering why states that allow “stalkers, drunk drivers and abusive partners” to carry a concealed weapon aren’t plagued by “gun violence.”
In fact, the Everytown for Gun Safety chart linked in the Bloomberg piece (State-by-State Danger of Overriding Concealed Carry Laws) reveals that states with cities with prominent “gun violence” issues (e.g. Chicago Illinois and Baltimore, Maryland) have all or almost all the “tough gun laws” boxes ticked. Which is probably why the editorial includes this snarky, intentionally misleading bit:
There is nowhere near sufficient evidence to conclude that concealed-carry policies make anyone safer, although there is intriguing evidence that it may have the opposite effect.
American gun rights are not based on arguments about social utility, anymore than arguments about freedom of speech.
Anyway, the Bloomberg editorial is not wrong: national concealed carry reciprocity is a threat to state-based gun control laws. Regardless of whether or not national reciprocity allows residents to carry in their home state with an out-of-state permit (unlikely), it will highlight the disparities between states that allow some states to deny ALL their residents’ gun rights. And, hopefully, lead to their repeal.
The Bloomberg editorial was a half-assed attempt at an argument against guns. If anything, this epic failure of an op-ed underlines the fact that those who are “good guys (and gals) with guns,” should be allowed to protect themselves against the “stalkers, drunk drivers, and abusive partners” who are already illegally carrying.
Bloombutthead needs to take a long walk off a short pier. The idiocy he comes up with has no bounds…
…with concrete galoshes.
And a school of Sharks having a feeding frenzy!!!!!!!!
“For example, stalkers, drunk drivers and abusive partners…”
What in the hell does a drunk driving conviction have to do with carrying a gun?
Some guy or gal had one too many before getting behind the wheel and now they’re fair game for their stalker, abusive partner, a mugger, murderer or rapist? What the fuck kind paint chips for breakfast logic is that?
Drunk driving is often a mistake that has nothing to do with the aggressive or criminal mindedness of the person in question, so why the hell is that even part of the discussion? There’s no mens rea with such a crime, in fact, unless you cause an accident that hurts another person or damages property there is no harm either (except maybe to your liver) so why is it even a crime?
And no, for the smartasses out there, I’ve never had a DUI and I don’t drink and drive.
Personally, I think we aught to focus on severe penalties for people who TEXT and drive. At least a drunk has their eyes on the road. The sheer mount of people that do it is insane. I have a pretty decent sized truck, I can look over and see into anyone’s vehicle that’s near me. Id say at least half of people are texting while driving.
“Personally, I think we aught to focus on severe penalties for people who TEXT and drive.”
Where my brother lives, they have that. In order to get through the courts, the law prohibits any distraction at all. Among distractions listed: eating, drinking, reading, makeup application, talking on a cell phone (handsfree and OnStar). talking to passengers, looking at passengers (and children), adjusting interior temperature, changing radio stations or CD discs. Top count misdemeanor.
Careful what you wish.
Would that be the Republik of Kalifonia?
(AKA “Feinsteinia” or “Pelosia” or maybe “Pelosteinia”)
You are spot on
I’m not kidding when I say this: I’ve seen people doing crossword puzzles while driving… on a 75mph highway. That’s just begging for serious trouble.
Still, I’d argue that no harm, no foul. The general argument for DUI or “distracted driving” is that such behavior increases the risks that someone is harmed. Fair enough I guess but that concept, as a logical starting point, is flawed. There are about a bazillion things you can do that increase the risk of harm to others but most of them are 100% legal.
Skydiving, you could land on someone. Flying a plane, you could crash into a house full of people. Operating a car, you could run over a ton of people for a variety of reasons ranging from malfunction to malice.
The starting point of “It makes things less safe” or “Someone could be hurt!” is a safespacer/helicopter mom argument for banning just about everything and that is, as serge would say, pants on head retarded.
strych don’t say “There outta be a law” strych asks “What business is it of the government’s what people do as long as no one else is harmed?”.
strych9,
I am a huge and outspoken proponent of the Common Law concept that there is no crime if there is no victim and that crimes require malicious intent or gross negligence. And I loathe and oppose the myriad laws that rise to nothing more than “contempt of government”.
Having said that, there is a place for a few laws about extremely limited activities that represent a HUGE and DEMONSTRABLE risk to others. For example I should not be able to bury land mines in a public forest. Nor should I be able to fill a cheap above-ground swimming pool with gasoline that could easily leak into the ground and render the groundwater undrinkable for my neighbors. In other words there is some place for preventive measures. Whether or not drunk driving rises to that level, I don’t know.
Furthermore, whether or not it is practical for a government to try and define laws for the myriad possible endeavors that constitute unacceptable risk to others is an entirely different discussion. (When you get down to it, almost any endeavor could unleash huge and unforeseen devastation.)
Please note that pretty much all such endeavors that constitute huge and demonstrable risk to others are artifacts of modern society, which has placed gargantuan levels of potential energy and toxicity into the hands of everyday people.
…If one is not depriving a fellow citizen of life, liberty or property through force or fraud, then one shouldn’t have to speak to a .gov employee.
Uncommon:
Sorry for the length here:
While I don’t generally disagree with you about the landmines, that example raises a few issues.
First of all, if you’re remotely sneaky, how would anyone know you planted land mines until some poor bastard stepped on one? Likely they wouldn’t know which means that they way anyone would find out what you’ve done would be for your actions to have harmed someone when they “found” one of your little surprises.
Secondly, landmines are one of a few things I can think of that have one and only one purpose, which is harm other people therefore your action of planting them would seem to me to be prima facie evidence of intent to cause harm to other people. I would differentiate a landmine from a large snare or spring trap because the latter two items could be used for bears or other large animals whereas the landmine itself is clearly designed specifically for people or vehicles bearing people. I don’t really think you could get away with blowing someone’s leg off with a landmine and claiming the intended target was a bear that was repeatedly getting into your trash.
As for filling a pool with gasoline, well, that’s not really an area of “legal vs. illegal” but more of an area for a regulatory system meant to ensure that large volumes of flammable and/or toxic substances are stored properly. Filling a pool with gas is something that can be done safely or unsafely, just like operating a car. I see no reason that simply doing something, such as filling a pool with gas, should be illegal unless you’ve done it in a way that is patently unsafe. Such action could, IMHO, be dealt with much more gently than incarceration and the state going out of it’s way to flat out bankrupt you.
The problem I see with drunk driving is essentially fivefold.
First, what is “drunk”? Some people, like my dad’s buddy, are completely shitfaced after a single drink while others “hold their liquor” better than the average. A legal BAC is the only way to standardize the whole thing but it’s inherently unfair to people on both ends of the bell curve. Therefore “drunk” is essentially like pornography in so far as it’s an issue that I know when I see it but it’s very difficult to set a reasonable and rational standard for future sightings. Don’t get me started on DWAI, which in many states is merely the officer’s word against yours and your word ain’t worth shit.
Secondly, there is nothing someone can do while drunk that harms another person or damages their property which is not already illegal. This is where drunk driving becomes akin to “constructive intent”. If I’m walking down the street with a sledgehammer over my shoulder I could certainly fuck up some person or their property. Further, the risk that I do damage something or someone with a sledgehammer is infinitely larger if I have one than if I don’t. Should it be illegal for me to walk down the street with a sledgehammer? Clearly it should not be. The only thing that should make my action of walking down the street with a sledgehammer illegal is if by some combination of other actions I damage another person or their property with the sledgehammer in which case walking down the street with it wasn’t illegal the actions that caused damage were. So I ask, if a person goes to the bar and exceeds the legal BAC limit by one drink, twenty drinks or merely .001, drives home, parks their vehicle, goes inside and falls asleep on the couch, what actual crime has been committed? The crime of “shit could have happened but didn’t”? Setting aside aggravated DUI, the law says that all of these things are equally illegal and assigns a rather stiff punishment for them. Again, unfair to the folks on either end of the bell curve. Why should the person who makes an honest mistake at 0.081 get the same punishment as the person who’s at 0.15?
Third, it has become clear that DUI, in many states but not all, has become nothing more than a revenue generating scheme. It’s not about safety and it’s not about “right and wrong”. There is no moral impetus behind it at all. It’s simply a way to for the state to reach into your pocket and take what they want without having to justify a tax hike to the voters.
Forth, DUI is a crime that in some places is blatantly unconstitutional. Colorado for example sends you to two courts for a DUI. DMV and regular criminal court. Once accused of DUI or DWIA you are guilty in DMV court. Period, end of story. Your license is revoked and punishments in the form of DUI classes, restricted licenses later on and an interlock are mandatory. What’s that you say? You proved yourself to be completely innocent in criminal court? Good for you, no jail or extra fines but… that doesn’t matter to the DMV court, those punishments remain and there effectively is no appeals process. Can you imagine the public sitting still for such clear violations of your rights on practically any other subject? I can’t. But hey, it’s DUI, the guy or gal is a scumbag. Fuck ’em. Even if they didn’t do it they did something so who cares? That’s how the public sees DUI.
Finally, no matter how much people want to tell you they “know” your BAC was too high that is a system that can be screwed with. Blood tests test for metabolites and will add together all the drinks you’ve had in the last approximately 72 hours. Get drunk Friday night, take a cab home and you can still get a DUI on Sunday morning. Does that sound reasonable? Further, anyone who’s ever worked in a bar that has a breathalyzer will tell you that they’re not accurate until you’ve stopped drinking for half an hour. Drink a beer and immediately blow into that thing and you’ll blow way, way, way over the legal limit. Are you drunk? Even if you’re a total lightweight the alcohol hasn’t hit your system yet. The unit is registering what’s in your mouth. Why do you think some PD’s are in a hurry to get DUI suspects to “the big machine” ASAP? Could it possibly be that they know what I’ve just said here and aim to take advantage of it? No, of course not. Government is 100% honest right!?
Again, apologies for the length there.
There are just too many people and too great of consequences to rely on the DBAD Rule alone as be all end all societal guideline.
I’ll go very, very far down the libertarian path, but that path in a modern society of millions of people eventually leads off a cliff.
At some point, Strych, when you’re as wrongheaded and exreme as that, your only option is to gather up as many likeminded, wrongheaded, and extreme others as you can and go start your own country someplace else. Good luck.
“At some point, Strych, when you’re as wrongheaded and exreme as that…”
You make this claim in one iteration or another repeatedly. I’ll simply ask you to back up the statement that laws should follow logic and facts is “wrongheaded and extreme”.
I’ll wait.
@Jonathan
I would actually look forward to experiencing a society run in the way the libertarians always advocate for.
Unfortunately, we and everyone else are either taking ground, or getting driven back. There is no middle ground, there is no “common sense” compromise. They are not arresting drunk drivers because they want to keep the streets safe, but rather because they see it as a way to hone the knives intended for the 4th and 5th amendments.
Austin, TX just kicked Uber out. It was “unsafe” they said, because the drivers weren’t checked like the cabbies. Nevermind that no Uber driver had hurt anyone, and that cabbies had been popes for sexual assault.
It was all about how Uber wouldn’t pay the city, and they said “Fuck you Uber and fuck anyone who would have used Uber” and Uber left Austin.
They don’t give two shits about public safety or any of our lives, and would kill any number of us every year if it meant they could steal one more dime from each of us. The constitution was written to try and protect our dimes and dollars, our guns and daughters too, and they hate it.
I don’t care how chaotic or unorganized society will be if the government gets squeezed back into size. It will be an interesting ride for sure, but I would rather live in that time than the one you describe.
Every person who reads history knows the alternative is a mass grave, no exceptions. We are going the wrong way and have been for 100 years. Bad decisions aren’t free, and we’re one foot in the grave already, so to speak.
I would obliterate DWI provisions for the solepu for the pruoose to disrupt and confuse them for a while, and give us more time to figure out how to kill them all. Everything about DWI procedure is unconstitutional, and everyone participating in it is a fucking traitor.
Just curious, strych, do you routinely consume an amount of ETOH that YOU CONSIDER to be non-impairing and operate motor vehicles?
Have you seen the statistics of injury – fatal vehicle accidents and the percentage of those involved in those accidents later proven by blood draw to be impaired? Google it sometime.
I’m just asking here, as your comment leads me to believe you may think you have your shit together behind the wheel just fine after a few belts.
(I’m speaking from some personal experience on this, as someone who in the past consumed substantial quantities of alcohol *daily* and drove. I’ve never had a DUI arrest or conviction. But I also used to think the way you do on this, that *I* wasn’t a problem behind the wheel. The statistics unequivocally prove otherwise…)
Geoff:
I used to drink rather heavily in college (15+ drinks in a night in some cases). I drove once at that level and scared the shit out of myself because I didn’t remember having done so. I never repeated that mistake.
At this point in my life (32 years old) I never exceed two beers (I don’t drink liquor) because three gives me a hangover. I only drink when shooting pool, and as I said, I never have more than two and haven’t for years. That’s normally two drinks over about five hours. You can judge for yourself if that is “too many belts”. Since it doesn’t even have me past 0.02, I doubt it but YMMV.
I’m not arguing that drinking and driving is a good idea. I’m merely asking someone, somewhere to provide me a logical reason why drunk driving, in and of itself, should be illegal when any harm you might do to another person or their property is already illegal. What is the justification for making it “MOAR ILLEGALER!!!”?
IMHO, this is no more rational than “assault weapons bans”. It’s all about feelz. “More likely” doesn’t mean a crime unless you actually want to take hold of gun grabber logic. Does owning an AR make you a mass shooter? No. Does carrying a gun make you a killer? No. Does talking to a bank robber make you a bank robber or more likely to become one? No. Should we criminalize carrying a gun, talking to a bank robber or owning an AR? NO, because one doesn’t make a person a fucking killer or a robber. So why does driving home and arriving there safely because you happened to be “intoxicated”? I would argue that we should not.
You are responsible for your ACTIONS not whatever state of mind you were in when you committed them. Actions are completely independent of your sobriety. Back in the day they used to excuse behavior based on drunkeness. Does that sound right? No, it’s not. Neither is excusing them based on sobriety. Do the crime (harm to others and/or intent) and do the time. Fuck giving people less time for an “excuse” and fuck giving them more time for not having one.
Two quick examples:
A guy, acting drunk, plows into another car and people die. In the first case, he’s charged with multiple felonies, DUI and other charges and goes to prison basically forever. In the second case, same situation, the charges are lighter and the guy gets off with probation and the rest is sent to civil court. What’s the difference? One guy was drunk the other guy took too much insulin for his diabetes and was in insulin/diabetic shock resulting in a drunken appearance.
How exactly are is one different from the other? Both took a substance, too much of it, and killed people but one is is somehow excusable because it’s a medical condition (one I have btw). No, fuck that. They’re both equally culpable. Either the DUI is bullshit or the diabetic who took too much insulin gets the same time. How to make it equal? Eliminate DUI and charge people with the crimes ALREADY ON THE MOTHERFUCKING BOOKS.
On top of this let’s look at being tired. There is some decent evidence that being tired is worse than being distracted or drunk. Is driving while tired illegal? No. Why not? It’s MORE dangerous… why is the more dangerous activity legal while the lesser isn’t? Oh, because the test (flawed though it may be and don’t argue that it’s not because my dad literally wrote the book on chemical instrumentation) for one exists while it doesn’t for the other.
Sorry, it’s not about safety. It’s about money. There is no logical justification for it. How do I know this? Because I’ve argued this for years against hundreds of people and not gotten a decent response. On top of that the smartest people I’ve ever come across as a group are right here on TTAG and NOT ONE of you has even managed a BASIC counterargument while I know that hundreds of very smart people have read my comment.
My challenge to the crowd remains: Provide me a logical, moral and/or ethical argument to support the notion that DUI, in and of itself with no harm caused to another, should be illegal. Don’t start with grabber logic. That’s it. Two caveats. No grabber logic and you must have a decent point to make. I’ll listen if you have one. So far… crickets. Why? Because it’s grabber logic and grabber logic has no roots in actual logic.
Also, in case you’re wondering why I care Geoff, I’ll tell you.
I never cared about DUI until a friend of mine got one DEAD NUTS SOBER and it damn near ruined his life and cost him over $20K. Sounds like bullshit eh? Trust me, it’s not. That’s what happens when you piss off a cop who just fucked up his car in a blizzard and needs and excuse for how it happened. How do I know my buddy was dead nuts sober? Because he was WITH ME from 07:00-22:45 that day and got his DUI at 22:57.
Geoff:
Wanna see what being tired does? Read my previous. I just work up after four hours of sleep.
Should I drive?
strych9,
I share your concerns about government overreach and abuse with respect to “dangerous” conditions and activities. As I implied in my original comment, it may not be practical for government to attempt to define, “regulate”, and control dangerous conditions and activities. Note that “may not be practical” includes the almost inevitable abuse that government agents are sure to bring.
The reality is that our modern lifestyle entrusts enormous destructive potential (in the form of chemical, kinetic, and potential energies as well as chemical toxicity) into everyone’s hands and there has to be some mechanism that actively reduces unnecessary gross negligence/risk to others.
In terms of drunk driving specifically, the best that I can imagine off-the-cuff is a three tiered approach.
(1) Did you crash, causing loss of life and property, and is your blood alcohol so high that you were impaired? Charge the person with negligent homicide or somewhat lesser charge if no one died.
(2) Did a cop pull you over because you were swerving all over the place and running stop signs (but did not crash or cause any loss of life or property)? This is akin to discharging a firearm in a random direction toward people/property that just happened to not cause any damage. Charge the person with some gross negligence crime.
(3) Were you driving just fine, a cop pulled you over for a broken tail light, your blood alcohol level was elevated, and yet you passed something along the lines of a field sobriety test that indicates you are functioning quite well? Either let the person go or, worst case, make them take a cab home and pick up their car the next day.
As for someone wanting to store 2000 gallons of gasoline in an above ground swimming pool with flimsy sheet-metal sides and a thin vinyl liner: no way. Whether or not that home-owner managed to keep that gasoline without a storage failure for 3 months or 3 years is neither here-nor-there. It is not a robust enough storage system. Once again, though, I see no practical way for a government to try and prevent that.
Perhaps one practical answer is that a person periodically invites family, friends, and neighbors to “audit” their lifestyle and highlight any conditions or activities that expose others to gross negligence/risk. This would be kind of like a “jury of your peers” — only they would be acting before the fact rather than after the fact. And this would keep government out of the situation.
strych9:
“I’m not arguing that drinking and driving is a good idea. I’m merely asking someone, somewhere to provide me a logical reason why drunk driving, in and of itself, should be illegal when any harm you might do to another person or their property is already illegal. What is the justification for making it “MOAR ILLEGALER!!!”? ”
That’s easy; it’s supposed to be a way to deter people from doing it.
If you damage my car, you are civilly liable. If you do it on purpose, you’re also criminally liable. If you do it by making the conscious decision to drink until impaired, and threaten multiple peoples’ cars and lives, it is worse than simply deciding to damage my car or person.
Simply deciding to harm me or my property is one thing; putting yourself in such a state that you could injure or kill someone you don’t know, have no reason for injuring or killing them, should be obviously worse, and we, as a society have deemed it to be so.
Making the punishment harsher for putting yourself in that state is a way to try to deter both yourself and others from doing it.
This is done in several cases; burglary, for example, is often paired with criminal trespass, which is, by itself, a distinct crime, as is burglary. But you can do either one without doing the other. So, separate crimes, often paired.
A day late, but I’ll chime in. I largely agree with strych. Almost everyone I’ve met who disagrees with his position, here and elsewhere, as well as anyone who supports criminalizing behavior that has the potential to do harm, makes the same logical mistake: there is a civil side to the law. The false choice presented is that either an action is criminal, or society will have no laws whatsoever. Strych has a point when he calls this “grabber logic,” because this is certainly the kind of faulty premise 2A advocates see constantly from the antis. “If you don’t want to ban guns, you must want murder to be legal!”
There are two sides to the court system: criminal and civil. If a drunk driver gets home safely and causes no harm, there should be no criminal penalties. If you make the argument that he potentially endangered others or their property, then sue him. He will be held civilly liable, if he did in fact endanger someone.
That’s were I am in my libertarian philosophy. So many criminal laws need to be replaced by civil laws where the direct victim receives restitution for the harm done. Reserve criminal penalties to those who present a danger to others and should be locked away from society until such time as they are no longer any danger.
Anon makes some very valid points here. I hadn’t actually considered the civil aspect of this. Nice touch there.
My simple supposition is that it’s not government’s business what you do unless you hurt other people or undertake an action which you intend to hurt them. Again, no harm, no foul.
As I’ve said, I personally don’t support, nor do I engage in, drunk driving. I’m also not the type of lunatic who thinks I’m going to get my way on this, I’m merely pointing out the stupidity of regulating behavior that “might be dangerous”. An AR with a 30 round mag “might be dangerous” yet we, as a group here on TTAG constantly complain about states that have an AWB. Well, until someone shows me otherwise, I’d say that these things are basically the same. It might be dangerous so it’s illegal. OK then why is flying your private plane, which you could crash into a house and kill a bunch of people with, legal? I contend that this is a faulty premise which can, and honestly WILL be abused by the government. In fact, I know that it has been.
Now, honestly, I understand that drunk driving increases the risk to both the drunk driver and everyone else. I would like to see a system like we used to have where we took those people off the road but didn’t engage is endless litigation designed, as far as I can tell, to screw the person to the wall while picking their pocket for the benefit of the state’s coffers. Drunk behind the wheel but no one is harmed? Well, that’s what the “drunk tank” is for. Release them in the morning when they’ve sobered up.
As I said to Geoff I didn’t care much about this until I saw my buddy damn near lose everything to a BS DUI charge. No one cared that he hadn’t done anything, no one cared that it was a cop who damaged his cruiser and was looking to pin it on someone else. No one cared that my friend was sober. He was charged and therefore effectively guilty. The criminal court case was perfunctory at best and the DMV case was a complete mockery of “due process”. The only real question was how hard he was going to get fucked. (Answer: Hard, with minimal lubrication.)
This was layer after layer of complete fucking bullshit stacked on top of another layer of bullshit all the way up to high heaven. Bad “science”, lying cops, dumb judges, lost evidence and a prosecutor who wanted to make a name for herself all combined with “drunk driving is a SERIOUS offence” rhetoric to justify a nearly unbelievable amount of tomfuckery at every level.
What was the end result? My friend damn near lost his job and everything else. He sold most of what he had to pay the bills for this nonsense and his rights were violated from here to Kingdom Come. Why? Because “it might be unsafe”. I can’t say this clearly enough: FUCK THAT BULLSHIT.
Anon and strych9,
Anon really stated the heart of the matter,
“Reserve criminal penalties to those who present a danger to others and should be locked away from society until such time as they are no longer any danger.”
What you are both implying is that only people who have malice in their heart should face criminal penalties. I do not differentiate between malice and gross negligence, both of which are examples of extreme selfishness and no regard for our fellow human beings. When you have no regard for your neighbor and you willfully choose to be dangerous, that is criminal in my mind.
As for eliminating the gun-grabber tactic of claiming that something is dangerous and using that to justify banning something, the solution is simple: we cannot allow bans based on “common sense” claims and we cannot allow bans based on criminal misuse of something. Rather, we only allow bans based on concrete data, and only then when a ban does not interfere with otherwise lawful activity.
As for your friend strych9 who wasn’t drinking, the problem there was corrupt police, prosecutors, and judges. Drunk driving laws were not the problem. Even without drunk driving laws, the cop who crashed his car could have claimed that your friend flipped him the bird and then proceeded to try and sideswipe him causing him to crash when he evaded your friend. Using that narrative, the cop (and prosecutor and judges) could have caused even more hardship for your friend.
Drunk, texting, crossword puzzle working…don’t we have laws against DISTRACTED and IMPAIRED driving? Why add the latest scourge as a special case? So we can charge someone with texting and driving because they checked time of day on their phone (they “manipulated” their phone while operating vehicle)? It’s happened. I think we need to avoid a cacophony of MADD laws.
tmm: “Drunk, texting, crossword puzzle working…don’t we have laws against DISTRACTED and IMPAIRED driving? Why add the latest scourge as a special case?”
One word: lawyers.
To expand: lawyers will easily ask, “Why wasn’t (insert here whatever his client is specifically charged with) in the laws about distracted driving? Lacking that specific definition, you can’t find my client guilty.”
And too many judges agree. (Based on precedent, it must be argued.)
Sorry, I have to disagree. If you are irresponsible enough to drink and drive, you are too irresponsible to be allowed in public with a gun, in my opinion. Unless a person has been living as a hermit in an isolated cave for the last several decades with absolutely no exposure to modern technology, EVERYONE knows that drunk driving is not only illegal, but stupid as well. Frankly, the punishments for drunk driving aren’t severe ENOUGH. They should be severe enough to scare anyone with a modicum of intelligence permanently sober. More people are killed by drunk drivers every year in the USA than by violent criminals.
Wrong.
# of people killed by alcohol impaired drivers in 2015: 9,967
https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
Estimated # of murders in 2015: 15,696
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/latest-crime-statistics-released
Yes, drunk driving is wrong and illegal. No, it’s not the bogeyman MADD has made it out to be. Need I point out swimming pool deaths in the United States again? We should make those pools illegal.
DUI (without a crash) has become so ridiculously over-litigated that the only ones really being helped are defense lawyers and mandated ‘therapies’ of dubious efficacy.
Swimming pool are the result of your own personal actions, not your life being put at undo risk based on the actions of someone else. Apples and oranges.
If we had the manpower and money to assign a LEO to follow each DUI until a threat became imminent, and had the ability to stop the car before that threat was realized, I might agree with you.]
Unfortunately, we can’t do that.
So, instead, we (society) see each DUI taken off the street as a threat averted, and a punishment meted out as a deterrence against future occurrences. It’s not perfect, but we live in an imperfect world.
And I don’t feel particularly sorry for those DUIs who are caught before they do any actual harm.
Rich:
You’re free to have your own opinions but not your own facts. That issue has already been covered by healthycuriosity.
As for the rest of what you say, as I said, you’re free to hold your own opinions. That doesn’t make you right. Please, clearly present to me the argument which supports the notion that DUI laws that related to DUI’s that don’t cause harm to people or property is a moral, ethical, logical and effective piece of public policy.
I would also ask that you stick to facts and actual data rather than the logical fallacies you’ve indulged in with your OP.
Further, please explain to me exactly how much alcohol it takes for you to hit 0.081 BAC and how you know this. Then explain how other people can use such knowledge to avoid a DUI. No guessing, no bullshit, analytics please.
Once you’ve done those two things, then please explain to me how to account for the errors present in the detection of DUI via blood and breath testing as well as how to eliminate the fudge factor possible with unscrupulous lawyers, politicians and police.
Take your time. I’ll wait.
Also, please note: I’m not defending drunk driving. I’m pointing out that public policy can’t be based on hunches, opinions, guesses or other nonsense lest we run into fanastical tomfuckery. I have for a long time, and will continue in the future, to logically defend behavior I don’t agree with from pointless intervention from our friends at .gov who have, IMHO no business sticking their nose into 90% of what they do stick their nose into.
You keep returning to the safety of your false premise if “as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else….
By that reasoning, the convicted pedophile should be allowed to teach and coach at your kid’s school, even take him on overnight school trips. As long as he doesn’t do anything to little Timmy or Bobby ow whomever, you’re cool, right?
Good F’ing grief. I swear, the best education these fantasist libertarians could ever get would be to live in a society based on everything you harp on. Letting you get a feeling for that ideology, good and hard, in the face, would do as many wonders to shut down that childish idealism for a couple generations as would sending these Che-loving, Castro-adoring types off to Cuba or North Korea for a while to get a load of what that life is really like there.
Excuse me Sir, but how exactly is requiring that a law with extreme penalties be one that makes it incumbent for one to do some sort of harm a false premise?
You don’t have to like it or support it but unless you can back up your opinion with some logical reason that a “crime” that hurts no one should in fact, be a crime, then I don’t have much time for you. So far you have provided nothing in that vein and so, thus far I have read and dismissed your [lack of] argument. What you’ve provided is a series of logical fallacies and nothing more.
A pedophile? Oooo… really going for the heart strings with that aren’t ‘cha? My feelz on the subject are irrelevant. So are yours. What I am personally comfortable with has no bearing on this discussion. Somewhere out there a person sits, clutching their pearls and screaming that they are uncomfortable that someone can have an “assault rifle” with a 30 round mag. That’s the level you’re at with this. Feelz, please.
If that person is deemed to be such a threat that they can’t be around children then what are they doing out of prison in the first place? Further, under no circumstances can sexual of abuse of a child be construed as a “mistake” or an “accident” which DUI most certainly can be. Do you really, honestly believe that people think to themselves “You know what I’m gonna do tonight? Go get loaded and then drive because fuck other people! HAHAHAHAHA!”? No they made a mistake, and if that mistake harms no one I see no reason, and you have provided not a one, that they should face serious legal consequences for their mistake.
Further do you believe that an actual pedophile, tripped, fell down and ended up with his erect penis inside a child?
In short, you’ve addressed NONE of my points and failed to make a single salient point on this topic. Instead you’ve relied on logical fallacies and personal insults. For shame Sir, for shame.
strych9: Drunk driving increased the rate of fatal “accidents” 6-12 times that of driving sober. So driving drunk significantly increased the risk to others who are also utilizing the roads. And while you may argue no harm no foul, performing actions that place that much significant risk to others should be discouraged using legal means. This is once case of do stupid things and other people get the stupid prizes.
Binder:
The owning of an AR-15 increases the odds of a mass shooting involving a AR-15 by, quite literally, an infinite amount (because the chances you’d do something like that with a gun you don’t have are 0 and any increase is infinite). Shall we ban the AR-15?
If we want to stick to driving there have been studies done that indicate that far worse than intoxication is being tired. Shall we require a sleep log as an affirmative defense that you’re not guilty of endangering others? No. That’s dumb. But it’s more dangerous! A law is needed! No. It’s dumb.
Further, one of the points of the article was to suggest that a DUI should get you stripped of your gun rights. What evidence can ANYONE offer to show that a DUI conviction is somehow linked to committing violent crime with a gun? There is none.
I’m sorry, until someone shows me actual facts and a logical reason why “increasing the probability of a bad outcome” should be a crime when there is no bad outcome I can’t support this. I don’t support the “proactive” view on it either. It’s a flat out gun-control argument on a different topic. At it’s core it’s no different than an AWB. We’re all against the AWB’s but somehow drunk driving laws get a pass. Why is that?
Cue the boozers and their drug user sociopathy.
‘American gun rights are not based on arguments about social utility, anymore than arguments about freedom of speech.’
I’d argue the opposite, it’s because of their social utility that the 1st and 2nd Amendments were place prominently at the top of the Bill of Rights. Where the left fails in it’s arguments over social utility is that the greater threat comes not from criminals but from governments. Mao killed 60,000,000 people. Stalin 40,000,000. Pol Pot killed over a quarter of his entire country. Criminals have never come close. Either way though, arguing that you’d be safer from either if you disarmed yourself is pretty inane right on it’s surface.
Also, check out 1A jurisprudence. Most “speech” is subject to the same intermediate scrutiny test that the 2A has been subject to in the appellate courts.
As most of you are probably aware, that test is so poorly defined that the courts often take it to mean “if I agree with this law, the government has met its burden, but if I disagree, the government hasn’t.”
“American gun rights are not based on arguments about social utility, anymore than arguments about freedom of speech.”
Uuuhh, actually both are.
The point here is not the esoteric, academic, theoretical discussion/arguments about “human, natural and civil rights”. The battle ground is what society will believe and accept. The forum for the battle is the judicial system. When it comes to settling or determining what “rights” are “rights”, the courts rule….literally and figuratively.
There is no cosmic or universal or international court of last resort that can overturn any government encroachment of the rights of people. When courts can define name-calling as “hate speech” (or when legislatures can make insults “hate speech”), theories about human rights are moot, pointless and destined to be shoveled into the dustbin. Governments are supposed to protect human and civil rights. When government fails, then the people are supposed to change the government. Obviously, the majority of humans around the planet accept government at the grantor, not guarantor of “rights”.
The only “rights” one actually has are those that can be individually defended. We can shout all we want, but the encroachments continue. We have move so far into servitude that the founders would want nothing to do with us. We can, and should, battle on into that fading twilight of personal freedom, but have no illusions that we can prevail.
“Gun rights” can be retained, but the courts can restrict them to the point of uselessness. In fact, “gun rights” may be the last constitutionally-protected we will have. Unfortunately, “rights” that exist only in the mind, or in the home are nothing more than government forbearance as a method of deflating demands for revolution. When every violation of the law becomes a felony, “gun rights” disappear without the need for gun confiscation.
Sorry Sara…Chicago doesn’t have tough gun laws anymore. Keep up. Shall issue CC,yeah we got 3 day handgun waits but it’s waaaaaay better than Commiefornia which you left.
CHIRAQ most certainly does, still, have “tough” gun control laws. Magazine capacity limits, “assault weapon” bans most everywhere in the north of the state, and a whole host of restrictions on where a CCW holder is “allowed” to go armed. Shall-issue concealed carry, while a big victory, is still relatively small fish.
Chiraq does not really enforce those laws.
Why bother even having them ?
Well, not against gang-bangers, at least. Can’t have too many of the “baby daddy’s” of the left’s favorite voting bloc in prison, now can we? If you don’t have a prior record (or if you’re white), however, your ass is grass.
But, good point, nonetheless.
Excedrine, if there were a legitimate defensive use of a firearm (as verified by those who where there and eyewitnessed the event) in a Chicago mass transit subway – railcar (a posted ‘gun-free’ zone) would that carry permit holder be charged with a crime?
Gee what cities besides Highland Park ban AR’s? Every large city has “gunfree zones”. And those mag bans mean SQUAT…you’re as ignorant as the gal you’re defending. A whole lot changed with preemption.
Biggest issue is public transportation. Local magazine limits still apply to log arms (or anyone form Illinois without a FOID card)
Cook County and the Chicago both have AWB on the books.
Yes the whole local preemption crap comes into play, so Unincorporated Cook County is actually stricter that Chicago, and Cabala’s in Cook Count sells 30 round magazines and ARs.
Sara isn’t the one saying that those places have “tough” gun laws. The article she linked to is the one claiming that the gun laws in those states are in danger if nationwide CC reciprocity passes. It’s the Bloomberg idiots who are claiming that Illinois’ gun laws are tougher (and thus, to them, better) and will be weakened.
The point is that the anti-gun folks are crying about the potential weakening of laws that clearly do nothing to stop a whole lot of “gun violence” in Chicago, Baltimore, DC, etc…
I don’t think the piece is that much of a blunder. Implying that a right can be strengthened ir weakened, and absolving the state from moral guilt is a load of crap, and if taken for fact serves Bloomberg’s cause, by destroying the concept of a right. Rather the right exists. It can be violated in every person, like a person can be stabbed in their liver, but metaphysically it is immutable.
“At the same time, the article leaves– or at least should leave — readers wondering why states that allow “stalkers, drunk drivers and abusive partners” to carry a concealed weapon aren’t plagued by “gun violence.””
They aren’t because the Russians hacked the crime stats! Admittedly, that’s just a guess. 8>)
The Bloomberg Editorial Board’s admission that national reciprocity strengthens the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens is a uuuge surprise. By making this admission, their argument against national reciprocity is reduced to “it’s a net loss.” How compelling is that?
Oh, it’s better than that. Carry is a right. The 2A means you can carry. Restrictions extract a cost from law abiding people. Guns can be used for self-defense.
It’s even better than that. They had to make this admission or discredit themselves. Which means the notions that carry is a right & etc. are in the national mindshare.
Again, if states like NJ, NY, MD, CA, HI actually read the Constitution (and maybe showed it to some of their respective judges) we wouldn’t be here and they could have instituted those ‘protections’ against small groups. But they made it clear that, for them, gun control is people control. I have no interest in their concern trolling.
…why states that allow “stalkers, drunk drivers and abusive partners” to carry a concealed weapon aren’t plagued by “gun violence.”
Because those same states also allow “stalked persons, sober drivers and abused partners” to carry a concealed weapon to defend themselves.
Not surprising that they are saying we have a right to carry after they lost all major elections. At this point they are just trying to get a compromise bill so the slave states won’t have to allow their own citizens to carry.
We should have none of that. We have at least two years to completely crush our opposition. Time to get national carry, nation preemption laws, national repeal of NFA, etc. If Clinton would have won you better believe Australian style gun control would already be in place. Give these gun grabbers no mercy, bury them in federal laws.
Criminals already have “constitutional carry”.
When is the last time that a punk walking into a 7-Eleven with a gun to rob the place was convicted not only of the robbery but of the illegal carry?
So in reality, constitutional carry is an attempt to extend rights enjoyed by common criminals to the law-abiding.
Bravo! Well said (asked?).
The problem with the Anti-Gunners is they seem to think that criminals will abide by the laws. In real life, laws only affect law-abiding people. The real crime is where law-abiding people are prosecuted very harshly in circumstances where they were only protecting themselves from violence. Too many cases, even in Texas, where the real victim is sentenced more harshly than the violent offender, who is often dead. Anti-Gunners act on the principle that everybody gets out of this life alive, except for those who are killed by guns.
“The problem with the Anti-Gunners is they seem to think that criminals will abide by the laws.”
The Fearful Of The Gun (TFOTG, or just FOTG) actually give no mind to criminal behavior. That is because FOTG believe that since they do not live in crime city neighborhoods, do not frequent places in crime city neighborhoods, they will not be attacked in crime city neighborhoods (first rule of avoiding being attacked in crime city is to not be there !). TFOTG are terrified that someone who is not a criminal will be in the same place as TFOTG (criminals never appear in the nice places occupied by TFOTG), and that non-criminal, law-abiding gun carrier will snap and attack FTOG in their safe spaces. Hence, only non-criminals need be controlled as to gun ownership and carrying.
No person needs a license to possess, carry or use a gun to commit a crime. Violent criminals serve their time in prison and get a gun within a day if they want one. TSA, ATF, the FBI and local police lose enough guns every year to supply the criminal black-market in back alley guns.
Honest people do need a license to travel across state lines because honest people do obey even stupid laws.
In the 1850s, the Supreme Court of the United States listed the rights of a citizen to include the right to travel across state lines, and to keep and bear arms wherever they went.That was in the dicta of the Dred Scott case and was just background.
Illegal aliens are not supposed to have arms either. The number of murders committed by illegal aliens nationwide, often using guns stolen from police, happens every week.
Passage of National Reciprocity, Indiana Rep. Hudson’s bill is better than the Senators.
Comments are closed.