An Alcoholic Drink While Carrying

[John Galt]

If we were talking motorcycles, it would be "8 hours from bottle to throttle".

When I was flying airplanes it was at least 12 for me.

[K.Mooneyham]

In other words, if you smell alcohol, and then have to use your handgun and the person you shoot dies, you'll find your new home in the Polunsky Unit, because the DA is going to make sure of it. DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL AND CARRY A HANDGUN!

[steveincowtown]

If a man can't be trusted with a gun when he is drinking, he can't be trusted with a gun.

Same goes for wives and sisters.

[Taypo]

If a man can't be trusted with a gun when he is drinking, he can't be trusted with a gun.

Same goes for wives and sisters.

[The Annoyed Man]

If a man can't be trusted with a gun when he is drinking, he can't be trusted with a gun.

Same goes for wives and sisters.

What was that Dirty Harry line? "A man's gotta know his limitations"?

It's not really about trust - the law trusts you with guns and alcohol......up to a point. It's about impairment, and that implies a point, beyond which it is too late for trust, because the trust has already been broken - by the person drinking - not by the law. SCIENCE says that, within minutes of having consumed even a single beer, you will begin to experience changes in your judgement, hand-eye coordination, and reaction times—at levels which you may not be aware of—but these effects ARE quantifiable and repeatable results in laboratory testing. So the question REALLY becomes, "at what point am I no longer trustworthy with a gun?" We would hope that a person who is drinking and carrying would have the wisdom to know exactly where that line is. And there are other factors which can come into play.....for instance, is the effect that alcohol has on you individually augmented by any prescription medications you may be on? These don't have to be intoxicants even. Beyond the intoxicating effect of alcohol, it can effect blood pressure, and blood pressure can have an effect on mental state. And mental state can affect your decision making. So there are a lot of variables at play.

In that light, here's an entirely plausible scenario........ you go to meet a friend for dinner at a restaurant that also serves alcohol, carrying your gun. You knock back a few beers during dinner and the conversation afterward — enough to impair any one or all three of the following: A) your judgement, B) your hand-eye coordination, C) your reaction times. Having had [insert number of beers which could affect A, B, or C for you] beers, you recognize that you have no business behind the wheel, and you ask your dinner companion for a ride home (this is a trick, which I'll explain at the end). This actually demonstrates that you have retained at least some good judgement in recognizing your impairment as an impediment to safe driving. But on the way out to your friend's car after dinner, you are both accosted by 4 [thugs, robbers, zombies, take your pick] in the parking lot. You go for your gun. In the resulting melée, one of your bullets shatters a nearby car window and embeds itself in the dashboard, one of your bullets wounds one of the assailants in the hip and he goes down, two of your bullets are COM and kill one of the assailants, three of your bullets pass over the top of the third assailant's head as he ducks and runs off......one of which hits a bystander in the head on the far side of the parking lot, killing him, and the fourth assailant flees before you can shoot him.

Here is the trick: It would defy logic to say that that you had reasoned on one hand that you were too drunk to drive, but that you had also reasoned on the other hand that you were NOT too drunk to react and shoot well, and had therefore NOT chosen to go secure your gun in your car. If you were too drunk to do the one, then you were too drunk to do the other. That's just basic science, and it is useless to argue with it. Now, before you get bowed up about this statement, I want to emphasize something: This does not mean that you lose your right to self-defense!!! HOWEVER, an innocent bystander 150 ft away from you is still killed by one of your stray bullets — and, regardless of what a prosecutor might make of it, you don't get to hide behind a moral defense of "I was just protecting myself" and therefore bear no responsibility for killing an innocent person. Does your killing of the innocent person begin with the attack on you and your friend? Yes, it does, and in that sense, the attackers also bear moral responsibility, and for certain at least some of the legal responsibility. But you had the option to defend yourself by other means (knife, fists, asp, whatever), and you chose to go to guns, and If I'm a prosecutor, I'm not going to let you off the hook for having killed an innocent person in your own self-defense. That just doesn't wash. You're going to go down for manslaughter, and I'm going to use your drunken state at the time of the shooting to make it stick.

At the point when you reasoned that you were too drunk to drive, but not too drunk to carry, you broke the trust......not anybody else, and not the law. Again, I want to reiterate that I don't believe that being alcohol impaired removes your right to self defense, but it makes you 100% responsible for the outcome if you shoot someone who didn't need shooting.....and the drunker you are, the higher the possibility of that kind of outcome. Yes, I already know that possibility ≠ probability; but that still doesn't make you immune from the laws of biochemistry, and wisdom dictates that, if you are carrying a gun, you will not subject yourself to the laws of biochemistry beyond that which you were born with; because an intoxicated person demonstrates lack of wisdom, and an UNwise person carrying a gun becomes a potential threat to people who are innocent of any wrong-doing against that person.

[K.Mooneyham]

If a man can't be trusted with a gun when he is drinking, he can't be trusted with a gun.

Same goes for wives and sisters.

True or not, it's irrelevant. Never curse anyone, never use rude gestures to anyone, and don't drink alcohol, when carrying a firearm. I'm not suggesting that you would do any of those things, it's about what can be used against you in court. BTW, I haven't heard of anyone being busted for that, but what is always said on this forum? "Do you want to be the test case?"

[joe817]

TAM. Good logic, and very well put!

[gemini]

........ If I start with a beer and want something more, I'll walk it out to the car. I've done many times, a drink or two friends can easily become more so I just excuse myself and lock it in the glove box..........

I must have misread this part of your original post.

Did I ever say I was then continuing to drive? No I didn't. Using your logic that a person can't have even the means to access the firearm when drinking would mean no one with a firearm in their home could ever drink. Let's think about this.

I did think about it. In your own home you're not concerned with a Leo catching you carrying while intoxicated. Thus, no need to go lock up
your gun in a glove box. Hopefully you won't drive, and just pass out in bed instead.
We obviously have different views on alcohol consumption and impairment. I'll let it go at that.

[ScottDLS]

........ If I start with a beer and want something more, I'll walk it out to the car. I've done many times, a drink or two friends can easily become more so I just excuse myself and lock it in the glove box..........

I must have misread this part of your original post.

Did I ever say I was then continuing to drive? No I didn't. Using your logic that a person can't have even the means to access the firearm when drinking would mean no one with a firearm in their home could ever drink. Let's think about this.

I did think about it. In your own home you're not concerned with a Leo catching you carrying while intoxicated. Thus, no need to go lock up
your gun in a glove box. Hopefully you won't drive, and just pass out in bed instead.
We obviously have different views on alcohol consumption and impairment. I'll let it go at that.

Legally you can "carry" in your own home while INTOXICATED, though it's probably a bad idea. Even if a LEO caught you...they would have nothing to charge you with, since it's not illegal to be drunk in your own home (yet).

[Countryside]

When I was in law enforcement we arrested scores of people who had only "two beers."

When they told us that we then started responding "Ahhh, the dreaded 7-11 two pack, huh?"

[ScottDLS]

When I was in law enforcement we arrested scores of people who had only "two beers."

When they told us that we then started responding "Ahhh, the dreaded 7-11 two pack, huh?"

How 'bout the old..... "It was that last shot of tequila that did me in.... "... Never mind the 14 beers they had before that!

[Wes]

No one is arguing there aren't a bunch of idiots in this world. We wouldn't have so many great, "here hold my beer" videos if there weren't.

[thetexan]

I've got a better one...

You hire me to fly you to Los Angeles. We get in our C650 after I have had 1/2 cup of beer. I feel no change in my mental or physical faculties, never mind the fact that I am violating the 8 hour no alcohol rule.

During flight we hit clear air turbulence and since everyone was unbelted (on my order) one person is injured and dies. Does anyone believe that I am civilly at risk from the family of the deceased. I have violated at least two rules one of which is a certain win for the plaintiff.

If I have had one swallow of beer and am attacked and if I shoot that assailant dead justifiably, is there anyone here who believes that the family of the deceased, if they know about the alcohol, won't file a wrongful death suit based on reduced mental or physical faculties?

The only way to argue that there was factually no impairment due to the introduction of alcohol or drugs into your system is to not ingest those items while carrying in the first place.

tex

[VoiceofReason]

OK let’s throw a couple more curves into the conversation.

I have a chronic condition and I take medication that says “do not operate machinery” on the label. Should I carry at all?

Someone is slightly retarded (I don’t know what the PC designation is) should they be able to get a CHL? To carry it a little further, who decides? What is the cut off IQ?

These are serious questions. I would like to know.

[Wes]

If we are just thinking up hypotheticals, what about the scenario where someone doesn't carry because they drink one beer and are assaulted and killed when carrying a firearm could have saved them. Is the off chance a single beer is going to cause you legal trouble in a good shoot scenario worth dying over? Don't drink and drive or fly or carry or whatever based on your own limits, whether those limits are based in law, morals, or physical. This isn't a one way or the highway situation, and if you think it is that's your right to think that, just as much as its my right to disagree. Without case law showing a clear consequence of carrying after having a single beer, how can you say definatively one way or the other? I can't, I just know what I feel is right and wrong. Each person needs to make this determination for themselves. I'm not defending either position, just stating mine.