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NeilTheCop

Member
If I took my old shotgun onto the lawn in front of city hall and fired both barrels harmlessly into the ground I would quickly be surrounded by police officers, arrested, charged, put in jail where I could bond out, and later appear before the judge. If I asked for my shotgun to be returned they would laugh at me because I obviously can't be trusted with a deadly weapon.
If I got blind drunk and drove my truck across the lawn of city hall I would quickly be surrounded by police officers, arrested, charged, put in jail where I could bond out and could collect my truck from the tow company, then later appear before the judge.
I could get drunk and do the exact same thing the next day and again I would have my truck returned. I could repeat this ad nauseum and despite the obvious fact that I could not be trusted with a deadly weapon they would keep returning the weapon to me.
Anyone see a problem here?
 
A

aldaron

Member
Speeding and texting kills 1000's more lives each year than DUI. Where's your outrage at those murderers? Prison for all speeders and texting while driving drivers! Act now to save lives.
 
Just Blue

Just Blue

Senior Member
aldaron said:
Speeding and texting kills 1000's more lives each year than DUI. Where's your outrage at those murderers? Prison for all speeders and texting while driving drivers! Act now to save lives.
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I feel outrage when idiots kill others. In this case the idiot killed 7 people. What's your point?
 
FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
Shyster, you're an attorney and you should know better. The assertion on Constitutionality you raise doesn't exist. The bill of rights only requires "due process." There's nothing special about arms versus other property or personal liberty when it comes to that.
 
FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
aldaron said:
Speeding and texting kills 1000's more lives each year than DUI. Where's your outrage at those murderers? Prison for all speeders and texting while driving drivers! Act now to save lives.
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Bullshit. Completely made up statistic Conservative estimations put the injury rate at about the same magnitude for distracted driving (which texting is lumped into) as DUI.
 
T

Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
Mass_Shyster said:
It is somewhat ironic that they'll take away your constitutionally protected arms, but will return the vehicle, which is not protected under the constitution.
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Although I generally support the right to own firearms, the difference is not hard to see. Firearms are designed principally for one purpose: to kill people or animals. Yes, they can be used simply for target practice, but that wasn't the purpose for which they were designed and built. They were designed to kill and have really no other practical purpose. And they are quite good at that purpose. That's evidenced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of murders in this country are committed using firearms. Not cars. Not knives. Not poison. People who want to kill will reach first for guns or perhaps explosives, for the more terrorist minded.

Cars on the other hand are not designed to be weapons. Certainly they can be used that way (as can almost any object) but that is not their designed purpose nor the way they are generally used. The vast majority of people use them for their intended purpose: to get from one place to another. Extremely few people choose to commit murder with a car. Moreover, in most parts of this country having a car is not a luxury; it's pretty much a necessity. The guy accused of drunk driving may well need that car to go to work, buy groceries, get to the doctor, and do all the other various things modern life demands. The same cannot be said of guns. They are not necessary to do any of those things.

So your attempt to equalize the two doesn't work. It's a false equivalency. I think you know that logically the two are not comparable. And yet you are falling into that same trap I see other gun enthusists make when defending gun rights: that of attempting to make guns seem less deadly than they are by comparing them to all sorts of other things that are not guns.

As I said, I generally support the second amendment. But even so, I wouldn't make the argument you did here because it logically fails. We need to recognize the unique nature of guns and treat them accordingly.

And yes, I fully expect to get a lot of push back from the forum members whom I know here are ardent 2nd Amendment supporters on this. But what I've said is true, like it or not. Cars and guns are very different objects and thus the regulation of them ought to take that into account.
 
C

commentator

Senior Member
The problem of drinking and driving is real, and well asserted. But since alcohol is entrenched in our society, and in America most places we simply suck at public transportation, we have this problem. If you go out somewhere and consume alcohol to drunk, or if you sit home and get drunk and decide to go buy another six pack, you have weaponized your vehicle, but that wasn't why you have one in the first place. And you hear people yell and scream when a drunk driver hits and kills someone. Simply murder, it was! Just as if they'd taken a loaded gun and shot someone with it. It's obviously not the car's problem, it's the driver's problem. Obviously the alcohol inside the person (by choice or due to the disease of alcoholism/addiction) is the problem, not the blooming car. Very poor argument that guns=cars. Because it just doesn't hold up. And when you take someone's vehicle, in this society, you take their employability, their self sufficiency, their family's transportation in many cases. That's not something you do on a one off, with no second chances. One doesn't have to have a gun to get to work. One doesn't have to have a gun to get around. Yes, it should be different, we could help the problem of drinking and driving, we could simply confiscate the car of anyone caught drinking and driving forever if we were a completely different country, with a well developed public transportation and bicycling and walking culture. But we aren't.
 
FlyingRon

FlyingRon

Senior Member
Yes. The influence of drugs and alcohol on driving is up around a third of all accidents. Distracted driving which includes (texting, voice cell phone use, and other cognitive distractions such as other people in the car) is only estimated at 10-15%.

Of course, that's also not to say you don't get overlap between DUI and distracted driving. Those who are drinking are probably lesser equipped to deal with the distractions.

The real problem is we don't know the magnitude of distracted driving. Absent an actual evidence that someone was involved in a text or call at the time of the accident, we don't know. They could have been texting and not noticed. Post-accident alcohol use is a bit easier to determine.
 
N

NeilTheCop

Member
Designed, built and marketed for only one purpose, to break the law.
https://www.bugatti.com/veyron/veyron-164-super-sport/To paraphrase the anti gun rhetoric.
"Nobody needs a 260MPH car to go to the supermarket"
"The only place for a car like this is on the racetrack, not the public roads"
"Common sense legislation would ban the sale an possession of such cars"
And the all time classic;
"If legislation saves the life of just one child, it's worth it"
 
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