I’m (one of the many here thankfully) stunned that this line of thinking.
SmashTheState: I rarely visit GD, but I’d really like to know your position on the “firing a gun randomly in a crowd” topic (which has been brought up both here and in the other thread). In fact, what about the gun parable you make in the OP?
How about this: without my glasses, I’ve got to be 3" from my monitor to read the text. Assuming that my license didn’t specify class A, would you mind if I took the freeway home tonight without them, provided I only dinged my fender a few times? For crying out loud; dangerous activities require a level of responsibility substantially above “no harm, no foul”
My argument all along has not been, “It’s perfectly okay to drive drunk,” but rather, “If you can justify driving at all, then the same justification can be used to support driving drunk.” In you never get in your car, the chances of killing me with your car are zero. Therefore the instant you touch key to ignition, you are, literally, infinitely more likely to kill me. Even if you are two or three times as likely to kill me by driving drunk, that’s miniscule compared to the difference between the odds of killing me from not driving at all and the odds of killing me from driving with prudent caution.
As for your first question… perhaps I should relate Abbie Hoffman’s answer. A reporter asked Hoffman if he believed in total freedom of expression. He agreed that this was the case. So the reporter asked him about the classic problem of someone shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre.
Abbie’s response? “FIRE! FIRE!”
Freedom always carries risk. That’s why cowards love oppression: it’s the safe choice.
And that is a perfectly reasonable law. In California, teens who get licenses are restricted as to when and with who they can drive for the first six months or a year (I think it has been toughened since my kids got their licenses.)
If each car came with a reaction tester that could screen drunks from being able to start the car, we’d be in better shape. The problem is that someone who is intoxicated has lost a lot of their judgment, and can’t be a careful driver by definition. (Teens never had it.) Given this, except for the case checkpoints, a drunk driver won’t get pulled ove unless he or she is driving as if they were drunk. In that case, blood tests can give strong evidence of intoxication while protecting someone who might be driving erratically while looking for an address, say.
The worst drunk is the one who is too drunk to know he shouldn’t drive. The most dangerous old person is the one who is too old to realize that he shouldn’t drive. Sometimes we don’t make the best decisions for ourselves and others, which is where the state should step in.
Because the elderly vote, a lot. Politicians don’t want to pass anti-elderly-driving laws because they don’t want to piss off old people. It’s the same reason they won’t do shit about shoring up Social Security or Medicare.
In Massachusetts, there is momentum to test elderly drivers on their abilities, due to three recent incidents in which elderly drivers drove into a store, a parade, and a young girl in a crosswalk. (article here)
Crafter_Man, it’s important to remember that driving is not a right. You are permitted to drive once you have reached a certain age and passed certain tests, provided that you adhere to certain restrictions. Some of these restrictions include obeying the speed limit, driving a vehicle that has passed emissions inspections, and only driving while sober. You are arguing as if intoxication is the only limit placed on drivers. On the contrary, there are a myriad of requirements that must be met, all with the aim of making driving as safe as is reasonably possible. Crafter_Man, what right, exactly, do you believe drunk-driving laws infringe upon?
The analogy isn’t needed, Griffin1977. Because DUI’s aaren’t “might crimes”. It is already a crime to get in your car intoxicated and drive. When you get a drivers license its considered a privilege, not a right. The Drivers Handbooks the DMV gives out with the rules and regulations probably vary from state to state, but I’m pretty sure they all say it is illegal to drive while intoxicated. So the guy leaving a bar, or his house or a local club after drinking a dozen Becks with JD chasers and getting into his and getting on the road is already breaking the law. If the cops pull him over and arrest him before he harms himself or someone else thats a good thing. Because the drunk driver has already agreed not to drive while intoxicated when he applied for the license.
The entire “might crime” theory doesn’t really hold up in the DUI argument.
As others have said, this is not true; driving while drunk is a crime in itself, because it is intentionally, knowingly, and recklessly engaging in a risky behavior that could easily cause the death of another person.
If I run dog fights once a week, whose rights am I infringing upon?
Some activities may not be directly infringing on the rights of a single person, but are still abhorrent to society as a whole. That’s why they’re illegal.
I am infinitely more likely to kill IN A CAR. I can still kill on a bike, with the microbes in my chest, or just by bumping into you and tripping you.
There are tons of things I can do that COULD kill you (as listed above). We ban some of them but not others, based on the risk involved, and what will the effects of banning that thing be ? What benefits will I be taking away by banning that thing (both tangible, easily quantified, benefits, and less tangible “rights”).
There is no hypocrisy involved, just a balancing of the two sides of the equation. With some things I disagree with the consensus we seem to have come to (off the top of my head, open container laws, wtf are those about? ), but this is not one of them. The benefits you gain from drink driving, are not enough justify the risk of killing me by doing it, the benefits you gain from driving sober outweigh the risk of you killing me when you do it.
The question was about firing a gun randomly into a crowd if it didn’t hurt anyone (and hence analogous to your OP), not about freedom of expression. You moved those goal posts pretty far. But hey: ABBIE HOFFMAN!
So, there is no taking into account how your actions would raise the probability of harming yourself or someone else…each action, though variable in potential harm, is equal. Correct?
So, if I own a gun there is a non-zero danger of harming someone by simply owing it…and this is equal to the higher non-zero danger of me taking said gun out and firing it randomly in the mall. As long as no one is harmed, neither action should be illegal…correct? The same would go if I owned a hammer (with a non-zero potential of doing harm to some one) and I used the tool as intended…or tossed it off a large building into a crowd. As long as the hammer didn’t hit anyone then all is good, since the potential to do harm exists in simply owning the tool, regardless of how it’s used. Does this correctly illustrate your assertion? If not, why not?
I’m not sure what this has to do with anything anyone has said, but ok. Let’s take this example. So, if I am in a theater watching the movie, this is, to you, equivalent to me standing up at some point and shouting ‘FIRE! FIRE!’ at the top of my lungs, assuming no one is actually harmed in the stampede for the door…correct? Since by simply going to the theater has a non-zero potential of doing harm then both actions are equivalent…assuming no one is hurt in either case. Correct?
Sure…but what about my freedom to not be killed by some idiot drinking and driving? Or by some moron firing a gun randomly in a mall? Or tossing a hammer off a tall building? What about my freedom to go to a movie without some asshole shouting ‘FIRE! FIRE!’ and inciting a riot?
Your argument is fundamentally flawed here. Apart from the initial point that the absolute increase is more important - an increase in chance from 0 to 0.0000000000000001% is indeed an infinite increase, but of significantlyy less import than an increase from 1% to 99%, there is a much bigger hole, IMHO.
You are underestimating your responsibility by claiming you have never driven. Even assuming you have never been a passenger in a friends car, a cab, a bus or any other form of transportation powered by an internal combustion engine, you have I will wager significant money, purchased items from stores the delivery of which was undertaken by trucks. You have contributed by your demand to the rate of accidents on the road, just as we all have. It isn’t a fair argument to say that your percentage chance of killing someone with a car is 0% if you never drive. Hence even if we look at the relative increase as opposed to the absolute, we aren’t starting from a clean slate by not driving.
How about running around on the pavement, raving drunk, waving gun around? Should that just be allowed while we wait for someone to get accidentally shot in the head?
While I live in a country that has MUCH stricter gun laws than the US, I can see a decent argument can be made for carrying to be legal. On the other hand, I don’t think I would extend that right to letting drunk maniacs wave their guns around on the public road - I think even in the US that could get you cleanly shot by the police. And when you’re driving a couple of tons of metal around at 60 MPH while drunk, you’re probably MORE dangerous to me than that. At least shooting a gun takes some kind of effort - when you’re “safely” driving around, you don’t need to do ANYTHING to run me over.
Cheers,
SP.
who’s been missed - on the pavement! - by a few feet by a drunk driver going 70 or so, yet never had anyone take a shot at him.
Now, Schenck, WAS later overturned. Holmes’ words, however, and the concept of “clear and present danger”, are still considered valid. And the whole “yelling fire in a crowded theater” (when there is none) IS a dangerous and harmful action:
But if no one drive you’d probably die too - from starvation. Trains are dangerous, ships are dangerous, horses are very dangerous. Bicycles are dangerous to pedestrians also. The question is whether we can reduce the risk below some threshold or ensure that the return from doing the risky activity is worth it. The risk threshold is lower when the action affects other people. We are a lot more willing to let people jump out of a plane than push someone else out.
He probably doesn’t care about those either. In another thread he said that he thinks people shouldn’t be punished for any actions they commit (except of course those whom he thinks are part of The Big Bad State. :rolleyes: )
Yes you have, and it is the same crime a drunk or chemically impaired driver who gets behind the wheel of a car and weaves from lane to lane scaring the daylights out of other drivers commits - ASSAULT…
Assault is -------- A crime that occurs when one person tries to physically harm another in a way that makes the person under attack feel immediately threatened. Actual physical contact is not necessary; threatening gestures that would alarm any reasonable person can constitute an assault.
The other folks on the road have no idea that you are drunk - just that you are threatening their lives by the way you are driving and that is ASSAULT.
), but this is not one of them. The benefits you gain from drink driving, are not enough justify the risk of killing me by doing it, the benefits you gain from driving sober outweigh the risk of you killing me when you do it.