Opinion
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- In the incessant effort to disarm the American public and turn the nation socialist—evincing a design to reduce us under absolute despotism—Congress and the states, with mass media and misguided countrymen in tow, have been using the joy of alcohol to take your firearms.
They have come a long way, boiling the frog slowly under the radar, but you and I know it. Permits for carrying firearms discreetly already come with a ban on possession in places serving alcohol. That’s almost anywhere decent you might want to eat. There’s no inherent danger in owning sidearms in a restaurant, especially if you don’t consume alcohol (the typical requirement), but the gun ban tied to the eating ban is now virtually complete across the nation. Several narrow exceptions exist.
We were all taught that guns and alcohol don’t mix. It’s a reasonable safety rule. How many of you remember a traditional rural Christmas, where after a giant family meal with plenty of wine or whatever, a bottle followed the men and their shootin’ irons to mix on the back porch for some plinking, cigars, and talk unfit for polite company? People survived it and grew up healthy and strong. I’m just sayin’. In a truly free society, you’re responsible for yourself. No blood no foul. Anti-rights advocates don’t buy any of that.
Guns and Cars
A close parallel and “good next step” to the no-drinking restaurant ban for antis is the frequent demand to treat guns the same way we treat vehicles. Aside from the obvious license and registration elements getting all the attention, the restriction on drinking and driving is an underplayed back story here.
If you can’t operate a car with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08, easily reached after a few beers, how could you possibly justify possession of “dangerous loaded handguns” under similar intoxication? This point has morphed into the carry-permit schemes of some states, further poisoning those already gross paperwork-permit infringements.
By extension, the point goes much further. However, it just hasn’t been discussed openly, for fear of tipping the socialists’ hands. If a person is watching sports at home, and consuming as much beer or other adult beverages as the game demands, why wouldn’t the drunk driving rules apply to firearm possession indoors? Don’t laugh; these rules already exist—in a slightly different form at home.
Remember, the left and their disarmament cohorts have dreamed up other absolutely outrageous schemes for justifying “legally” taking away your guns, remember? The guns are made of the wrong materials (they melt too easily), the magazines are the wrong size (they hold as much ammo as police think they need for crime prevention and self-defense), the hunting scopes are really sniper scopes, the guns are too inexpensive, have the wrong safeties, aren’t on the list, you know the litany. It doesn’t end.
So how can “we” (the collective socialist “we” where government is “we” enforcing its notions through the use of armed force) allow “you” (the proletariat under control for the good of society) be “allowed” (that dangerous word, allowed, implying your freedom exists because someone else says so, not because you are free to act), to possess arms at the same time you possess enough alcohol to incapacitate the Coast Guard? The left wing already has announced plans to limit how much ammo you ought to be “allowed” to have. A full gallon of bourbon?
Inebriation
If you suspect regulating your alcohol possession, and tying it to your gun possession seems far-fetched, think of it in context of the larger issue of mental health and capacity to safely own and operate, well, anything.
The rules already exist, at the federal and state level for banning guns based on possession of other inebriants, Schedule 1 drugs. Work is underway to add people to the banned list based on prior legal prescriptions. The attempt was made to ban gun ownership based on a secret police list (secret police? in America?) for air travel (which failed, fortunately, for now).
You are also banned from gun possession if anyone living in your home is a prohibited possessor because that person can’t have access to even a single round of ammunition. So any gun or ammo out in the open, where it might be used, puts you in felony violation of the law (without any harm or actual malum in se crime done). But wait, there’s more. We’re way beyond beer here.
While you can’t walk into a restaurant in many states to eat with your discreetly carried sidearm, even if you don’t imbibe, you can walk into a convenience store and buy a 24-pack of beer and two-fifths of bourbon to wash it all down, while armed to the teeth. You know where that booze is going—down the gullet. How can polite society allow that? (Now the left is polite?)
Worse still, if you’re dead drunk (still legal) and you legitimately shoot a murderous intruder in your home, can prosecutors enter your blood alcohol into the record and use it against you? Sure they can, there’s no protection against this—but maybe there should be some. “§101: Blood-alcohol level is not a factor in justifiable self-defense if no tangential harm is done.” That’s good law. How about if you’re out in public at the time? “See §101.”
Public drunkenness is illegal, but a difficult charge if you’re not exhibiting symptoms. But if you’re armed and drunk, well, it depends. Which state? Got a permit? Who’s the prosecutor? The left would love to make a case for: “got alcohol – no guns” because anything that disarms the public is a good idea (to them).
A national blood-alcohol limit on being able to carry—the step before banning possession, or even ownership, for people in possession of dangerous inebriants (beer), is in their playbook, and already on the playing field. Arizona’s laws, like some states, makes the alcohol driving charge stick if “impaired to the slightest degree.” Yes, that’s the rule.
Next, we’re going to look at the medical-marijuana craze sweeping the country. That one is already on the books. Your pot card, and your gun card (which libertarians warned you about), both databased, are easily compared. Barack Hussein Obama knew that when he said, sure, go ahead, enjoy your dope as I did back in college, we’re not going to do anything about that. Yet.
Got medicine?
About Alan Korwin
Alan Korwin, a national columnist, award-winning author of 14 books and veteran of more than 1,000 radio and TV interviews, runs Bloomfield Press, which distributes the new 2019 Traveler’s Guide to the Firearm Laws of the 50 States. He can be reached at GunLaws.com where you can read more common sense like you just read.