DUI laws should all be repealed

Why imprison people for taking shots at you if they miss? By your logic, if a person took a rifle and shot at you but missed, they should have no penalties at all.

Some how, if everyone stated to take shots at your family, even though they missed, I am thinking you would want it to stop and stop immediately and arrest them. Just my guess.

The correct analogy will be people pointing a gun at you but not shooting.

I don't think that jurors have an easy time, if at all ever, deciding on intent. That requires mind reading. What if that same person shooting all over the place is drunk? No intent, gun just happened to be around, no one got hurt, no one should be upset or try to jail that person should they?

We see it different and so do people planning terrorism. Trying to prove intent is nearly impossible, i.e. drunk drivers knew before the first sip that they might drive and they might kill some one, isn't that intent?

It's just my opinion so, for me, if you hurt some one while drunk, you should be prosecuted for the most extreme punishment possible under law. Kill some one and it should actually be murder in the first degree since the drunk planned having the booze, death penalty and all.

I wonder, James, if someone you love was the victim of a drunk driver - how would you feel, then, about the drunk driving laws?

Yes, I read your article before I posted my message.

DUI driver's have a tendency to drive outside the correct lane of driving for their vehicle. They also either drive too fast or too slow. Seen a couple of both. When stopped by law enforcement, they are tested onsite. Failure to walk correctly as a sober person could and a few other tests confirms they are ooops drunk. But more often than not DUI drivers are 'caught' when they have a wreck.

There is no might do with a Drunk Driver. That is a proven fact, they are involved in wrecks because of their impaired state created by drinking more than one beer.

your quote: "The reason we arrest someone is because the "might" harm someone". They get arrested because they are driving in a manner not usual with a normally 'sober' person's driving. Then when they are deemed by the arresting officer to be drunk, failure to complete sobriety tests, then they are arrested. Becaue a Drunk Driver is a proven hazard on the road to other drivers and to themselves. They have wrecks.

James we prosecute people for being a threat for a multitude of things. Not JUST DUI. We also arrest them for verbal assault...Yes, telling someone you will beat them up actually carries a harsh punishment. What about the guys that calls in a bomb threat? We prosecute them as well. We have been jailing people for PLANNING terrorist attacks for over a decade.

These are just SOME of the activities that can have someone arrested and prosecuted. They have not actually harmed anyone, but they pose a threat to public safety, and participate in behaviour that is viewed by the greater public as dangerous to others. And contrary to your previous ascertation, that my line of thinking would arrest "almost every American", I wouls beg to differ.

If EVERY American participated in activity that put the general public in danger, the offenses would not be arrestable. However there is a HUGE difference between (for instance) TALKING about robbing a bank, and plannig, casing, obtaining the equipment, and moving toward the actual act (also an arrestable and convictable offense). Or another, would be TALKING about smuggling cocaine in to America vs. contacting people, setting up meetings, and developing a plan (also an arrestable and convictable offense).

We have tried to be a reactionary society, it has failed us miserably...9/11 is a GREAT example of how being reactionary has failed us on a large scale. When in battle (which is what fighting crime is), there are two ways you can go. Being on the "defensive" where the "enemy" determines all of your actions, and responses. OR being "offensive", where YOU determine the terms of the battle, the area, and time of the battle, and forcing the enemy to react. In the case of being defensive, you tend to lose more often than win, because the enemy has put planning, and resources in to his action. You as the defender are not a prepared as your enemy, thus you eventually are defeated. I am in support of an offensive posture, where we are proactive, and deter our enemy through decisive maneuvers that deplete his resources.

By continually convicting, jailing, and restricting the rights of those who put the public in danger, we are taking an offensive posture, and reduce the occurence of injury or death to the "good guys" the law abiding citizen.

If we do anything, we should make DUI a felony with an immediate prison sentence as manditory with 12 step treatment while in prison. I would be willing to bet that the number would reduce drastically.

Im sorry for the confusion, I meant two separate accidents.

I had a friend kill himself while intoxicated (2005) and I had another friend (a female) who killed her best friend while intoxicated (2000).

If I remember correctly, she served 3 or 4 years in prison. The real kicker to the DUI manslaughter was that she (the driver) was probably the most intelligent person I have known. She stayed in school while she was incarcerated and ended up finishing up her education at Berkeley. We have drifted apart since her release, although I supported her as much as I could, I did feel that maybe she got off too easy. It seemed as if I felt more remorse for her accident than she did, and I had a hard time accepting that.. Im glad shes not wasting away her life, but her friend who died will never even get the opportunity to do just that.

People tend to think that @!$%# like this won't happen to them, that they are okay to just drive home when they have had a little to drink. But these accidents happens all the time, way too much in my opinion, to let it slide. I get your point, I just don't agree with it. I'd rather have the current laws in place than giving people the okay to have that mentality and potentially kill another person, especially when its something that can be avoided so easily.

By the way, thanks for the condolences. Not a day goes by I don't miss him.

The intent isn't there, but its like the analogy I made before. Its like playing with loaded guns when your drunk. Its simply not an intelligent thing to do. She was so smart and did something so stupid. Its negligent. Its selfish. And yes, its within our rights to be negligent or selfish, but not when it is detrimental to the lives of others. I think where we part ways is the intent of these laws. I don't see them as a restrictive force against our rights, even if I feel I am fully capable of driving under the influence. I see it as a preventative measure to educate the severity of these actions and the possible consequences, be them intentional or not. The education is out there and its been engraved in our brains since we were old enough to know what alcohol can do. There is just not a legitimate reason to DUI. We might just have to disagree on this one. I do think its a very clever perspective though, and I think you will have a good debate here, but I would rather have the laws than not.

Its not wrong, its an opinion, and apparently, most of the people out there agree with me.

Good luck having a discussion with people when you tag anyone who disagrees with you as wrong. nice.

I haven't been aggressive and I never said you were wrong. I simply said I disagreed. Its cool, though.

I did think you were talking about the points in the discussion, not the topic, sorry. I get it.

Like I mentioned before, I think its a really clever topic of discussion, I think you give good food for thought and I might have to come back a little later after I've thought about this a bit more.

It is similar to owning an automatic rifle or other powerful firearm. An owner of one could kill many people or may not. But imprisoning someone for not committing any crimes is not right. We should only imprison people for infringing on the rights of others. Hitting someone or their car with a car infringes on their rights. Driving while disoriented or distracted doesn't infringe on anything.

ok polka...we are agreeing too much lately...FR sent.

When someone supports pro-freedom concepts then there is no going back to anti-freedom concepts. Unfortunately almost everyone tries to rationalize whatever anti-freedom concepts they want to defend like forced jury duty or the draft or income tax or compulsory witnesses during a trial. If this nation was a 100% free nation with government that only existed to defend our rights from infringement then it would be the most unique state in the world.