TexasCHLforum.com

starrbuck wrote:I break it down and lock it up in the car if I am planning on drinking, but I rarely drink. I'd rather stay sober & safer.

Your choice.

For my own part, enjoying a drink with my dinner is a 100% non issue as to safety, sobriety, morality, ethics, or in any other respect whatsoever. After having one drink, I am sober. And so is any other adult with a normal response to alcohol.

The only time I'll leave my gun in the car is if I am going to enter a prohibited place.

Remember, we're talking about having one drink here. If I were intending to "go out drinking" where I might have 4 or 5 drinks, then it's a whole different story. Designated driver, no guns, etc.

TDDude wrote:

frankie_the_yankee wrote:
From the DPS website FAQ.

Q. Can I carry a handgun if I am drinking alcohol?

A. "Carrying" while drinking is not prohibited, but it is a criminal offense to carry while intoxicated.

TDDude wrote: I guess I wasn't clear.

I never implied I wasn't going to not be able to protect myself, I was implying that I wasn't going to drink.

That's your choice.

But in your OP you said that your instructors had told you that TX was "zero tolerance" in regards to drinking while carrying. I simply showed where that was incorrect.

TDDude wrote:

frankie_the_yankee wrote:

Show me someone who was sued and lost, after doing a "good shoot", because at some time before the shooting they had had one drink. Note: Not just someone who was sued and lost. Someone who lost after a good shoot, (i.e. not after a questionable or bad shoot), because they had one drink.

TDDude wrote: If you have to even step into a court room, you have lost.

Fine. Show me someone who had to step into a courtroom after doing a "good shoot" because at some time before the shooting they had one drink. And again, not simply someone who was sued after a shooting. Someone who was sued because they had had one drink.

I believe this to be a myth.

I've heard people use this "argument" to justify almost anything.

You can be sued after a shooting whether you have had a drink or not. Does that mean that we shouldn't carry guns? Or that we should never shoot anyone, even if they are in the act of killing us, because we might get sued later?

Because we might you know.

TDDude wrote: Anybody heard what's happening to our LEO's in the Border patrol lately? The jails have quite a few agents that are now incarcerated just because they were not able to "prove" that they were in the right and right now the political winds are in the illegal's favor.

And by that reasoning, we shouldn't carry guns and shouldn't do anything to defend or protect ourselves, because we might get sued.

I simply don't buy it. And if you look at the recently-passed Castle Doctrine law, winning these kinds of lawsuits just became much harder than it was even 6 months ago.

Lawyers don't like to work for nothing. If the chances of winning are too small, they will not agree to file the suit - at least on a contingent fee basis. The only way for someone to get a suit going is to put the lawyer on a retainer - i.e. pay him up front and as hours are billed.

Since winning on a good shoot is nearly impossible as it is, I don't see lawyers jumping at the chance to file suits against people who have had one drink before doing the shoot.

Your instrustors were just getting off on playing "the big man" telling you "stuff you won't want to hear", stuff that they knew and you didn't.

It's just that they didn't know what they were talking about.

TDDude wrote: I've had friends setup and sued and I've had friends arrested for bad charges that they had a hard time defending. My own small personal experience involved family court but the lesson was learned and learned well. Stay out of a courtroom at all costs.

Not at the cost of entering a cemetary.

Anyone can be setup and sued, and anyone can be arrested and prosecuted on bad charges. That's why a lot of people are judged to be "not guilty".

But just because someone might attempt to abuse the system someday doesn't mean that I'm going to walk around scared of that.

TDDude wrote:
Point of story:
If you guys can afford to plunk down $100k-$200k or so on court costs and attorney fees while being "right", drink up and more power to you. I hope you get a jury that isn't full of OJ idiots. One can do everything correct and even win, yet still end up ruined.

"Waitress, I'll have tea with my meal please."

That was my point.

Like I said, show me where that has happened in TX because someone had one drink. Then, I can assess the likelihood that it could or would happen to me.

Then explain why you would consider carrying a gun at all, since you could be sued anytime you shoot someone, whether you have had a drink or not.

My last instructor posed a hypothetical about whether one should carry past an obviously invalid 30.06 sign. I spoke up and said I would. He then asked me if my wife supported this possible course of action, because if she didn't, I wouldn't be able to make bail without her consent or agreement.

I told him that it was none of his business what my wife agreed with or didn't agree with, and that he should just trust me that I had the bail money situation covered.

Again, a guy trying to "play the man" (and obviously enjoying it, judging by the self-satisfied look on his face as he was showering us with this particular bit of wisdom) by shocking/scaring the class with what was more or less a myth. (Bail for carrying past a 30.06 sign isn't going to be $500,000 or anything like that. You won't have to put up real estate as collateral. For most of us, an ATM card and possibly a Bondsman would be more than adequate.)

So I will have that beer if I want to. And I will not worry about it for a second.

locknload wrote:Well .... as an infamous ex-Pres. once said, "It depends on what "is" is."

I've had a couple of very painful auto accidents, and I get muscle spasms from time to time, because of degenerative discs and sciatic nerve damage, especially late in the afternoon, after working or walking all day. Therefore, DH takes me out to dine, and I get something sweet that doesn't taste like alcohol ... hard to find. Because I always have at least one ulcer from the meds, it goes straight to my bloodstream. I believe that I would actually read "intoxicated" from one drink, if I were tested, even though I weigh close to 200#. One drink, relaxes the muscle spasm and is immediate pain relief, without the harsh side effects of pain meds, but I always have DH as my designated driver and shooter.

IMHO - One drink shouldn't get one drunk, but it depends upon the health condition of the drunk ... er, drinker!

Absolutely. And there are always exceptions to every rule.

My comments were intended to apply to someone who has a more or less normal or typical response to alcohol.

One should never drive or carry while intoxicated, no matter how much or how little alcohol is involved.

One drink will not get a person with a normal/typical alcohol response intoxicated, or any where near it.

TDDude wrote: It may be "legal" to have only one drink but if anything happens, a cival attorney will kill you in court no matter what the law states.

How and why would that be?

We always hear statements like this as in, "If you do 'X', you can get sued big time." But where's the beef?

Show me someone who was sued and lost, after doing a "good shoot", because at some time before the shooting they had had one drink. Note: Not just someone who was sued and lost. Someone who lost after a good shoot, (i.e. not after a questionable or bad shoot), because they had one drink.

TDDude wrote: I haven't looked it up but both the instructors I had said it was a "0" tolerance policy in Texas.

You seem to have bad luck in picking out instructors. In two out of two tries, you seem to have hooked up with instructors who are either badly informed or who sometimes prefer to preach their own opinions instead of providing their students with accurate information.

I have had two instructors too. My first one did a good job and stuck to the facts. The second one was one of these preachy blowhard types, IMO, who seemed to enjoy showering the class with his sometimes-strange opinions as to what was correct and what was not. This included but was not limited to the drinking issue. He also had some opinions, presented as "facts" about the legal boundaries of lawful self defense, 30.06 signage, etc., that were at odds what I have read or otherwise come to know about from many other sources far better-informed than he.

I took issue with him a few times when he said something particularly egregious, but in the end I decided to just get through the renewal class as quickly as possible and forget about it. (I was successful at the first, not so with the second.)

From the DPS website FAQ.

Q. Can I carry a handgun if I am drinking alcohol?

A. "Carrying" while drinking is not prohibited, but it is a criminal offense to carry while intoxicated.

If someone wants to give up their rights to armed self defense because they intend to have a beer, or forego having a beer because they are carrying and it would make them uncomfortable, etc., that's fine by me.

But I ain't gonna do it because I don't want to and I don't have to.

And neither does anyone else have to if they don't want to.

One drink, no problem for anyone with a normal response to alcohol. I enjoy a beer or glass of wine with dinner. It's fully legal. I would never leave my gun at home because I might have a drink.

For that matter, neither I nor the law has any problem with someone (again, who has a normal alcohol response) driving after having one drink.

Some people have moral or religious objections to drinking and that's fine by me. I am just stating my own preferences and how they square with the law.