going out for dinner and having one drink

[KBCraig]

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.

I'd settle for an example of someone who engaged in a good shoot while rip-roaring drunk, who was sued and lost.

Legal justification doesn't change with the sobriety of the shooter.

[TDDude]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

In my very average life of 48 years I've discovered that words like "Truth" and "Legal" and "Moral" mean nothing in a court room. It's all about money. Everything revolves around what can be "proved" and proving anything in court takes piles of money. 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.

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.

You seem to have bad luck in picking out instructors.

Perhaps so. I'll give you that one.

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.

[cbr600]

deleted

[frankie_the_yankee]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[starrbuck]

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.

[frankie_the_yankee]

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.

[striker55]

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.

Exactly what I'm talking about, just one with dinner. Thanks frankie_the_yankee.