Great parallel between MADD and those pushing for firearm restrictions.
I hate MADD because they pushed DUI laws that are overly restrictive. They would prefer prohibition.
I am also sure that a lot of people supporting these firearm laws would also prefer outright prohibition.
I don't mean to get off-topic, but yes I think the DWI laws are overly strict. If in fact no one is hurt or any property damage is done, the DWI charge has the harshest penalties as far as driving is concerned, even if you victimized no one. If I looked I could find an example where a man got pulled over 5x for DWI over a 33 year period, and on his 5th got a 25 year sentence from the judge, even though he never wrecked into anyone.
My dad was watching a Perry Mason episode the other day and some random comment to Mason was something like "The man blew a .15 when he got out of the vehicle. .15!? That man was approaching being drunk!" Now in a lot of states, even though the official limit is .08, the cops can arrest you for as low as .03, especially if you've already had one or two DWI's, and DUI's below .08 automatically get upgraded to DWI usually if you're a repeat offender so you can easily find yourself a felon even if there was no victim or property damage done. It's essentially zero tolerance, getting lots of people tied up in the legal system even though otherwise they are not criminal at all, or were well below the BAC where fatal DWI's start occuring regularly (which is around .17, not .08, let alone .03).
I could talk to you about the faults in our DWI laws if you want but that would have to be a separate thread. If I go for my Masters in CCJ, I'm thinking my thesis will be about how DWI laws always getting stricter is not saving lives on road ways, but ruining more lives and peoples from finding a job for finding employment.
DWI is a pre-crime if no victim or damage is done when you are pulled over for it. In another thread I railed against laws against pre-crime's because they are the very essence of big government and laws designed to put more US citizens in the CCJ system and deny them of constitutional rights and voting rights. Pre-Crime law's are one of the main reasons why we have such a bloated prison population. You can actually go to jail longer than a murderer if you're found with crack and a gun on your third felony arrest. 40-50 years ago, the Prison system was based on what you did, that got you in that position. These days its due to a combination of factors and what you COULD of done, that leads to long incarceration offenses, even when the person had no mal intent at the time they were stopped by police.
edit: If you wanted to make driving laws fair, then Alcohol should only be a factor in a ticket, the underlying factor for an arrest shouldn't be alcohol and alcohol alone, because I know plenty of sober drivers who put lives at risk including myself back when I was into street racing. The main prerequisite for an arrest due to your driving shouldn't be small amounts of alcohol in your system, but if you were driving recklessly. They should swap DWI penalties with Careless and Imprudent driving penalties. I've gotten a C&I and my driving was much worse than when I got my DWI, but the penalty for my C&I was a slap on the wrist and I didn't even get arrested, just a small $300 fine. You have to be driving really REALLY bad to get a C&I, usually people with modified or fast cars are the ones who get them though, or if you did something crazy like drive on the opposite side of the road or 120mph down the highway, as it sits now, C&I's don't make for an arrest all the time like DWI's do.
