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 d-usa wrote:
Around here people want public executions for drunk drivers. Saying that gun deaths get people more fired up that drunk driving deaths would be extremely wrong in my neck of the woods.

Yep.

 d-usa wrote:
Around here people want public executions for drunk drivers. Saying that gun deaths get people more fired up that drunk driving deaths would be extremely wrong in my neck of the woods.

Where do you live? Northern Somalia?

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Around here people want public executions for drunk drivers. Saying that gun deaths get people more fired up that drunk driving deaths would be extremely wrong in my neck of the woods.

Where do you live? Northern Somalia?

Greater North Texas

 d-usa wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Around here people want public executions for drunk drivers. Saying that gun deaths get people more fired up that drunk driving deaths would be extremely wrong in my neck of the woods.

Where do you live? Northern Somalia?

Greater North Texas

When did Texas institute Sharia Law?

I am sorry, I seemed to have absolutely no clue what the point is that you are trying to make.

Is it that having people be angry when some drunk idiot drives his car into somebody and kills them makes us an anarchist Muslim country?

Evidently anyone who voices a different opinion than Shuma is now evil. I like the direction this is going.

 d-usa wrote:
I am sorry, I seemed to have absolutely no clue what the point is that you are trying to make.

Is it that having people be angry when some drunk idiot drives his car into somebody and kills them makes us an anarchist Muslim country?

Hey now, Sharia is a harsh and strictly upheld form of law based governance! Not anarchy.

And yeah, I was remarking on the idea of wanting to put someone down for a drunken mistake. Killing someone because you were driving drunk is awful, but there's no maliciousness or intent in it. It's an awful mistake. That's like wanting to execute people who aren't fastidious with putting up those peanut allergy warning signs when that results in someones death. There are plenty of ways people can accidentally kill eachother. Are there calls for death against the accused in hunting accidents?


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 Amaya wrote:
Evidently anyone who voices a different opinion than Shuma is now evil. I like the direction this is going.

It has been the last few days. People have been voicing some pretty evil (or just ridiculous and unworkable) opinions.

Why are you excusing drunken mistakes? It is common sense that you should not drink and drive. Becoming drunk and losing your inhibitions does not excuse that. You chose to put yourself in that scenario.

Shuma, tell me if you think the two situations are the same:

A drunk guy decides to play with a gun in his house, he is to drunk to realize it is loaded and has a negligent discharge. The bullet does out his window and hits a 9 year old in the head, the kid dies.

A drunk guy decides to drive his car. He runs over a 9 year old and kills him.

Is one situation worse than the other?

 ShumaGorath wrote:
And yeah, I was remarking on the idea of wanting to put someone down for a drunken mistake. Killing someone because you were driving drunk is awful, but there's no maliciousness or intent in it. It's an awful mistake. That's like wanting to execute people who aren't fastidious with putting up those peanut allergy warning signs when that results in someones death. There are plenty of ways people can accidentally kill eachother. Are there calls for death against the accused in hunting accidents?

You're missing a key point.

Accidentally hitting someone with your car while drunk isn't the same as accidentally hitting them with your car while not drunk. Accidentally shooting someone you think is a deer while drunk isn't the same as...you get the idea.

Unintentionally killed someone while driving under the influence? You made a choice to get loaded. You made a choice to drive. You could have avoided breaking the law and spared a life, but you didn't. That's why it should be - and is - punished far more harshly than pure accident. It's not a pure accident.

 d-usa wrote:
Shuma, tell me if you think the two situations are the same:

A drunk guy decides to play with a gun in his house, he is to drunk to realize it is loaded and has a negligent discharge. The bullet does out his window and hits a 9 year old in the head, the kid dies.

A drunk guy decides to drive his car. He runs over a 9 year old and kills him.

Is one situation worse than the other?

Not really. I'd say that the car scenario could be construed as being more negligent and reckless as it involves more steps and requires that the person leave their home, but there are plenty of decisions with a sensible logical flow that could lead to that ("Whelp, time to leave this party, I'm not that drunk."). I don't think either is evil or worse than one another.

When you're driving drunk and kill someone you're not really any different than someone who drove drunk and didn't. What you are is less lucky. Same with the guy that accidentally shot the one spot out his window that would result in someones death.


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 Seaward wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:
And yeah, I was remarking on the idea of wanting to put someone down for a drunken mistake. Killing someone because you were driving drunk is awful, but there's no maliciousness or intent in it. It's an awful mistake. That's like wanting to execute people who aren't fastidious with putting up those peanut allergy warning signs when that results in someones death. There are plenty of ways people can accidentally kill eachother. Are there calls for death against the accused in hunting accidents?

You're missing a key point.

Accidentally hitting someone with your car while drunk isn't the same as accidentally hitting them with your car while not drunk. Accidentally shooting someone you think is a deer while drunk isn't the same as...you get the idea.

Unintentionally killed someone while driving under the influence? You made a choice to get loaded. You made a choice to drive. You could have avoided breaking the law and spared a life, but you didn't. That's why it should be - and is - punished far more harshly than pure accident. It's not a pure accident.

It's punished much more harshly because of cultural tendencies to treat people who are drunk or under another form of drug influence harshly dating back hundreds of years. I don't see people who decided to talk on the phone or eat a five dollar foot long while driving treated dramatically differently. The "choices" are only immoral or reckless when we don't like them. People hate drunk drivers because they're taught to do so from a young age.

Drunk driving itself isn't a difficult act to perpetrate though, and it can happen to otherwise nice and careful people. The difference in punishment between drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter due to drunk driving are dramatically different despite one just being the logical result of the other given uncontrollable exterior events (such as someone else being on the road at the wrong time). There is a differentiation between the two because we feel justified in punishing the accident more than we do the crime. It's a gotchya.

 ShumaGorath wrote:
It's punished much more harshly because of cultural tendencies to treat people who are drunk or under another form of drug influence harshly dating back hundreds of years. I don't see people who decided to talk on the phone or eat a five dollar foot long while driving treated dramatically differently. The "choices" are only immoral or reckless when we don't like them. People hate drunk drivers because they're taught to do so from a young age. Drunk driving itself isn't a difficult act to perpetrate though, and it can happen to otherwise nice and careful people.

Then you're not paying attention, because penalties for provable impairment of any sort - doing your nails, texting, teaching your dog Chinese, whatever - are in fact higher.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Relapse wrote:
It's pretty clear at this point in the thread that most posters are far more bothered by someone getting killed by a gun than someone dying from alcohol related causes even though alcohol kills more than twice as many people as guns.
Even if we were to take just the statistics of people killed by drunk drivers and compare them to someone who has been killed by someone intending to shoot them, alcohol related fatalities lead.

So now my question is why do people care more about gun related deaths?

People don't (usually) drink themselves to death or kill people by driving drunk. You shoot someone on purpouse. Thus, there's not just the death of the victim, but the breach of the social contract as well (you don't go around killing people at a whim). Alcohol wasn't invented or intended to kill people, guns are.

The fact of the matter is that more than twice as many people die from alcohol related causes than guns, yet I have yet to see a thread against alcohol. I do see threads that pop up asking people what they are drinking, though.

 Seaward wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:
It's punished much more harshly because of cultural tendencies to treat people who are drunk or under another form of drug influence harshly dating back hundreds of years. I don't see people who decided to talk on the phone or eat a five dollar foot long while driving treated dramatically differently. The "choices" are only immoral or reckless when we don't like them. People hate drunk drivers because they're taught to do so from a young age. Drunk driving itself isn't a difficult act to perpetrate though, and it can happen to otherwise nice and careful people.

Then you're not paying attention, because penalties for provable impairment of any sort - doing your nails, texting, teaching your dog Chinese, whatever - are in fact higher.

And are a joke next to the same penalties for drunk driving. Please pay attention to what you post. The crux of your argument was comparing drunk driving to non drunk driving. Not "any form of distraction" to "no distraction".


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Relapse wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Relapse wrote:
It's pretty clear at this point in the thread that most posters are far more bothered by someone getting killed by a gun than someone dying from alcohol related causes even though alcohol kills more than twice as many people as guns.
Even if we were to take just the statistics of people killed by drunk drivers and compare them to someone who has been killed by someone intending to shoot them, alcohol related fatalities lead.

So now my question is why do people care more about gun related deaths?

People don't (usually) drink themselves to death or kill people by driving drunk. You shoot someone on purpouse. Thus, there's not just the death of the victim, but the breach of the social contract as well (you don't go around killing people at a whim). Alcohol wasn't invented or intended to kill people, guns are.

The fact of the matter is that more than twice as many people die from alcohol related causes than guns, yet I have yet to see a thread against alcohol. I do see threads that pop up asking people what they are drinking, though.

So to bring this thread full circle:

The OP thinks people are more upset at people getting killed by guns than people getting killed by drunk drivers.

I said that around here people are much more upset at people dying from drunk driving than guns.

Shuma seems to think we hate drunk drivers for irrational reasons.

That cover it?

 ShumaGorath wrote:
And are a joke next to the same penalties for drunk driving. Please pay attention to what you post. The crux of your argument was comparing drunk driving to non drunk driving. Not "any form of distraction" to "no distraction".

And the crux of your argument seems to be that drunk driving isn't a particularly big deal, that it's easy to accidentally allow to happen, and there's no reason it should be punished any differently from a purely accidental death.

If you're trying to say that penalties for killing someone due to driving while texting should be higher, I'm fine with that. And they're ramping up as more and more incidents occur. Beyond that, I honestly have no idea what point you're struggling to make, aside from the possibility that you're pro-intoxicated driving?

I think drunk drivers should be shot by people with hand guns.

I would be amazed if theres not many American members here that haven't driven when they shouldn't have. Seriously think about it. Has there NEVER been a point when you were on something, legal or otherwise, and drove? Or got int the car with someone? Never had "just a few" and drove? Im sure a lot of people will vehemently deny it, but the stats say otherwise:

http://www.fairwarning.org/2010/12/more-than-30-million-americans-have-driven-while-drunk-survey-finds/

I honestly think our drunk driving penalties are laughable in some states, but with most Americans having zero access to public transportation and intoxication a national pastime, these things are gonna happen. Horrible mistake it may be to drink to much or take too many prescription pills and then drive and kill someone, but do you really think executing them is fair punishment? Havent we progressed past eye for an eye justice? Which is what I think Shuma was alluding too, just not very well.

It depends on how much you can handle. I can drink a six pack and hardly feel anything. Once I get up to 12 it's probably a bad idea to drive. Eighteen to 24 and I'm probably completely non functioning. Some people get drunk off 3 beers. /shrug

You know your limits, don't surpass them.

 Amaya wrote:
It depends on how much you can handle. I can drink a six pack and hardly feel anything. Once I get up to 12 it's probably a bad idea to drive. Eighteen to 24 and I'm probably completely non functioning. Some people get drunk off 3 beers. /shrug

You know your limits, don't surpass them.

And your HORRIBLY mistaken if you think you can handle a 6 pack and drive. Im sure you've done it. And Im sure that would land you DUI in most states. Tolerance and being impaired are quite different. Point being you just really cant compare gun crime to impaired driving. And people calling for the execution of impaired drivers are just talking gak.

The point is that despite the OPs feelings to the contrary, people get just as worked up or even more so over drunk driving that gun deaths.

And I get a big "it's not really that bad because a lot of people are doing it" vibe from Shuma.

 d-usa wrote:
The point is that despite the OPs feelings to the contrary, people get just as worked up or even more so over drunk driving that gun deaths.

And I get a big "it's not really that bad because a lot of people are doing it" vibe from Shuma.

It's not that bad because it's a mistake. Without intent or malice it's just a sad event. It's something everyone grows up knowing about and being aware of. Accidents happen, the effort to lesson their incidence is an important one but demonizing people isn't really helpful or rational. If you someone can't handle things like this in a rational fashion it sincerely calls into question the value of your opinions concerning laws handling such events.

 Amaya wrote:
It depends on how much you can handle. I can drink a six pack and hardly feel anything. Once I get up to 12 it's probably a bad idea to drive. Eighteen to 24 and I'm probably completely non functioning. Some people get drunk off 3 beers. /shrug

You know your limits, don't surpass them.

So said many a person just before they got into a wreck.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The point is that despite the OPs feelings to the contrary, people get just as worked up or even more so over drunk driving that gun deaths.

And I get a big "it's not really that bad because a lot of people are doing it" vibe from Shuma.

It's not that bad because it's a mistake. Without intent or malice it's just a sad event. It's something everyone grows up knowing about and being aware of. Accidents happen, the effort to lesson their incidence is an important one but demonizing people isn't really helpful or rational. If you someone can't handle things like this in a rational fashion it sincerely calls into question the value of your opinions concerning laws handling such events.

I'm not the one calling for public executions, just reported that people are up in arms about it.

But minimizing the decision to actively impair yourself and then making the decision to put yourself inside a deadly metal box and drive it down the street calls into question your opinion as well.

And then there are excuses such as "we have poor public transportation". People know that they will have to drive before they start drinking, it's an active decision. Nobody "accidentally" drives while impaired.

Maybe if they're being fething stupid.

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The point is that despite the OPs feelings to the contrary, people get just as worked up or even more so over drunk driving that gun deaths.

And I get a big "it's not really that bad because a lot of people are doing it" vibe from Shuma.

It's not that bad because it's a mistake. Without intent or malice it's just a sad event. It's something everyone grows up knowing about and being aware of. Accidents happen, the effort to lesson their incidence is an important one but demonizing people isn't really helpful or rational. If you someone can't handle things like this in a rational fashion it sincerely calls into question the value of your opinions concerning laws handling such events.

You're aware that laws against proscribed behavior are generally designed to be deterrents, right?

What would penalties for killing someone while driving drunk look like in a ShumaGorath-run world?

How many people have you met that are drunk that didn't realize how far gone they are?
I'd venture a bet that just about every poster here has.

Relapse wrote:
How many people have you met that are drunk that didn't realize how far gone they are?
I'd venture a bet that just about every poster here has.

I'm not sure what your point is.

 Seaward wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The point is that despite the OPs feelings to the contrary, people get just as worked up or even more so over drunk driving that gun deaths.

And I get a big "it's not really that bad because a lot of people are doing it" vibe from Shuma.

It's not that bad because it's a mistake. Without intent or malice it's just a sad event. It's something everyone grows up knowing about and being aware of. Accidents happen, the effort to lesson their incidence is an important one but demonizing people isn't really helpful or rational. If you someone can't handle things like this in a rational fashion it sincerely calls into question the value of your opinions concerning laws handling such events.

You're aware that laws against proscribed behavior are generally designed to be deterrents, right?

What would penalties for killing someone while driving drunk look like in a ShumaGorath-run world?

About the same though without the manufactured moral outrage. In a ShumaGorath world alcohol would probably be illegal, but then again a Shumagorath world would be a very different one.


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 d-usa wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The point is that despite the OPs feelings to the contrary, people get just as worked up or even more so over drunk driving that gun deaths.

And I get a big "it's not really that bad because a lot of people are doing it" vibe from Shuma.

It's not that bad because it's a mistake. Without intent or malice it's just a sad event. It's something everyone grows up knowing about and being aware of. Accidents happen, the effort to lesson their incidence is an important one but demonizing people isn't really helpful or rational. If you someone can't handle things like this in a rational fashion it sincerely calls into question the value of your opinions concerning laws handling such events.

I'm not the one calling for public executions, just reported that people are up in arms about it.

But minimizing the decision to actively impair yourself and then making the decision to put yourself inside a deadly metal box and drive it down the street calls into question your opinion as well.

And then there are excuses such as "we have poor public transportation". People know that they will have to drive before they start drinking, it's an active decision. Nobody "accidentally" drives while impaired.

I come from a state with virtually no public transportation at all. As for "minimizing the decision" I wasn't doing that. I was simply stating that the moralistic framework this thread seems to require to actually think through these issues is unhelpful at best. If you can't distance yourself from the subject at hand and think about it critically you can't be helpful.

 Seaward wrote:

Relapse wrote:
How many people have you met that are drunk that didn't realize how far gone they are?
I'd venture a bet that just about every poster here has.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Amaya is saying that it takes at least 2 six packs before he shouldn't consider driving. I disagreed, because I don't think it would take that much beer to mess up his driving.

The hospitals and morgues have enough people put in them because someone overestimated their driving skills after drinking more than a couple beers.