Amish_Bill wrote:
One of my criteria for a serious inner group of friends is if I trust them enough to be around them while drinking (and armed).
(do not read meanings into this that are not stated explicitly above)
That works for me, too.
If a person drinks and doesn't have the sense NOT to do something foolish with any of their potentially dangerous equipment (firearm, auto, soldering iron, whatever), they are no buddy of mine.
I've seen too many poo-faced (defined as sucking down enough alcohol to stagger around and-if lucky-vomiting up all the booze they consumed) LEOs I knew were armed to get all riled up over a buddy I trust who has a beer while packing.
The fact that neither myself nor any of my buddies is a hard drinker probably helps. (I had a "Beer & Bratwurst" party one year...it took me two years to finish off all the unopened beer...after giving away half of it to other friends)
WRT .08 BAC, I am less & less convinced that this is a realistic standard. Pretty soon they'll say if you look sideways at a bottle of whisky, you'll be legally intoxicated.
--Geek Alert & "Cool Hand Luke" Moment--
In college I determined the amount of alcohol in your average slice of white bread (think: yeast eats carbs and poots alcohol & CO2) and did the math. I realized that I could eat enough Wonder Bread in a short enough time to be above .08 BAC. I then did eat that much & some more, just to be sure I got enough alcohol in my system. Unfortunately, I did not have access to blood test or breath analysis equpment. Anyway, no ill effects, no buzz, & no good reason NOT to operate heavy machinery.
--Geek Alert End--
Moral of the story: set reasonable standards or have your standards regarded with the contempt they deserve.
