For myself, I am a responsible adult and have learned not to go out and drink til I puke. I left that phase behind when I was in high school. If I screw up, I accept the consequences of my actions - as I do every day that I carry. The law (in one of it's rare moments) accords me the privilege of being an adult, I intend to keep that privilege by not abusing it.
A responsible adult knows that any amount of alcohol has an impact on ones motor skills, senses, and judgment. There is no threshold. The impact is progressive.
People who think they can drink alcohol without it affecting their system are delusional.
Alcohol affects every organ in the body, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It depresses the central nervous system because it is absorbed directly into the bloodstream. Even though the liver tries to metabolize alcohol, it can only work with a small amount at a time. What is not metabolized circulates throughout body and can affect motor skills.
Dutch researchers recently completed a study on the effects of "moderate" alcohol consumption. The lead author on the study is K. Richard Ridderinkhof of the University of Amsterdam and the Leiden University. It's published by the online edition of the journal Science called the Sciencexpress and depicts the slowed processes of brain functions due to impaired ability by even smaller amounts of alcohol equal to one drink.
The volunteers experienced an error rate of about 4.8 percent on placebo, but after the first drink the errors soared to 19.8 percent. Drinking alcohol also reduced processing speed.
Changes in brain action were quickly detected, leading the researchers to conclude that even a small amount of alcohol was enough to erode the mind's ability to detect and correct errors.
Measures of brain waves showed that the small doses of alcohol quickly affected the anterior cingulate cortex or ACC, a part of the brain that influences thinking processes and the unconscious detection of error.
Studies have shown that:
At .02% Blood Alcohol Concentration:
-Some loss of judgment
-Relaxation
-Slight body warmth
-Altered mood
-Decline in visual functions (rapid tracking of a moving target)
-Decline in ability to perform two tasks at the same time (divided attention)
At .05% Blood Alcohol Concentration:
-Muscle coordination becomes poor (e.g., balance, speech, vision, reaction time, and hearing)
-Harder to detect danger
-Judgment, self-control, reasoning, and memory are impaired
-Reduced information processing capability (e.g., signal detection, visual search)
-Impaired perception
Moreover, alcohol inhibits your ability to recognize the impact it is having on you. So although your loss of motor skills can be measured from just one drink, you will swear you are not impaired
But to hell with science - you all are "responsible enough when to stop drinking..."
The truth is one who thinks like that is not responsible to start drinking in the first place.
And those who drink and carry lose the "I have the right to protect myself" claim because if they wanted to protect themselves they wouldn't be drinking in the first place if they seriously thought they would need to draw their weapon in self defense.
The last question on the background check should be: "Do you think any amount of alcohol will impact on your motor skills, sensory perception and reaction time?"
Answer no, and the response should be "No gun for you today! Next!"
