The New York Legislature last month voted to lower the blood alcohol limit allowed while hunting to match the threshold for the blood alcohol content someone can have while driving.
On March 26th of this year, the New York Assembly voted 147 – 1 to amend the law that previously outlawed hunting in the state with a blood alcohol content of 0.10 percent or higher. The following day, the New York senate voted 56 – 5 to amend the law. Under the amended law, hunters cannot have a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher, matching blood alcohol content limit while driving in most states, including California (Utah just became the first state to lower its blood alcohol content limit to 0.05 percent).
Under the new law, hunting with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or more is a misdemeanor and carries a fine of up to $500, up to a year in jail, and a revocation of a person’s hunting license for two years. Additionally, licensed hunters who refuse to submit to a breath or other test for intoxication can also have their licenses revoked.
“These changes were based in part on studies which determined that this level of alcohol in an individual’s bloodstream can result in substantially impaired motor skills, perception and judgment,” Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski wrote in his sponsor’s memo. “These are also critical skills used in hunting.”
In California and other states, DUI laws generally include prohibitions against both driving with a per se blood alcohol limit of 0.08 percent or higher (or 0.05 percent or higher in Utah) and driving while under the influence (or some other iteration like “driving while intoxicated” or “operating under the influence”).
The purpose for this is that nobody should be driving while actually under the influence, meaning that they cannot drive like a reasonable and sober person would. And, as Mr. Zebrowski stated, at a 0.08 percent, studies have shown that the motor skills of individuals, albeit very subjectively, are affected to a degree that might impair driving.
Like Zebrowski, lawmakers who approved of New York’s new limit expressly cited the risk of injury and death.
“An individual who is too intoxicated to drive a car or pilot a boat is also unfit to engage in hunting and the increased risk is not only to the hunter, but to everyone else in the field,” Zebrowski, a Rockland County Democrat, wrote. “This bill would ensure a consistent standard for intoxication in state law.”
Sure, it sounds like they’re considering driving with a blood alcohol content limit of 0.08 percent just as dangerous as shooting a gun with a blood alcohol content limit of 0.08 percent or higher. But are they really?
Let me get this straight. It is illegal to shoot a gun and drive with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher. Fine. However, it is also illegal to drive a vehicle while “under the influence” regardless of what a person’s blood alcohol content is. Yet, a person can shoot, say a semi-automatic rifle, if they are “under the influence,” but not necessarily above a 0.08 percent.
Let me give an example. Take a person weighing less than a hundred pounds who has never had a sip of alcohol before in their life. If they have a couple of beers, they may not be above a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent, but they’re certainly going to be “drunk” or “under the influence.” New York is telling them, “Sure, go shoot that gun, but don’t you dare drive.”
Really?
It seems to me, and I would hope others would agree, that using any firearms with any alcohol seems patently dangerous, and certainly more dangerous than driving a vehicle. Not that I’m saying it’s safe to drive with alcohol in your system. Neither are safe. But if lawmakers are using a driving under the influence as a measuring standard for how they draft other laws, then it should actually be equal at a minimum, if not more restrictive for more dangerous activities. Or is this just another example of the overzealous vilification of DUI’s?
New York’s new law becomes effective September 1st.
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