imported post
I would NOT drink adult beverages while engaged in the purposeful activity of shooting firearms and yes I agree that it is stupid.
I do think there is a big difference between imbibing an adult beverage when you KNOW you are going to be shooting, handling a gun and for me at least every time I shoot, training, and when I am out having dinner and have a statistically less than 1% chance of being in anything resembling a lethal situation. To clarify and so I do not appear a hypocrite following my comments in the drinking while OC/CC thread I'll explain.
I always wear my seatbelt when I driving on the public roads, but if I am just moving the car in my driveway, or around my buddy's garage or sometimes driving on private roads on my family's or friend's rural property, I don't always put it on. If I am on a trail or the road on a motorcycle I wear helmet. Moving it at slow speeds for short distances on the farm probably not. If I am scuba diving for a period of time to depth I am very careful to plan the dive, set the bezel on my watch as a backup timer, make notes on my slate as to starting PSI in the tank and numerous other things. If I am jumping in to go down 20 feet in calm water to pick up a weight I can see in the sand that someone dropped on the bottom, as long as I have a minimal amount of air I'll just jump in and I could even free dive with a snorkel to that depth and it just isn't' particularly risky.
To me these are similar situations to having an adult beverage when shooting or carrying a firearm. Actively shooting a firearm is the same as driving on the public roads or going on a planned scuba dive. Carrying a firearm to a restaurant in a much safer than national average city, with a statistical much less than 1% chance of needing that firearm, fits the other scenarios. It also depends on a lot of specifics. There are cities and places in which I might have 1-2 adult beverages while carrying to dinner over 1-2 hours. There are other places I will not because I think the risk of using my firearm is higher than usual. Not high or I wouldn't be there, but higher than my day to day world. Not because I think that I will be significantly impaired by 1-2 drinks, but rather because it just simply is not worth the most minute extra risk. Such risk assessment is rather individual and again, dependent on numerous factors.