Guns and Alcohol Not a Good Combination
Minutes before midnight, Ypsilanti police officers were called to the Monroe and Second intersection, after a concerned citizen called in to report that a car was stopped at the intersection. Inside it, a man wasn’t moving….
Officers arrived to discover a man, smelling strongly of alcohol and passed out in his car at a stop sign. But after police had a look inside the vehicle, it turns out that drunk driving was the least of this man’s worries.
With him in his car, the intoxicated man had two handguns. No information has been provided as to whether or not the guns belonged to the driver, and if they were properly licensed or not. However, as police have not mentioned any possible charges pertaining to illegally owned guns, it is being assumed that the weapons were the legal property of the driver.
According to police reports, the man was arrested and taken to jail. Nothing was said about his vehicle, but it may have been impounded. Police say that he will likely be charged with having violated the law regarding carrying concealed guns, and may also be charged with being in possession of marijuana.
According to Michigan law, transporting guns in your car is much like transporting alcohol in your car. A person may “transport a pistol for a lawful purpose if the owner or occupant of the vehicle is the registered owner of the firearm and the pistol is unloaded, in a closed case designed for the storage of firearms, and in the trunk of the vehicle. If the vehicle does not have a trunk, the pistol may be in the passenger compartment of the vehicle provided the pistol is unloaded, in a closed case designed for the storage of firearms, and inaccessible to the occupants of the vehicle.”
It is usually safe to say that guns and too much alcohol are rarely a good combination. And while driving drunk is frowned upon, driving drunk with multiple guns in your car is considered even less acceptable to the police. Please exercise caution when transporting weaponry in your vehicle, and when consuming alcohol before driving.
While we have no way to know what this man’s intentions were that night, and they may have been entirely innocent of malice, perhaps he is lucky that he passed out at a stop sign after all. This way, no one was harmed in a drunk driving collision, and no poor choices were made concerning the use of guns while intoxicated. But he will still need a good lawyer to help him out.
