Editorial: DUI is deadly serious

How serious does a crime have to be in order to be considered a “serious crime”?

In a precedent-setting opinion delivered this month, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called a Montgomery County man’s DUI a grave enough offense to preclude him from buying a gun.

Raymond Holloway Jr. tried to purchase a firearm in 2016 but was told his 2005 DUI conviction meant he was barred from doing so. It was his second conviction with twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, which meant a sentence of up to five years, but he received the minimum of 90 days behind bars.

Denied a weapon, Holloway sued the U.S. attorney general, the FBI and others for violating his Second Amendment rights.

Kim Stolfer, president of Firearm Owners Against Crime, calls the denial and the decision governmental overreach.

It’s more a case of the court not being able to make up its mind about impaired driving. The crime is serious when they want to take it seriously and minor when they want to treat it like a traffic ticket.

DUI is considered a nonviolent crime for which accelerated rehabilitative disposition is available for first-time offenders, like Holloway was when he availed himself of that option in 2002. It is considered a misdemeanor unless it is a repeated often enough. Two convictions at twice the legal limit doesn’t meet the threshold for a felony.

Is it really nonviolent, though? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says more than 30,000 lives are lost a year to vehicle crashes, and a third of them are alcohol-related. That’s a lot of dead bodies for a nonviolent crime.

The problem could be that too little is learned from penalties because they aren’t considered serious.

The NHTSA also estimated that a third of those convicted of impaired driving are repeat offenders. In Pennsylvania, it appears to be more. The federal agency’s 2014 study shows a review of 74,051 cases in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2010. More than 50,000, or 69%, had prior DUI arrests. Pennsylvania had the highest repeat rate.

Maybe that shows why there is surprise that a federal judge who quoted “all branches of the federal government” in her decision considers DUI serious — because too many in the Keystone State don’t.