Ben Wallace Arrested On Drunk Driving, Unlawful Concealed Weapon Charges

But has Big Ben ever done this before? We’re in the middle of what would be training camp and NBA players have a lot of extra free time on their hands and are likely a little bored even. What do people do when they’re bored? Stupid shit sometimes. The lockout could at least have been a factor in his decision to go to the club with a buddy and throw a few back when he may have otherwise been at home resting up for the next day’s practice or morning workout…

But here if you get a criminal record, it’s pretty much guaranteed you’re not going to ever be practising law which would really suck for Ben, especially considering it seems like such a stupid thing.

I trust Big Ben with a firearm, even while mildly intoxicated. I’d say there’s almost no chance he goes all “Falling Down” on us. Not having a license to carry the weapon concealed in Michigan is lazy, IMHO, but again, the potential for danger to others is almost zilch.

However, I trust exactly 0 people to drive while drunk.

If you’re driving drunk, you are putting everyone else on the road in danger. No excuses, especially for a guy who can pay to have someone drive him to and from the club.

Crimes of honesty and violence are one thing, a DUI is another.

But especially when you’re a multi-millionaire it just seems worse. Shit, it’s not like you can’t afford a cab.

Human beings do a poor job of assessing risk in real time. A lot of people who do negligent things have good intentions but don’t assess risks properly in the moment. This happens on the micro level with things like drunk driving and on the macro level where police or health decisions aren’t made based on what does the most harm but what is the most scarey or spectacular risk. I don’t think having poor judgment is selfish. It’s just having poor judgment.

People aren’t all that reasonable. Stupid wins the day very often.

I can’t hate on a wealthy celebrity keeping protection but not properly registering it

I’m talking one piece of protection kept clearly out of reach, just in case. I’m not talking some Delonte West / Stephen Jackson type shit.

Plus, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt in that he forgot it was in his bag from Virginia where, if I’m not mistaken, you do not need to have a permit.

For the same reason I understand why athletes carry guns on them is why I don’t understand athletes don’t have personal drivers when they go out to consume any amounts of alcohol: they have a lot of money.

I can tell this little story about myself here because DBB is fam and it’s not like it’ll get me in trouble — I’ve had to disclose it on all my school applications, etc. — but I was pulled over on January 6, 2004 for going the speed limit in a snow storm. The guy wanted to warn me to drive under the speed limit to be safe, but then he smelled alcohol on my breath. I had 4 beers earlier that day while playing poker with my friends and had purposely waited about six hours to drive because even as a stupid 18 year old I still took that shit seriously (I lost a friend to a drunk driver and my parents raised me well). Because I was cooperative, remorseful, passed all the roadside tests, and he admitted he didn’t HAVE to pull me over, I was given an MIP instead of a DUI. My case drew Judge Small and she almost quite literally put it in my butt. Needless to say, I won’t be making the “well, I had one too many beers earlier today” mistake again, even if I did only blow a 0.04 and would’ve been legally okay to drive had I been 21. To this day, I count my blessings that police officer pulled me over — I shook the guy’s hand after he drove me home that night even.

If it’s true that Big Ben only had four beers a couple hours before deciding to operate a vehicle (which is hard to believe because he blew over the limit and he’s enormous), I kind of relate and I feel bad because even though I know now it’s always stupid to consume alcohol and get behind the wheel afterward, sometimes it can be as innocent of a mistake as a stupid mistake can be (if that makes sense… don’t twist that though — I don’t condone what Big Ben did, but I’d say, having only read the police report and not knowing what he blew, it sounds like he’s one of the more innocent DUI cases, if there’s such a thing, and I’m certain he’s learned his lesson; Judge Small won’t let him not.)

but I am still really pissed about celebrities getting damn gun charges.

I have to remember that idolizing anyone is a bad idea.

I think it’s okay to idolize someone you really know. Like, my role model is my Dad — I don’t think that’s a bad idea. I think idolizing a professional athlete for anything other than their athletic ability is dangerous because we typically don’t really know them beyond what we see in the media (see Tiger Woods). Athletes are people and people make mistakes, some more grave than others, but it happens.

—Pete, 5:15

It’s not Ben Wallace after 4 beers. It’s not most of the people at most of the events you’ve been to in your life. It’s a dangerous combination or an extreme version of two types of people. One is the person who drives either in a manner that’s overtly aggressive or utterly imbecilic on a regular basis. The other is the person who is always slurring there words a bit too much and can always find a good excuse for why they’ve lost their balance, possibly because they can’t not dance to this horrifically instructive Katy Perry song that follows me everywhere.

Let me say next that in my peer group of wealthy industrialists, we get paid to party and meet dozens of people per week and have a pretty good idea which of these people are which and when this dangerous combination has met critical mass.

I would propose that they also start pulling over the assholes and the imbeciles during daytime driving hours. And they should make breathalyzers cheap and widely available. And there should be a law that bar staff can request their use on someone they suspect is wasted. They are never wrong. The bar staff, that is. The fine for either driving like an imbecile or being intoxicated should be determined by how much of an asshole you were being on the road. If a cop pulls you over for not stopping for three full seconds at a stop sign, I’m not sure if there should be more than a ticket and a taxi ride. If you hit three or more parked cars on a side street, whether you were drunk or stone cold sober, you should go directly to jail, do not collect $200. Sadly, I’ve had friends in both scenarios and it cost the wrong people up to tens of thousands of dollars on numerous occasions. The friend who hit multiple cars claimed he fell asleep from a medical ailment and needed to go to the hospital, avoiding the breathalyzer and the DUI. What a d**k. The girl who didn’t even roll through a stop sign was held for 90 minutes as her third drink, a shot she drank before walking out of the bar, set in. The bar was five blocks from her house. It cost her basically an entire year’s wages.

Maybe when they say jury of our peers, they should actually ask our friends to be honest about who drives like a d**k on the regular and who always has too many fine microbrews in the second half. Full on epinion.

But not his RPBAR’d application.

I have a hard time passing a BAR.

maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

/badjoked.