If you value your rights—and your record—this episode is a must-listen.

Steve Palmer and Troy unpack situations where responsible gun owners unintentionally find themselves facing felony charges simply by keeping a firearm in their car while out drinking—even if they didn’t intend to break the law.

Drawing on real-life stories and recent court cases, Steve Palmer explains how Ohio’s “constitutional carry” laws, DUI statutes, and local court practices collide to create legal landmines for anyone mixing booze and guns.

They discuss how easy it is to lose sight of the risks, share practical tips to avoid getting caught in this high-stakes scenario, and consider the ongoing constitutional debates around the Second Amendment, responsibility, and personal freedom.

Key takeaways:

• Compound Risk: A routine OVI (DUI) stop can escalate into a felony if a firearm is present—even if you’re under the legal limit. This can have serious consequences for your career and future opportunities.
• Varying Legal Approaches: Different counties handle these cases differently; some prosecutors will work with you, others will not. Outcomes can be unpredictable and severe.
• Prevention Is Key: Avoid carrying your firearm if you plan on drinking, even socially or casually. Alcohol impairs your judgment more than you think, and “reminder tricks” usually fail.

Submit your questions to www.lawyertalkpodcast.com.

Recorded at Channel 511.

Stephen E. Palmer, Esq. has been practicing criminal defense almost exclusively since 1995. He has represented people in federal, state, and local courts in Ohio and elsewhere.

Though he focuses on all areas of criminal defense, he particularly enjoys complex cases in state and federal courts.

He has unique experience handling and assembling top defense teams of attorneys and experts in cases involving allegations of child abuse (false sexual allegations, false physical abuse allegations), complex scientific cases involving allegations of DUI and vehicular homicide cases with blood alcohol tests, and any other criminal cases that demand jury trial experience.

Steve has unique experience handling numerous high publicity cases that have garnered national attention.

For more information about Steve and his law firm, visit Palmer Legal Defense.

Copyright 2026 Stephen E. Palmer - Attorney At Law

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Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants

Circle 270 Media® is a podcast consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio, specializing in helping businesses develop, launch, and optimize podcasts as part of their marketing strategy. The firm emphasizes the importance of storytelling through podcasting to differentiate businesses and engage with their audiences effectively. www.circle270media.com

Like peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, ham and egg. Things that go together like booze and guns. Booze, drugs and guns. Oh, wait a minute. That doesn't fit. Anyway, this is lawyer talk, off the record, on the air. I have this come up a lot in my practice, and I have a whole series. We have a whole series on DUI360.

But this is like DUI360 plus guns. And here's what happens. And it happens a lot. Believe it or not, people like to carry guns. And you're not going to find a. You probably will find. I hate superlatives, but you're not going to find a stronger proponent of the Second Amendment. You probably could, but I'm a big proponent of the Second Amendment and I love guns.

You know, in Ohio, we have something called, quote, constitutional carry. It's not really constitutional carry, but you can carry a gun in Ohio. A concealed handgun in Ohio anyway, without now a concealed handgun license. If you still want to get a license, you still can. But what gets people in trouble is this. Will you tell. What do you think gets people in trouble?

I think what gets people in trouble, because my friends talk about this a lot, is they want to conceal carry all times. And one thing that makes it a little bit easier is I want to keep a gun in my car at all times. Yeah.

Why? Because, you know, just.

Yeah, it's convenience. Your constitutional right. You're an American. You have to. But the pickle they get in is they also love drinking and driving, so.

Or just drinking in general.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But some of them, they just don't believe in the Uber app. And so when they have both those philosophies combined, the day happens where they finally get pulled over and they're just drinking and drive, and then they're like, oh, shoot, I have my gun that I keep in my car.

I have my gun. Do you have anything in the car we should worry about, sir? I mean, my Glock 9 millimeter, maybe. So, look, we make jokes of this, but here, this happens a lot. So I've represented CEOs of banks, I've represented all up and down, every. All across the walks of society, people who get used to having a gun in their car. They even buy the little special holster that goes underneath the dash or next to the side or even in the center console, because they can, and maybe they should, and maybe they want to for legitimate reasons. I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying this happens.

They Go to work. This last St Patrick's Day, for instance, somebody goes to work, they clock in at their bank or the executive job, they get out. Hey, guys, it's St. Patrick's Day. We're going to go grab a few pops at the local Irish pub. Great. Have a good time. Two or three maybe.

Right on the cusp. But certainly alcohol in your breath and you get pulled over. Guess what? The cops are going to find that gun. And now you're charged with. With a felony.

Spicy one.

Yeah. You've taken a drunk driving case, you've turned it into a drunk driving case plus a felony. And this is the problem. So look, we'll talk about how we deal with in a second. Let's talk about how you avoid it. There's one obvious way. Don't drink.

Yes.

So look, I mean, I have chosen to stop drinking alcohol. So you, if I can do it, trust me, you can do it too.

But.

But don't drink is one possibility. Two, don't carry your gun in your car all the time and carry it selectively when you think you're going to a place where it might make sense to have it. Or three, put a string on your finger or something like the old reminder, the rubber band reminder. I don't know. But no matter what the safeguards are in place, it still happens. It also happens at the airport, too. We'll talk about that. Maybe in a different show, but it happens.

And the reason this is coming up is because I had a call just yesterday on this and the person was driving their car, got pulled over, actually took a breath test under the legal limit and nonetheless was still charged with OVI in Ohio and got indicted for having a felony because there's a gun in his car. It turns what is a lawful carrying situation into a felony. Improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle or carrying concealed weapon.

Escalates a lot.

Escalates a lot. So look, let's, let's break it down a little bit. One, how do we deal with it? Lots of courts have different. In Ohio. Look, this is Ohio and this isn't legal advice, guys. But generally, here's what we run into in Ohio. Different counties have different ways to deal with it. Some counties would say, look, if you just plead guilty to the ovi, we will make.

We'll go over to the county courts. So OVI is in the city courts most of the time, municipal courts. Some courts have, like Muskingum has a Muskingum county court that handles misdemeanors. But most courts and Cincinnati Hamilton county court has that anyway. Most courts have a municipal related court that does misdemeanors, traffic, OVIs and such. And then they have a felony court which is common police court, which handles felonies. And a lot of counties have sort of this handshake agreement. Why? Because this happens a lot where if the guy or the gal pleads guilty to the drunk driving charge and takes his lumps there, the county will agree to make it a misdemeanor on the felony side.

Other court's not so nice. They want both. They want their blood, they want their blood, they want their guns and they want their booze. So you end up having to fight tooth and nail both sides of it. I have a situation now where somebody before I got involved got a deal on the ovi, beat it. And still has the gun case, but because they got a deal on the ovi, they can't get a reduction on the gun case. Now we got to fight that. So it can be a real problem.

And you can take illustrious career in whatever you do. Say you're a truck driver, say that you are an Uber driver, say that you're a taxicab, say you drive for a living just to even get back and forth or more. Or say that you're a white collar blue. It doesn't make any difference. You can take an otherwise good situation and screw it up badly because it's not just an OVI on your record. Not just a dui, but possibly a felony. And what's the first question that you get asked, Maybe not the first, but high up on the application list, are you a felon? Have you ever been convicted? You ever been convicted of a felony and or a theft offense? Those are the big ones now. There's probably more sometimes.

Now they're even asking about drinking and driving. But look, all completely avoidable if you choose either not to carry your gun or choose not to drink. And you would say the string on the finger or the rubber band trick would work. Except it doesn't. And here's why. Alcohol has a way of sneaking up on people. So look, I didn't intend to get drunk. I had one drink and I was gonna go home.

But guess what happens when you have that one drink? Alcohol impacts your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that's designed for making calm, rational decisions. And it says jedi mind tricks. You don't worry, you're not going to get drunk. You'll get home just fine. Forget about that gun in your car. These aren't the droids you're looking for, you'll be just fine. And next thing you know, you're pulled over on the side of the road after six drinks when you only intended to have one because alcohol prevented you from making a calm, rational decision after the first one or the second one. And now you're on the side of the road thinking, oh, crap, I gotta call my wife and tell her she doesn't have to pick me up tonight.

I'm going to jail. And I got to go to court before I even get a bond set, because now I have set myself up on the tee to be convicted of a felony. Bad stuff. Not great. Not great. Now, constitutionally, you would ask, yes, our

founding Fathers wanted me to drink and drive with a firearm in my car.

Well, look, this is interesting, because post Heller, it was a case called DC vs. Heller, and then another case called Bruun B R U E N out of the U.S. supreme Court. Heller says, look, the core purpose of the Second Amendment is protection, right? Not just to go be a militiaman. And then Bruin said, we're going to apply a unique sort of test to this to see whether a government law would somehow violate the Second Amendment if it's applied to a situation involving guns. And that test is the history, text and tradition test. The hell does that mean?

Just look back to how they did it back in the day.

We used to do it back in the old days. And if you think that the Minutemen didn't have a couple cups of mead before, or Madeira, rather, before going out and picking up their muskets and standing across from a bunch of British Redcoats, you're probably mistaken. In fact, they probably were drinking Madeira and mead regularly because that's what they had and the water was probably crappy. But look, let's face it, alcohol is great. It feels good. So there's a reason we say cup of courage, because it does eliminate some of that fear. So you can make an argument, a decent argument, that. That the history, text and tradition did not preclude people from having some booze and possessing a gun.

What about driving? Well, we didn't have cars.

We had horses.

We had horses. Do you think people were driving home without their gun or riding home without their guns on their. Look, I don't know how this is all going to shake out, but I know that these are Second Amendment challenges that are matriculating up in the system. Ohio so far hasn't given us any love on this, but maybe the US Supreme Court will. I've always Thought that it doesn't make sense, you know, if the gun itself is always. I don't know, the argument I've always wanted to make, probably unsuccessfully, if I really had to break it up, break it down. But look, this has nothing to do with what I was doing, so. It has nothing to do with me driving.

Was there a gun in the car? Yes, but. But it's always there, and it had nothing to do with what I was doing. I wasn't using it for any purpose. So come on, give me a break.

Yeah, and there could be factors involved. Like, do you have one of those special little cases inside your car that makes it very obvious that's always in there? Or is it, like, in your. Like right next to you in the

store or on your ankle or whatever? So look, and the other side, of course, is going to argue. Well, wait a minute. For all the reasons, Steve, that you just gave us about alcohol, it's really dangerous to have alcohol and guns. Because. Because guns or alcohol impacts your ability to make calm, reasoned, rational decisions. And if you're drunk and with guns, I think that's a proverbial powder keg. Get the reference there.

It's about gunpowder.

It's about gunpowder. There you go. Now you get it. So, look, I think ultimately, laws that preclude this will probably be upheld, even under the Second Amendment. Again, I'm a huge proponent of the Second Amendment. I'm a proponent of all our constitutional rights, because I can tell you what, once they're taken away, we ain't getting them back. Like, when has the government ever given the people back the power?

Never.

Never. Never.

We're working on the Patriot Act. We're working on it.

Yeah. So trust me, guys like us go to court every day and fight for this stuff. Under the Fourth Amendment, under the Second Amendment, Under. Under the Sixth Amendment, under the Fifth Amendment. Even under the Eighth Amendment, things can be cruel and unusual. But you've got to. One of the things that comes along with our right to carry a firearm is our right to do it, is our obligation. We are obliged, I would argue, which is a different philosophical term than a right.

We're obliged to do it responsibly. And you have a right to carry a gun. Don't screw it up.

That's fair.

Fair enough. And I will say one more thing. Maybe one day I'll do a whole thing on booze. People aren't going to like it. I'm going to do a whole nother thing on booze. If I could just wave my magic Attorney wand and say, get rid of the booze and not replace it with some similar drug, I would be out of a job. You wouldn't be in this business because there would be no jobs because alcohol is responsible for a huge percentage of crime. Yeah.

Or at least related. The two are interrelated or maybe inextricably linked, you might say. And I think, I don't remember what the percentage is, but maybe Google it. What's the percentage of homicides that are attributable to alcohol? We'll find that out. So the point of it is, alcohol is a dangerous drug. Use it. We're allowed to use it. If that's what you choose to do, but use it responsibly.

And by that I say, look, if you got a plan to go, it's St. Patrick's Day, you got a plan to go drink, leave your gun and take an Uber, do whatever. And by the way, you're not even allowed to possess a firearm, even if not driving while under the influence of alcohol in Ohio. And I've taken that and I banged the podium in the Ohio Supreme Court arguing about that and still lost. What do we got?

We're looking at 40 to 60% of homicides.

40 to 60%. So just take the mean 50% of the homicides are attributable to some alcohol related influence. So look, you heard it here. Not first, maybe not even last, but you did hear it here. Don't take your guns to town when you're drinking.

She's an Uber.

Said Johnny Cash. All right? Lawyer talk, off the record, on the air till now.