How would your relationship change after this incident? Would you remain friends? Would you just breathe a sigh of relief that nobody was hurt and put the whole thing behind you? Or would you always think of him as that guy who almost killed a bunch of people by doing something inexplicable reckless? I’m willing to bet that one way or another, you would never look at this person the same way again.

So now imagine this scenario again. But this time, instead of firing a gun, your friend gets in his car and drives home drunk.

I pose this question because I’ve been thinking about the death of Nick Adenhart this week in a hit and run DUI accident. Andrew Thomas Gallo, the driver of the car that killed him, was driving on a suspended license from a prior DUI conviction in 2006. While accidents are going to happen, and you can’t stop every fool that gets behind the wheel, I can’t help feeling that if we’d collectively done our jobs three years ago, Adenhart and his two friends would still be alive today. But I think because we tacitly shrug our shoulders at DUI offenses, people continue to drive drunk without considering the consequences.

And frankly, the consequences aren’t that harsh. There’s no question that we, as a society, disapprove of drunk driving. You can see the evidence of that in the response Adenhart’s death has inspired. The Orange County district attorney has brought three counts of murder against Gallo, and callers to talk radio have basically demanded that he be strung up. That’s all well and good. But where was this reaction after Gallo’s first DUI conviction in 2006? Where is this reaction when anyone is arrested for DUI? In most states, DUI is a misdemeanor offense unless someone is killed or injured. Would our mutual friend with the gun be charged with a misdemeanor for firing into a crowd of people, even if no one was hit?

To me, this is the crux of the problem. Our attitudes about drunk driving are tied to our perceptions of how serious it is as a crime. But the legislature, police, and judicial system send the message that it’s not really all that serious by charging almost all DUI offenses as misdemeanors. Like shoplifting. Or graffiti.

You may argue that I’ve got it all wrong, and that public attitudes about drunk driving are appropriately punitive. Well, consider two more baseball players: Alex Rodriguez and Joba Chamberlain of the New York Yankees. Earlier this year, it was leaked to the media that Rodriguez had failed a drug test a few years ago. He then admitted that he had used steroids in the past. Last year, Chamberlain was arrested and charged with DUI. He plead guilty to the charge last month. Now tell me: which of these two players do you think will get booed more often this season?

We simply do not treat DUI as the crime it is — either in our minds or within the law. We can’t flip a switch and change the wiring in everyone’s brain, but we can change the law. Here’s what I propose.

1. Make it a felony to drive while intoxicated under all circumstances.
2. If you are convicted of DUI, you go to jail. No probation, no slap on the wrist. You get prison. I’m not saying we should lock people up and throw away the key, but you’re going to have to spend a not insignificant amount of time behind bars. I propose six months for a first offense.
3. You lose your driver’s license for ten years. If you are caught driving during this period, you can spend the remainder of your suspension in prison.

This won’t solve all the problems — like I said before, if some drunk idiot wants to drive, he’s going to drive — but I think it would go part of the way toward changing the way people think about the offense. And hopefully it would change the way people think about committing the offense. Getting caught DUI ceases to be a mere inconvenience; it now dramatically changes your life for at least ten years.

Alcoholism is a disease. I recognize that. Not everyone who drives drunk is an alcoholic, but certainly some of them are, and it might be argued that it’s not fair nor just to so severely punish someone who is sick and can’t help himself. Maybe that’s true, but I would argue that when someone’s illness becomes a threat to other people’s safety, we generally commit those people to institutions. If you can’t stop driving drunk because you can’t stop getting drunk, then you need to be confined somewhere that you don’t have access to a motor vehicle.

Even if we don’t change the laws, however, and getting caught tipsy on the highway means you spend a day in court and have to ride a moped to work for awhile, I hope we can at least agree to start thinking about drunk driving as more than just a mistake. Andrew Gallo has been charged with murder, but he’s not any more guilty than the hundreds (or thousands) of other people who took to the streets that night after having too much to drink. That most of them were lucky enough not to kill anyone may mean they’re not guilty of murder. But you can still argue that they are guilty of attempted murder.

Think about that the next time you see your friend the day after he refused to give up his keys.