Guns, cops and alcohol don't mix, or do they?

The Associated Press is reporting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has announced plans to ban off-duty deputies from carrying guns when they've been drinking. An excerpt from the AP story is included below.  Good idea? Bad idea? Discuss.

LOS ANGELES -- The nation's largest sheriff's department plans to ban deputies from
carrying guns if they've been drinking, saying there have been too many arrests of tipsy deputies for drunken driving, brandishing weapons, shooting people and other crimes.
At least 61 Los Angeles County deputies have been arrested this year on alcohol-related charges while off duty, including 39 for driving under the influence. In April 2006, a rookie deputy who had at least 11 drinks while celebrating his return from Marine duty in Iraq shot and killed a friend.
An increase in arrests prompted Sheriff Lee Baca to consider the ban about a year ago, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Tuesday.
It was unclear what caused that increase, although Whitmore noted that the number of sworn deputies in the department has increased to more than 10,000. It also may be that other police agencies are making more arrests of intoxicated deputies instead of covering for them as in decades past.
"Thirty, 40 years ago, perhaps they would drive (deputies) home," Whitmore said.
He said the policy could be in place as early as January.
"It's been revised, finalized, the union has been conferred with and the sheriff is prepared to move forward," Whitmore said.
The union is arguing, however, that the policy could put deputies at risk by emboldening people who know they would be unarmed at certain times.
"What should a deputy do when he is with his family and runs into a violent offender he
incarcerated?" asked Steve Remige, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.