I find it odd that you list being able to restrain yourself from murdering, or raping someone, in the same conversation as a discussion about young people making common young people mistakes. If you hang your hat on showing such incredible restraint, more power to you.
The point was simply that people are very quick to harshly judge the mistakes of others, while ignoring their own personal failures. Young people drink before the legal age of twenty-one at a rate so high the outliers are those who don't have a drink at some point before their 21st birthday. In JT's case no one was harmed, so it's a great teaching opportunity. He deserves punishment, but some of the admonishment he's receiving is laughably unrealistic.
Also because bars aren't typically attached to our houses, lots of us go out to have a few drinks on occasion. Go to any bar in the country on a Saturday night and watch people pour in and out. How many do you think are at .08-ish? Now most of us know when we're one or three drinks past our limits, and responsible folks plan for these evenings, but I bet at one point in my life I've driven at .08 or around. Maybe I was .07, maybe .09, who knows. I've never been pulled over after a night out, not that I would perform any field sobriety tests, because I wouldn't, but that's beside the point. Occasional .08ers aren't out there killing innocent drivers and themselves at alarming numbers, that's just where we've set the legal limit, because we have to set it somewhere. I'm not advocating that one should drive around the limit, but my pitchfork isn't out over it.
Now if JT gets nailed behind the wheel, in six months, then we have a disturbing pattern, and not just a one-off case of "kids doing dumb".