CHL vs Drivers License

[Pitt]

I want to talk about something a little off topic but I want to hear from CHL holders.

Can anyone explain or provide comments to this point. I had a harder time getting a Texas Driver License then I had getting a CHL. I know the CHL has the waiting process, but I'm not talking about that. I'm referring to the application. I began to think I had to give my first born to get a drivers license. When I applied for CHL last year it was cut and dry and all I had to do was wait until it came.

There was the biggest stink of proving I was an American citizen to get the drivers license but nowhere near as much trouble to apply for the CHL. Does anybody see something wrong with being able to receive a CHL with less trouble than a drivers license?

And by the way, I'm a born and bred American who served 25 years in the military before I retired. I haven't used my birth certificate in 27 years so I couldn't find it and had to order another to get my license. I had so much paperwork to prove who I am, my SSN, residence, military service, registration, etc etc. I even had a court order, but it wasn't for a name change or gender change that I found out in the office had to be the only court order they would accept and they held firm to this ridiculous rule. I even had my DD214 which proved my service and that I retired as a commissioned officer. Although you can enlist without being a citizen, you cannot be a commissioned or warrant officer without being a citizen. But not having my birth certificate stopped everything. Not to mention I'm already in the system because I already have a CHL with background check and the whole nine. Where does common sense prevail?

Although everything is ok now--I have license in hand--I'm still troubled we give permission to carry weapons easier then getting a drivers license. And I have to give it to them, they stand by their rules because I went two offices and got the same story, so it wasn't one person having a bad day that gave me a hard time. And for those who don't know, Texas has a new law as of July 2011 that states you prove citizenship when getting a drivers license but you won't read that on the site about getting a drivers license and what to bring. I just took all the items I had the site required, plus a few more, to cover what I needed but the citizenship question came up and nothing I had would do. No common sense used with some of my paperwork and IDs and the fact that I have a CHL (which I produced) to show I'm in the system and with background check.

Please tell me I am not the only one thinking that something is wrong here?

I'm just venting with hopefully like minded people.

[jmra]

I had no idea what you were talking about until you mentioned the new law in 2011. I assume this is to prevent illegals from getting a DL.

[The Annoyed Man]

I'm still troubled we give permission to carry weapons easier then getting a drivers license. And I have to give it to them, they stand by their rules because I went two offices and got the same story, so it wasn't one person having a bad day that gave me a hard time. And for those who don't know, Texas has a new law as of July 2011 that states you prove citizenship when getting a drivers license but you won't read that on the site about getting a drivers license and what to bring. I just took all the items I had the site required, plus a few more, to cover what I needed but the citizenship question came up and nothing I had would do. No common sense used with some of my paperwork and IDs and the fact that I have a CHL (which I produced) to show I'm in the system and with background check.

Please tell me I am not the only one thinking that something is wrong here?

I'm just venting with hopefully like minded people.

Two reactions:

1. I moved here from California in 2006, with a valid CDL. I had no trouble, other than being required to take the written TDL test, acquiring a TDL. However, when I got my CHL, I had to prove my citizenship because I am a foreign born citizen. My father was American, and my mother French, and I was born in Morocco.....Casablanca to be specific. So I am a citizen from birth, but I had to produce a Certificate of Live Birth (same thing as Obama has) signed in 1952 by the American Consul in Casablanca to prove that I am an American citizen. So from my perspective, it was harder in 2006 to get a CHL than it was to get a TDL, and because of the 2011 law it is today the same degree of difficulty.....so now you are equal to me, instead of you having more rights than I do even though we are both citizens from birth. Welcome to my world.
2. This is what we get when we allow government to control our lives. The Constitution says nothing about any specific "right" I have to drive a car, but it specifically affirms my right to keep and BEAR arms, saying that such right shall not be infringed. I have a CHL because the law requires it if I want to carry a gun legally, and I am a law-abiding citizen; but I also think we have far too many laws, and at least some of them DO infringe on my right to keep and BEAR arms, in a way that my right of free speech, freedom of religion, etc., etc., are not infringed. Support Constitutional Carry, and all of this goes away. The possession, enjoyment, and exercise of rights are not without risk. LIFE is not without risk. We have submitted to infringements on our rights in the name of risk reduction. We make bargains to exchange liberty for safety. It's unnatural. Personally, I would rather live 50 unfettered years of total freedom, than 100 years in bondage to other people's insecurities. If I die in this world of increased risk, I die. God is good in all regards. And because bad people give exactly "Phhhhht!" to laws, they are not thusly restrained, and the safety purchased by surrendering freedom is merely an illusion anyway. It's all theater. Just let me live free of the petty bureaucrat's sense of entitlement to hem me in.

[cbunt1]

On a somewhat different not, I had a correlating experience when I updated the address on my then-current driver license a few years ago. When I moved from Dallas to Houston, I had to go to the DPS office to update my DL. I didn't really think much of it, since I've always preferred face-to-face transactions for such things--especially given that I came from a smaller county where the DPS office rarely had lines more than about 8 deep.

Then about 3 years later I moved within Houston. By then I had a CHL, and was somewhat more diligent about immediately updating my address on my DL. It was then that I faced the irony that as a CHL/CDL holder I can update my address online for my CHL, but because of security requirements, must do all CDL transactions in person at a DPS office.

Want to carry a gun in public--update your address online, no worries. Want to operate a *gasp* commercial vehicle -- we gotta see you in person.

Makes about as much sense to me as two tails on a hound dog.

[Panda]

My experience was completely different.

1. It was easier, quicker and cheaper to get my drivers license than my concealed handgun license.

2. I thought the DPS website was very clear about the required documents for citizens, foreign students, etc.

3. The US constitution explicitly guarantees the right to possess and carry guns. So I think a CHL should require as much effort as a Fourth Amendment license, or maybe like voter registration if its limited to citizens. There is no enumerated right to operate a horseless carriage on public roads, or fly an airplane over populated areas, so i am willing to entertain arguments about public safety or public policy to regulate operator license of those vehicles in public.

[jayinsat]

My response to you is that your experience to get a DL was rediculous! That is not the normal scenario. It was way easier for me, my wife and all three of my kids to get a DL. than a CHL. The question you should be asking is why is the beauracracy at the DL office so incompetent. I do not agree that, because your DL experience was so difficult, that exercising our constitutional right should be made even more difficult.

Just my 2cents.

[Jumping Frog]

The strict requirements for identity documents to get a drivers license stem from Texas complying with relatively new federal requirements. IIRC, it is called something like the "Real ID" law.

One consequence was my wife had to change the name on her ID. She had used her Confirmation Name as her middle name for 40 years. That name was not on her birth certificate. So her name on her license now reads "First B Last" where "B" is the first letter of her maiden name, where it used to be "First M Last" because Marie is her confirmation name.

We had cars titled, bank accounts, tax returns, etc etc from many years of marriage under the old name. If she wants to write a check, the name on the check does not match the name on her driver license.

Federal nincompoopness at work again.

[Pitt]

My response to you is that your experience to get a DL was rediculous! That is not the normal scenario. It was way easier for me, my wife and all three of my kids to get a DL. than a CHL. The question you should be asking is why is the beauracracy at the DL office so incompetent. I do not agree that, because your DL experience was so difficult, that exercising our constitutional right should be made even more difficult.

Just my 2cents.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want the CHL process more complicated but to question why was my experience in getting a drivers license the norm because I felt it should have been a simple process.

But let me add, I don't want it too easy for any non-citizen or non-lawabidding citizen to get CHL.

[JALLEN]

It has occurred to me on a number of occasions that our cultural systems are becoming so complex that few understand them and fewer can operate them, to include the functionaries employed for that purpose. An employee at DMV will never be chewed out or disciplined for a witless but rigid insistence on following the rules to the letter, but risks trouble if common sense tempts them to deviate in some informal way therefrom.

DMV policies were never, and can never accommodate all the variations of circumstances our mobile population presents. People born all over the place, moving from all over the place, with varying degrees and statuses of licenses, the bewildering process of trying to apply the policies, not only of licensing but voting registration and other social policies of all sorts, to each individual case, the varying documentation presented. CHLs are a marvel of simplicity by comparison. They don't have to give and grade tests, for one thing. Just about everyone needs either a D/L or an ID, while a tiny fraction of that number apply for CHL.

[RJGold]

My response to you is that your experience to get a DL was rediculous! That is not the normal scenario. It was way easier for me, my wife and all three of my kids to get a DL. than a CHL. The question you should be asking is why is the beauracracy at the DL office so incompetent. I do not agree that, because your DL experience was so difficult, that exercising our constitutional right should be made even more difficult.

Just my 2cents.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want the CHL process more complicated but to question why was my experience in getting a drivers license the norm because I felt it should have been a simple process.

But let me add, I don't want it too easy for any non-citizen or non-lawabidding citizen to get CHL.

I'd rather it be more difficult for an illegal to get a TDL than a CDL. My reasoning is that if someone wants to carry a weapon, they'll find a way to do it. Having a legitimate ID (i.e. a TDL) has certain perks attached to it.

I'm sorry for your troubles but I don't want it to be easy for anyone who has "out of the norm" circumstances to get a TDL.

My two cents...