Here is some interesting reading about "permits". I found it enlightening regarding our recent discussion about rights and how some gun owners (and the NRA) consider them privledges.

Reproduced in part from "Who's afraid of the IRS?" by Miss Lynn Johnston without permission.

Licenses -

The authority to license, if any such authority can be said to exist, is the power to control, regulate, stifle, intimidate, rob and or destroy an individuals and their activitities products. Licensing is the ugly fist of protectionism, suited better to a dictatorship than to a free republic. Governments are fond of licensing, as evidenced by all manner of secretaries, boards and commissions whose function it is to oversee such things and assure government an additional source of revenue from the price of granting its permission. Tyrannical governments prefer that their subjects or slaves be required to ask for their permission prior to, and as a condition of, doing nearly every kind of public, private or independant activity. Such governments want servile subjects who do what they are told to do. Hence the necessity of creating an acceptance of licensing, as being "for the common good" or "for public protection."

A review of the prohibitions, requirements and options of the government under our constitutional contract is revealing. Nowhere can there be found any general option or requirement for government to license anything or anyone, except in Article I, section 8, wherein the congress was given the OPTION to regulate (conceivably through licensing): 1) commerce with foreign nations; 2) commerce among the states (subject to a number of prohibitions); and 3) commerce with indian tribes. Otherwise, quite the contrary is true.

It is important to remember that the constitution is a contract of limitation on government. It is a prescription for exactly what government shall or may do and how it shall procede and it specifies the specific purposes of such government as shall righfully exist. The six purposes given in the preamble of the constitution are offered by any government sponsored licensing activities. Government licensing creates injustice and makes the "blessings of tranquility and liberty" insecure.

The whole question of government licensing is centered around the difference between a right and a priviledge. As a free person an individual may elect to do anything so long as in doing so no threat or harm is done to the life, liberty or property of another individual. Those with the courage to claim and exercise their rights as re-affirmed in the Constitution do so with the concurrence with the highest law of the land, that is their right as a free people to do so.

No permission is needed to exercise a right, but one does have to ask and obtain permission to use or do something which transgresses the rights or property of another. In such a case the one owning the right, or peice of property, as the case may be, is the ONLY one with sufficient authority to grant another person any kind of permission or priviledge. Since the government must protect all equally and connot properly favor anyone with its gratuities (if it had any to give), and since the government has NO rights, but only duties and requirements with options and prohibitions for fulfilling them, and since constitutionally speaking, government does not have the authority to collect any revenues other than those resuting from properly laid taxes, duties, imposts and excises (or possibly fines from duly convicted criminals), government has no authority to profit financially from licensing (see the money entry in the selected subject index - 1D).

T housands of people have claimed their natural or God-given right to liberty and have various types of "licenses" (all self-issued). These anti-bureacratic forms have two purposes; to claim their rights in a responsible and organized way as a peacful transitional declaration offering for government observance; and to introduce the Freedom movement and the concept of liberty to others.

Arms Permits -

Three examples of freedom movement "licenses" are - The True Creator license from God which speaks for itself; the United States of America Constitutional Arms Permit; and the united States of America Constitutional Driver's license. Personally, I use all three. I consider them and the activities they "license" my personal, sovereign, private, exclusive right, priviledge and property. The arms permit is a touchy subject because some perople fear that those who have arms could use them to force others to yeild their rights or property. This fear is justified. However, the proposed solution - that the government take the means of defense away from everybody - is not realistic or reasonable, because government can be and often is just as much a violator of people's rights and property as common criminals, and without the right to the option of the use of arms, there is no reason to believe that it would not become more so. (!)

The second Amendment of the Bill of Rights says, "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That is a terribly plain and clear prohibition against governmental rule-making to the contrary. The founding fathers were distrustful of all governments, and I believe rightly so. (!) I am sure, too, they realized that there never seems to be a sherrif in sight when a private citizen needs one. In numerous incidents of police strikes the level of crime actually drops dramatically. (!) It would seem criminals are as scared of a well-armed citizen as the bureaucracy seems to be. (!)

After I had been in possesion of my rights and "licenses" a couple of years, I decided to check the status of the Second Amendment with the local county Sheriff. As the event unfolded I produced my self-issued arms license for the purusal of officialdom, along with the decraration that I was carrying a concealed weapon. The gentleman did not respond as though he were seeing something new or hearing anything that should be cause for alarm, so I dug out my self-issued driver's "license" too, but to no avail. I was told that they didnt want to see my weapon and was politely sent on my way with the request that if I were stopped by any of their officers I should "please have them call in before they take any action." (!)

Arms license; (it looks way better than this)

Front-side

United States of America

Constitutional arms permit

Pursuant to the United States Constitution, Amendment II, wherein it states that ".....the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed", this permit, in possesion of the bearer, (name) re-affirms the soveriegn American Citizen's unalienable God-given right to have the means of protection and defending the life, liberty, and property of oneself, ones family, and one's friends without any restriction or limitation as to type, size, or quantity of, and without registration of, any Arms in his/her possesion, concealed or not.

Expires: NEVER Signed: FOUNDING FATHERS

Date : Dec. 15, 1791

Back-side

WARNING!

EVERY PERSON (this includes EVERY government official) who, under color of law, deprives any citizen of Rights, Priviledges, or immunities secured by the United States Constitution is subject to civil and/or criminal penalties pursuant to Title 42, UNITED STATES CODE, Section 1983, 1985, 1986 and/or Title 18, UNITED STATES CODE, section 241, and 242. Penalties include up to $10,000 fine and/or 10 years in prison, or both, and up to life inprisonment, if death results.