Having taken the State required handgun safety class, the next step in getting a CCW license was to get fingerprinted. I called to make an appointment, and took my work lunch break to get it done. The Knoxville office where the fingerprinting is done is on Central Ave, just North of Broadway, a pretty rough neighborhood. I used to live on Oklahoma Ave, several blocks north of the area. During the day, homeless wander the back alleys, during the evening prostitutes walk the sidewalk. In the dead of night, huge rats wander the neighborhood, attracted by the industrial bakery on the corner of Oklahoma and Central. It's a classic southern city scene.
Ironically, at the very moment I was walking from the car to the State office building in Knoxville to give the U.S. Government biometric data to run against every crime scene they could, police in New Orleans were confiscating firearms from law abiding citizens in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
As I waited, I wondered what the U.S. founding fathers would have thought of the Government running a huge computer database containing the fingerprints of law abiding citizens. Checking the fingerprints of those citizens at the speed of light, comparing them to the fingerprints found at crime scenes around our great nation.
It is true, the U.S. Government trusted me, a lowly citizen to go about armed, but to do so legally, I had to pay a price: I had to enter my fingerprints into the system. Was it worth the price?
The scanner was operated by two middle aged women, who, as typical state employees had little time for humor.
"Press your right thumb here... now your fingers of your right hand.... now your left thumb.....now your fingers of your left hand". Said the woman as she watched a screen showing my fingerprints.
Funny how some legislators think that this would prevent crimes. If I ever robbed a store at gunpoint, I could simply buy a pair of $0.99 cotton gloves and leave no fingerprints behind. Granted, if I had ever committed a crime, I was unlikely to apply for a permit that required me to give fingerprints. In that line of reasoning, had I already committed a violent crime, I would also most likely not feel that I needed a permit to carry a gun.
And so, I left the State facility, having left my anonymity behind in exchange for the "privilege" of going about armed. I was in the system, biometrics and all, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is that there is no getting out of the system.
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2 comments:
Did you not find it *incredibly* ironic that Tennessee trusts us to carry firearms, but not to write a check for the privilege of carrying firearms?
Now that you mention it, Texas does *that* too.
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