Took my CHL renewal class today.

I had been procrastinating about getting my concealed carry license renewed. Texas is a good state for gun folks like myself but the licensing process is onerous, expensive and annoying.

Here is how it goes:

Get your packet from the department of public safety.

Find a certified instructor

Wait for his next class

Take the class in a smelly boiler room

Sit in a kindergarten desk for 12 hours watching blurry slides of Texas penal codes 9.201D sub section C carrying your gun while dressed as a clown when Jupiter is in the seventh house.

Listen to Geezer Mcdustfarter pipe up with "Well back in Ought Six we just dragged dem punks behind the barn and harse whooped em" Which would be fine except that every interruption makes the class last that much longer.

Then there is the woman in a house coat and curlers that wants to argue that it's legal for her to shoot a bad guy in the nuts and drag him back in the house and use him as a eunuch slave because her husband is an ex-cop and he told her so.

Fill out each form in triplicate with a required sharpie marker. Any smears or mistakes means lengthy delays and your named being placed on the national "no fly" list by the feds.

Get finger printed. Some beefy cop that you can tell doesn't like you, grabs your finger and does the 360 degree twist dislocate wrist maneuver when applying your inked fingers to the card. Afterward you are handed a travel size Kleenex to clean the water proof ink off of your fingers.
Don't flinch, or your prints will be rejected and you will have to go back to the same cop to have them re-done. This cop has to sign the back of your passport photo as well so don't piss him off.

The photo is just a distorted snapshot where the aspect ratio made me look like a pudgy Bruce Vilanch with bad hair.


We finally get out to the range for the shooting qualification which I previously thought was ludicrous. I realize what horrible marksmen some people really are.

Twenty shots at 3 yards at a target the size of a satellite dish. For those of you on the metric system let me explain. If we were any closer to the target it would catch on fire from the burning gunpowder. Let me put it this way... Mr Magoo could run this course of fire.

Guess what? Mr Navy Seel that bragged the whole class about taking out snipers with his Beretta 9mm pistol at 900 yards misses every shot. He blames his gun of course.

We all grade each others targets so I just poke a hole in his paper target with my finger and tell Mr Navy Seel that he is so uber tactical that all his bullets went into the same hole giving him a perfect score. "High fives all around" Normally I would let the asshole be shamed but that would mean standing out here another 20 min while he tries to hit the broad side of a barn.

We get more signatures and everything notarized fifty times by someones grandma. Don't back sass her for being slow or you go to the back of the line buster brown.

When all this is over, you carefully place all the paperwork in order, with the proper fastening devices. If you don't do it in order your license packet might find it's way into someones round file at the DPS office

Get your money order and endure the dirty looks from the register jockey at the convenience store who takes one look at the "pay to address" thinks you're mailing in restitution for some crime.

Put it all in the envelope and take it to the mail box place where the Tie-dyed hippy lady takes one look at your package that reads: "CONCEALED HANDGUN LICENSE DIVISION DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY...and presses the silent alarm. Once you finish with your cavity search and the police find that your prostate is healthy, You can go ahead and mail off your application.

It can take up to 100 days for your application to be processed and the state might lose it or delay you for not dotting an i or crossing a t. You will have to call Buela Mcdumpbritches daily and politely remind her of your pending application or perhaps send her a cookie bouquet to grease the wheels of bureaucracy.