I’m directing this to the newly appointed member of the
Texas Department of Public Safety/Private Security Bureau (DPS/PSB), the
Honorable C. D. Sims, an accomplished locksmith in his own right; however
anyone associated with the Locksmith Industry is invited to consider what is
presented. There’s been a burr under my
saddle, so to speak, ever since the locksmith industry was hog tied into being
licensed so many years ago and placed under (the thumb of) the DPS/PSB with Not
One Single Locksmith on that governing board.
Forgive my sense of history; but we fought a war over the
idea of taxation without representation.
Saying it’s about time a locksmith was on the DPS/PSB would
be an under statement; so without wasting any more time, C. D., (the rest of
you Honorable board members might want to pay attention as well), how about
addressing an issue which has been ignored or didn’t seem important to those
who have gone before you.
Mandated continuing education hours in order to maintain an
existing Locksmith License
I wrote an article back in 2010, Subjects of Texas, regarding the increase of mandated
continuing educations hours required by the DPS/PSB in order to maintain a
valid locksmith license. At the time all
locksmiths, regardless of how many years they’d been active in the Locksmith
Industry, all were required to include 8 hours of locksmith related courses,
taken only via approved instructors in the State of Texas; however, that
increased to 16 hours without any justification.
What I wrote then still applies:
The DPS/PSB cannot justify its
expensive and time consuming requirements, and I might add; requirements which
do not serve to protect an unsuspecting public from scoundrels posing as
legitimate locksmiths because those individuals who have acquired a locksmith
license are not a threat and never were a threat to an unsuspecting public. The
DPS/PSB has hijacked a part of the private sector and enslaved them with petty
Lilliputian rules and regulations which serve only to guarantee permanent
employment for DPS/PSB employees; a typical bureaucracy and drain on an already
weak economy.
On more than one occasion I’ve submitted a proposal to the
DPS/PSB, along with this same suggestion through the Greater Houston Locksmith
Association (GHLA), to the effect that licensed locksmiths who have been
performing their skills for 10 years or more should be exempted from mandated
continuing education courses in order to maintain that license.
This isn’t to say that locksmiths intending to stay up to
date or ahead of their competition should not endeavor to improve their skills
via continuing education courses which are available in a wide number of
important areas; only that the State of Texas should have no say on what should
or should not be mandated once a locksmith has proven his or her skills for 10
years or more. This recommendation
fell on deaf ears and was not acted upon.
Recently an article by George F. Will appeared in the
Washington Post, The 110 year-old case that still inspires Supreme Court debates.
That particular case was the U.S. Supreme
Court’s 1905 Lochner decision which dealt
with unionized bakeries attempting to mandate, through government intervention,
the number of hours small family owned bakeries could work in order to compete
in the market place under arbitrarily contrived figure set by the unions and
passed along by the State.
The Lochner case found in favor of the small bakeries,
specifically individuals going about, as best they could, supporting themselves
and determining for themselves, how many hours to work, sleep or maintain a
healthy work environment.
While the ruling was not unanimous, it did establish, or
more accurately, re-established and “affirmed the United States’
foundational doctrine: Majorities cannot legislate away individuals’
constitutional rights for preposterous or protectionist reasons.”
In a recent opinion concerning
occupational licensing in Texas,
Justice Don Willett of the Texas Supreme Court said:
“Lochner meant
that government must prove the public necessity of its restrictions
of economic liberty. Sensible judicial deference to government regulations does
not require judicial dereliction of its duty to gaze skeptically on
government’s often ridiculous rationalizations of them. Since the New Deal, when courts abandoned
protection of economic liberty, government has felt no obligation to produce
evidence of the rationality of its restrictions. So, disreputable reasons go
unchallenged.” (emphasis added)
So I once again turn this unsavory mandated continuing
education issue back to you Honorable members of the DPS/PSB.
Can the State of Texas, specifically the DPS/PSB PROVE
the public necessity of its restrictions of economic liberty? Mind you, locksmiths have already PROVEN
they are capable and trustworthy by virtue of the fact they have already
obtained a Locksmith License. It is up
to the State to PROVE that individual locksmiths cannot continue to serve the
public without the additional hours of mandated continuing education
courses.
Unless it is the board’s contention that locksmiths
forget most of what they have learned over a lifetime’s investment in their
chosen area of specialty, then it's pointless to rationalize this ridiculous and
expensive waste of time and effort on any ‘journeyman locksmith’, a mandate which produces no
measurable added security for the public.
The State of Texas
should not be in the business of violating any individual’s God given rights of
doing what they can to support themselves and their families. It’s
time to eliminate mandated continuing course requirements for any licensed
locksmith with 10 years or more experience.
T.F. Stern
Locksmith License # B12254
T.F. Stern & Company
Serving the Houston Metropolitan Area Since 1978
15707
Autumnbrook Drive
Houston,
Texas 77068
This article has been cross posted to
The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The
Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.
