Only Two Pistol Permits per Year are Allowed in Hoke County, North Carolina

I visited the Hoke County, North Carolina Sheriff's Department today to apply for pistol permits and the emerging police state was paraded before my very eyes. Nowhere does our Constitution or Bill of Rights specify that you must have permission from the Shire Reeve to exercise your Second Amendment rights and such innovation is offensive to liberty. However, we have become accustomed to such intrusion in our personal lives and we willingly submit to it.

Being a veteran of the pistol permit process in North Carolina but relatively new to Hoke County, I did not not at first see anything out of the ordinary with the typical bureaucratic process that was required. A copy of my identification was requested and I was presented with an application that asked some basic questions. When I asked how many permits I could request, I was told two, which is typical in other counties. That did not surprise me but what came next did: I was informed that I could only get two pistol permits per year. I completed the paperwork and asked how long it would take to get them and the nice lady who was assisting me said "a week or two; we'll call you." She then asked for my ten dollar fee up front and told me that it was non-refundable.

In other counties of the Old North State, there is no annual limitation on the number of pistol permits that are issued, they are provided within a specified time frame, and fees are requested upon receipt of the permit. Apparently, Sheriff Hubert Peterkin (pictured at left in a photograph from the Hoke County website) not only does not feel any sense of urgency when it comes to Constitutional rights, he wishes to micromanage the exercise thereof and profit from those whose rights are abrogated.

When law enforcement controls and manipulates the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Constitution, a police state emerges and all rights become uncertain. The pistol permit process should be dismantled in North Carolina if the State wishes to retain its "First in Freedom" status. Likewise, if the good people of Hoke County value liberty, they will divest themselves of Sheriff Hubert Peterkin in the next general election.