Miami people?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

... just printed my 'emigration' boarding pass ... here we go!

[Hardy Heinlin]

Registered: May 2009
Posts: 1049
Location: EHGR

So many bureaucratic changes to do ... :-)

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Grmbl.     :mrgreen:

[Will]

Best of luck to you!  I hope America treats you well.

[John Golin]

Yaw'l keep in touch now!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Today I got my license to kill   \\o/

Zero errors on the theoretical part.
Two errors on the practical: forgot to put the blinker on when parking in between four pylons on a footballfield of asphalt with no other cars, and same when doing the three-point turn in between painted lines on the footballfield of asphalt.

Major victory: passing without having paper proof with me that the car was actually registered in Florida (due to a wrong address on that paper so the office took it back and there is no replacement paper yet).

Next license should go in the vertical plane as well.


Jeroen

[Jeroen D]

Congratulations. I had to go through this rigmarole as well. seems they really tested your skill level. I had to drive round the block, took all of four minutes.

Zero errors on the written too, which called for many "awesome, outstanding" calls from the various DMV employees. Just bear in mind that if you move state you have to get a new license!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Florida, especially Miami-Dade county which is notorious for extremely bad driving, seems to be slightly more rigorous. My practical test involved about 11 minutes. Three to four on the asphalt football field near the very quiet shopping center where the drivers license center is based, and eight driving around it on residential roads.

While waiting in line for the final administratrivia, I studied the practical test score form which the examiner had marked up. There are predefined problem spots such as: "Repeatedly trying to start the engine while it is in gear" and "losing control after backing out of the parking stall." I kid you not.

I won't move state any time soon. I can't go anywhere but North, anyway   :-)


Jeroen

[Phil Bunch]

I grew up in Atlanta, and the high-school driver's ed course I took one summer spent almost the whole time practicing parallel parking.  Thus, we all became Olympic-class experts in this task.  In Atlanta, this was 30 percent of the practical exam, and it was hard to pass the test without being proficient in parallel parking.  To this day, I am still very skilled at this art form (grins).

I had trouble with the road sign test part of the practical driving test - the course in Atlanta included a section where 15-20 signs were simultaneously displayed and the state policemen who executed the test asked a vague question about one of the signs, but I wasn't sure which sign he was talking about.  I answered a couple of questions incorrectly because of this confusion, which meant I needed 100% score on the other parts of the driving test.  Thanks to my great parallel parking skills, I still passed, and thus could join my other 16-year-old friends in having a driver's license.  As with most other US states, very young people can usually obtain full unlimited licenses very easily.  If you study the written test material diligently you can score 100% on that test in most cases.

It's amazing how that event imprints itself on one's memory banks.  I think part of this is due to the test being administered by a real state police office, which was stressful for this 16-year-old person.

My partner has an even more curious driving history.  She never learned to drive a car in her teen years for various reasons, but learned to ride a motorcycle in her twenties, and obtained a motorcycle license normally.  This was all she needed until her mid-30s when she needed a car license too. She was able to take advantage of a loophole in her state's laws that allowed her to skip the car driving test and add a car qualification onto the motorcycle license.

--------------

Now that you have a driver's license, you can probably get a concealed carry handgun permit in Florida.  Might as well - everyone else down there has one.  You don't want to be the only person accidentally attending a shopping mall shootout without a gun!  

Unless they discriminate against "foreigner", you can probably easily get such a permit.  Most US states are now "shall issue" states wherein unless they have a specific, major reason not to issue a permit, they are required to issue the permit.  Typically, all you need is a couple of forms of ID and to fill out a fairly long but straightforward application and answer "no" to all the disqualifying questions.  There is probably a $30 or so application fee, too, and processing may take a few weeks.  Some states do require attending an informal handgun course, sometimes featuring a little practice shooting, too.

Even machine guns can be licensed for personal ownership, but that requires a Federal permit and some more red tape.

I gather that Europe doesn't look at handgun ownership, much less concealed carry permits, quite so liberally!

[Jeroen D]

Now that you have a driver's license, you can probably get a concealed carry handgun permit in Florida. Might as well - everyone else down there has one. You don't want to be the only person accidentally attending a shopping mall shootout without a gun!

I know I can here in Missouri. But I choose not to. Even though I've been living in the USA for nearly 2.5 years I maintain my European outlook on guns.

Statistically speaking it seems you're more likely to get shot when you own a gun then when you don't.

Jeroen

[Phil Bunch]

I now realize that I should have made it clear that I would strongly prefer a much more European approach to firearms instead of the now radically deregulated US approach.  This viewpoint was so deeply in my thoughts that I failed to notice that I hadn't mentioned this not so minor detail in my post, above.  

Please excuse this gross oversight on my part!

[Jeroen D]

No need to apoligize. This is one of those (many) areas where my wife and I see major differences between Europe and the US. I would not call one or the other good or bad, but I do have my own preferences. But it really comes downs to a fundamentally different outlook on society and individual freedoms.

So here's my US experience on guns: About a year ago I had my (adult) children visiting us here in Kansas City. My boys wanted to go and do some shooting, so we went to the local shooting range.

Told the guy that my sons wanted to do some shooting and could they get some instructions perhaps. Guys puts a gun and a box of amo in their hands and says: have fun boys!

So I tell him, that they've never shot a gun yet. So he looks at them and says: Boys, you be carefull and have fun! I checked with him about selling me (the foreigner) a gun. And he said, sure no problem. I just need formal US ID, and some proof that you lived here for at least three months. E.g. utility bills.

I don't have anything against guns perse. I used to hunt back in Europe. But my shot gun did not come out of its gun safe, unless I was going to actually hunt or practice. Would have been illegal in fact to have it for instance in the back of my car if I was not going to hunt or practice.

The idea of being able to carry a concealed weapon is pretty alien in most, if not all, of Europe.  

And as some countries have proven, it's not necessarily the number of guns in private hands that's the problem.

Jeroen

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

No way.

I'm in Miami. That's supposed to be dangerous. When everybody else starts shooting at each other in the shopping center, I simply will duck and wait.

As long as others keep shooting, nobody will notice me.


Jeroen






I should organize a photo session with a borrowed automatic weapon and the company's Citation   :mrgreen:

[martin]

...in the meantime...



Perfect fit, I'd say.

M "I am I" E.
EFTO

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Well I do have this one...


My other car is a Kia

[Phil Bunch]

Ah...is that a bandolier strapped around your chest?  (grins)

Perhaps you've found a way to participate in the "armed pilot" program that the US has implemented, allowing commercial airline pilots to pack heat?!?!  (more grins)

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,444887,00.html

[the mad hatter]

naaaaaaaaaaa don't to the APP it hurts really really hurts

[Phil Bunch]

This would sure be a test of the gun rights crowd's political power!

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/business/arguing-the-merits-of-guns-on-airplanes.html?ref=todayspaper

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

... the Transportation Security Administration director, John S. Pistole, said recently ...

WFT??!  

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I propose to do away with the oxygen masks in the cabin (hey, how often are they needed anyway?) and put loaded but uncocked 9mm Brownings in those lockers. When somebody starts shooting, the lockers open (either manually by flight crew action, or automatically by the decompression of the hull or by a gunshot audio detector) and 200 armed people can take care of the problem.

That will put an end to those terrorists.

Each aircraft will have 10-20 seats that do not have a gun, but keep the oxygen mask. It costs $50 to get such a seat and you need to sign a declaration that the airline is not responsible for you being shot after the guns get released.


Jeroen