maintenanceguy wrote:For me, the question of whether it's constitutional to charge a fee to "grant" a right was settled in 1966 when the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to charge a poll tax to "grant" the right to vote.jmra wrote: Let's break that down. First, you don't have to pay $100 for a class. I see much cheaper classes advertised frequently and if you really keep your ear to the ground some organizations will even sponsor free or greatly reduced fees for classes. Very easy to find classes at $60. Add the other $150, your total is $210. That is less than 82¢ a week for the first 5 years and after that it's only 29¢ a week.
So the cost to protect yourself and your family the first 5 years comes out to about 12¢ a day. Calculate the daily cost over 10 years and you're down to less than 8¢ a day. If you can justify a stick of chewing gum every day, you can justify a CHL.
It wasn't settled because the two things are just not legally the same. Among other reasons it isn't as clear as you want to make it the reason for the ruling in 1966 in Harper vs Virginia board of Elections was not that it unconstitutional per se but that because it was equal protection violation.