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Texas Carry 15 Years On: Is Texas Safer?

July 11, 2011 | by
Texas Carry 15 Years On: Is Texas Safer?

Texas Carry 15 Years On: Is Texas Safer?

The Texas legislature has passed a bill allowing employees to keep guns locked in their cars while at work. Lawmakers also had considered allowing concealed handguns to be carried onto college campuses.

The legislation begs a question: does it do good or harm to have thousands of Texans legally carrying concealed handguns?

KHOU 11 News took aim at finding some answers.

There are now over 20,000 citizens in Harris County alone licensed to carry concealed handguns.

…

But in data compiled by the Texas Department of Safety, people licensed to carry guns accounted for only about 1 percent of people convicted of “deadly conduct”. They accounted for an even smaller percentage of convictions of other violent felonies. In all, the state data shows that of the 65,561 people convicted in Texas in 2009 of felonies of all kinds, 101 were also holders of concealed handgun licenses.

Continue reading at KHOU

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  • The bit about all felonies committed by CHL holders is a bit ambiguous…Texas has some pretty stiff drug possession laws that amount to felonies so using the number of ALL felonies is probably higher than if you looked at felonies that involved a firearm (assuming that ‘gun violence’ is the issue at hand). What specifically is ‘deadly conduct’? (I will have to look that one up) The article is still framed in a way that asks ‘are innocent people JUST as safe with gun toting people around them?’ Throw in some statistics on how many CHL holders were involved in an altercation where the CHL holder was not found to have committed a crime. Those types of stats would answer the better question of “is an armed citizenry less likely to be victims of crime (overall). Not a bad article overall though.

  • Anonymous

    the question is was the felonies that the cw holder committed a gun act or something else. All in all that is still pretty good! go texas

  • Tank

    there is always a moron in the Mix no matter what laws are passed , usualy some young guy that is gung ho to pull his pistol an threaten someone , (Deadly Conduct) , no one would ever see my pistol unless I was about to shoot them for doing somthing stupid but some folks just dont get it an have no business even owning a gun but none the less I expected to see stats on gun crime violence from 10 years ago to date that would be the real tale if crime has been reduced per capita in areas that chl’s are most prevelent , its always been interesting to me that the states with the very most gun violence have the strictest gun laws an most asshole type’s enforcing them , lets face it if you live in a poverished area there are going to be people trying to steal what you have so they can have it instead of working for it they steal it ,if they dont have a gun they will use a knife or baseball bat or what ever they can because that is the mentality of it. criminals are just that they will do what ever is easiest to get ahead , England has been gunbanned for many years now ,I bet every criminal that wants a gun has one or can get one

  • wolfpack

    Richard Calderon, mentioned in the article, who was in a car wreck and then irresponsibly started shooting at the other car involved, killing a 13-year-old passenger, should be locked up and be stripped of his rights.  It’s a shame that the other gentleman mentioned accidentally shot Mrs. Barker instead of himself when his gun fell out of his jacket pocket.  Reminds me of Plaxico Burress and his refusal to use a holster to secure his firearm in public, but at least Plaxico only shot himself when his gun fell from the waistband of his sweatpants. 

  • Xlsnt9v8

    “The legislation begs a question” proves the author does not understand the meaning of “begs a question”.  It does NOT mean “suggests a question”.

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