By Rachel Veroff
Reposted from the Daily Texan Online
Since the beginning of the year, Texas has seen a surge in citizens seeking concealed handgun licenses, with an increase in first-time applicants younger than 26.
The Texas Department of Public Safety recorded a 24 percent increase in applications from citizens in their early 20s during the first five months of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007. Five percent of the 300,000 active license holders are younger than 26, according to the department.
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a non-partisan organization with 31,000 members nationwide, including one chapter at UT and 24 chapters in Texas, contends that the gun ban on university campuses only serves to disarm the law-abiding students who might be able to stop tragedies like the Virginia Tech shooting.
Texas Republican Rep. Joe Driver, of Garland, plans to file a bill in the upcoming legislative session that calls for lifting the gun ban on college campuses in Texas.
“Individuals who have undergone intensive background checks and extensive training in order to get their concealed handgun license should be able to protect themselves on campus just as they do everywhere else,” said Driver, who is chairman of the House’s Law Enforcement Committee. “Some people have fears about concealed weapons, but since 1995 there has been no escalation in violence, and crime across the state of Texas has decreased.”
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, applicants for concealed handgun licenses must undergo eight hours of classroom instruction, pass a written test and demonstrate shooting proficiency. The state also performs extensive background checks on applicants and requires gun licenses to be renewed every five years.
“There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that allowing concealed carry on college campuses would lead to more problems,” said Katie Kasprzak, a spokeswoman for Concealed Campus and a senior at Texas State University.
A little more than half the country supported a complete ban on semi-automatic handguns, according to an ABC survey conducted last April.
“To have more than half the country be in favor of a ban like that goes against the notion that the support for gun control hasn’t increased since Virginia Tech,” said Doug Pennington, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a national organization that supports stricter gun-control laws. “People feel just as strongly as ever, and we need to get politicians to pay more attention to this issue.”
Seventeen state legislators around the nation proposed bills allowing a call for a lift on campus gun bans, but 15 of those states voted against the legislation, Pennington said.
“Guns on campus is a pretty unpopular idea among students, faculty, law enforcement and state legislators around the country, depending on what state you look at,” Pennington said. “That’s not very surprising; at the end of the day, I think most folks realize that guns on campus is a step too far.”
Why are you posting a year old article with incorrect information? Rep. Joe Driver is not the chairman of the Law Enforcement Committee. That committee was renamed Public Safety and the chairman is Rep. Tommy Merritt.
Regarding the licensure requirements that you attribute to DPS, I doubt DPS told you that those were the requirements — because they’re not; not even at the time you wrote your first article about a year ago. It’s Chapter 411, Subchapter H, Government Code. You can look it up the next time you write an article.
This comment is always funny. “the gun ban on university campuses only serves to disarm the law-abiding students who might be able to stop tragedies like the Virginia Tech shooting.” I will admit that a ban disarms students but it is somewhat silly to presume that gun toting students will be able to stop campus tragedies. Let’s examine the two points in the previous quote.
Regarding being disarmed: You do realize that if you pull your gun in a crisis situation on campus with law enforcement present that the first thing that they will do is disarm you, don’t you? Your gun will be worthless except for the couple of minutes before the cops arrive. And even then …
Regarding stopping the violence: How many of you future gun toters are trained in urban violence, SWAT tactics, or guerilla warfare? I would wager close to, hmmm, zero. The “extensive training” that Rep. Driver touts does not include training appropriate for such situations.
At best, it’s possible that a student could fire a disabling shot, however, I would prefer that trained law enforcement personnel do it. At worst, having a gun in such a situation gives CHL’er a false sense of security and tends to encourage inadequately trained college students to play the hero.
By pulling your gun, you identify yourself as a target and a threat to the perpetrator much moreso than the person who realizes a better option is usually flight instead of fight. Frankly, I don’t care whether you have a gun on campus or not because the homicidal maniac will take his aim off of me and put it on you if you pull a weapon.
Additionally, this statement by Rep. Driver is a bit disingenuous, “Some people have fears about concealed weapons, but since 1995 there has been no escalation in violence, and crime across the state of Texas has decreased.” This is a standard logic flaw. The initiation of the concealed handgun law in 1995 and a reduction in violence up to now is corollary not causal.
This statement is silly as well. “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that allowing concealed carry on college campuses would lead to more problems.” Of course there is no “evidence,” there are no CHL’ers on campus. Duh. The possibility of there being more problems is hypothetical. Unfortunately, to test the CHL’ers premise involves live trials on college students instead of on lab mice. The stakes for this experiment are human lives.
To be fair, you do attempt to give equal time to both sides of the issue but the pro-gun side has some obvious logic flaws.
I reposted the article due to the push over the past couple of years to allow concealed handguns on college campuses. I do agree with you though in regards to the authors inaccuracies in regards to the license requirements. It is not an 8 hour class, it is a 10 hour class but the rest of the requirements the author mentioned are correct. There is a background check, there is a written exam and the applicant must prove shooting proficiency at the range with a 70% passing score out of 250 possible points. Also, the a new license is valid for a period of four (4) years, after that the license is to be renewed every five (5) years.
You did bring up crime statistics, so I thought I would include a crime statistics report issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety. This particular statistic is for the year 2007 which is the latest one available. It can be downloaded below:
2007 DPS Conviction Rates Report
Scoring
Hits located from the bulls eye out to the 8 ring score as 5 points each
Hits located in the 7 ring score as 4 points each
Hits located in the silhouette portion of the target outside of the 7 ring score as 3 points each
Hits located outside of the silhouette are a No-Score.