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

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.

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.